GENDER apartheid is set to be introduced next year on the Jerusalem light railway in deference to the city’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish population.
CityPass CEO Yair Naveh said that he supports segregated cars on the train, unveiled today for the press and city and government officials.
The segregated CityPass train pictured during a trial run in the summer
The train, built by CityPass, is not yet operational, but is due to be launched in April 2011.
Naveh said:
The train was built to serve everyone. [But] I think it is required to create alternatives for everyone, and that option exists because of the train’s division into cars. It is not a problem to declare every third or fourth car a mehadrin (kosher) car.
Rachel Azariya, a member of the Jerusalem city council and one of the opponents of the existing mehadrin bus lines in Jerusalem (on which men sit in the front of the bus and women sit only in the back), criticised Naveh’s declaration, saying that:
Naveh is apparently unaware of the high court ruling forbidding further segregation. Naveh was appointed to run a project – that doesn’t mean that he can tell people where to sit and where not to sit, nor does it mean that he knows anything about values and democracy.
Hat tip: Adam Tjaavk

The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:23 pm
What will they do if a feminist rocks up to the male only carriage eating a prawn sandwich, who’s rights get protection under the law?
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Petty, sexist and obnoxious. If they think thats cool; fine. Match their fucking stupid curly sideys, their inbred complaints – myopia, baldness, degenerative skin complaints etc…
If I was a woman – I wouldn’t want to sit within 10 yards of those disgusting stinking jerks.
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Soon after they will have to have separate cars for every group.
One for the radical jews, another for the radical islam cuz they hate the radical jews, another for the sinful unclean islamic women, another for the sinful unclean radical jew women, another for the gays because they are an abomination to all, another for the atheists cuz they are a bigger abomination hated by all.
This is going to be a really looonnnggg train!!!
August 24th, 2010 at 12:58 am
Just had a thought, if these trams carry kosher carriages doesn’t this mean that women can’t be hired as drivers?
August 24th, 2010 at 1:25 am
Ultra-orthodox Jews are rather an expensive item to the Israeli taxpayer already and to add insult to injury some don’t recognize the hand that feeds them, ie the state of Israel.
Stargraves,
And some are out in the ME summer dressed for the Russian winter.
August 24th, 2010 at 1:36 am
and we’re hoping for peace in the Middle East? never going to happen!!
August 24th, 2010 at 7:57 am
What keeps on boggling my mind is that these fundies want to hold on to a life-style that goes back to the Stone Age, but don’t mind using the stuff the 21th century offers: cell phones, internet, hand-outs from the ‘secular’ state, to name some. Why can’t they be consistent and leave modernity to us? They can walk, ride donkeys, forego sanitation and medical care as their god is taking care of everything.
August 24th, 2010 at 8:10 am
This report brought back a memory of an incident in apartheid South Africa in the early 70s, when black and white passengers were compelled to use separate carriages.
One Sunday, just two passengers got off a train at a small station about an hour’s ride from Johannesburg: me and a young black passenger. I had to cross a bridge spanning the platforms to exit the station, and the black passenger, a few steps behind, did the same.
When we got to the other side, a furious station official roughly grabbed the black fella, abused him loudly, and ordered him to go back across the bridge, walk along the opposite platform, then use a second “non-whites only” bridge.
Cold fury overtook me at this point, and I intervened, telling the official that the African bloke could not go back over the bridge, as it was set aside for whites only, and that if he tried to force him to do so, I would rip his fucking head off.
This seemed to work. Mr Job’s Worth backed off, and the black passenger and I walked defiantly out of the station arm in arm, laughing like loons.
August 24th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Segregation in any form is obscene and more so in the 21st century but these idiots want to pick and choose which parts of this century they want to live by; in the same manner they pick and choose bits of their book of fairy tales.
And who funds Israel? step forward the USA, the fundies friend.
August 24th, 2010 at 8:56 am
Barry Duke: How you, with your oft-stated hatred of racism, can print without appropriate editorial comment the filth spewing forth from “stargraves” makes one wonder just what you understand by “racism”. It seems somewhat selective. There are any number of more appropriate websites for this kind of “Dreck” than The Freethinker.
August 24th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Segregate, shmegregate. I just wan’t to see the train service to finally start to work.
August 24th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
what is needed is a carriage for each individual, commonly called a “car” for short.
August 24th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
These fundie Jews who, due to their large families, are not finding suitable accommodation in their usual quarters and are now spilling out of Jerusalem into near by suburbs, where they are starting to throw their weight around in their usual intolerant manner. They want women, blacks and dogs at the back of the bus! Incredible isn’t it!
August 24th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Ziggy, I agree that Stargraves is being unpleasant but I feel that censorship should always be a last resort, especially on a forum where people are free to come on and disagree with him. I am not sure that what he said could be classed as racism as he was not taking a shot at Jews in general but a group of pretty unpleasant individuals who seem to treat anyone not in their group and not male with contempt.
August 25th, 2010 at 2:03 am
Where was Stargraves being a racist?
Why do people insist on calling others ‘racist’ for their critical dislike of religious barbarians? It is not their race being questioned, but their BELIEFS and their rotten behaviour as a human beings in a modern 21st century world that’s being criticised, not the freaking colour of their skin or their ethnic origins.
It is what they BELIEVE and how they enforce their insane beliefs through self righteous selfishness and playing the moral high-ground card on the rest of society that gets them what they want, when they want it. This is not about race, but religious privilege, based on their ‘deeply held convictions and faith’. I agree with Stargraves, these are nasty, nasty people, and it’s their beliefs that make them worthy of critical attack, not where they live, or their racial or ethnic origins, as I would say the exact same thing to a lunatic white-as-the-driven-snow fundie.
August 25th, 2010 at 6:53 am
Ziggy, I’ve got secular Israeli friends who would heartily endorse Stargraves’ every word. The ultra-orthodox really are a despicable bunch of leeches.In particular, they weasel out of army service by claiming that their lifetime of Torah study and bludging off the Israeli taxpayer is itself a form of national service.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:01 am
The old close down an argument by screaming racist trick – not intellectually honest is it?
August 25th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Haaretz Editorial: The religious coercion train
\\Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn or London, who strictly separate the sexes in their own communities, ride ordinary public transportation. If they are not interested in sitting in mixed company, they arrange this for themselves without imposing on other passengers. … Segregated cars will merely reinforce ultra-Orthodox separatism, since the Haredim see segregation as a means of imposing their way of life on society as a whole.//
http://tinyurl.com/3yvdjap
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