What kind of state would even consider implementing gender apartheid?
Will Tiberias be the next city to offer segregated buses for the haredi population?
On Sunday, Haaretz reported that haredi representatives in the city sent a letter to Veolia Transportation asking the company to operate a special line for the haredi population.
The legality of such lines is uncertain pending a High Court of Justice ruling on the matter and Tiberias municipal officials say it is unnecessary.
Rabbi Asher Idan, director of Jerusalem-based Kol HaNa’ar, a haredi organization that helps at-risk youth, contacted Veolia Transportation last week requesting the company designate a special bus line for the haredi population in Tiberas, where for modesty’s sake, men and women sit at opposite ends of the bus. Such routes, which have been termed “Mehadrin lines,” exist in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh, Safed, Ashdod and other cities with large haredi populations.
According to Idan, the haredi community wants a bus that will take its members from the lower city to Shikun Dalet (the Dalet Neighborhood), where a majority of the haredi population resides. “The religious/haredi community in Tiberias is large and important and will surely appreciate the new initiative that already exists in Israel’s large cities,” read the letter.