Toward man’s eternal quest for perfection in the eyes of God, this city has pretty much seen it all. So the idea of a kosher bus service scarcely raises an eyebrow.
Marked with a distinctive “M” for mehadrin (strictly kosher), the buses this month began plying routes through Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.
What makes the buses kosher is a thin shower curtain that divides the passenger compartment into separate sections for men and women.
There are other amenities as well: No leering advertisements for ladies’ swimwear, no nasty rock music blasting from the driver’s radio.
Instead, riders listen to taped Talmudic lessons or religious music. On a recent trip, the driver was playing music recorded at last summer’s wedding of the Belzer rabbi’s son, a major social event in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community.
The fare box is on the honor system, and tickets are about 20 cents less than the city bus.
Four buses are in service, and they follow a route that roughly parallels the city’s No. 3 line through several ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and ends at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.
One doesn’t have to be kosher, or even Jewish, to ride the buses. But to avoid a lot of unfriendly glares, modest dress is advised.
Women are obliged to sit-or stand-in the back of the bus “because men aren’t supposed to look at women,” explained Moshe Rabinowitz, 33, a Yeshiva student who volunteers as the bus company’s dispatcher.
The ultra-Orthodox community’s main objection to the city buses is the mingling of the sexes at close quarters.
“It has come to the point where many (ultra-Orthodox) people won’t ride a public bus,” Rabinowitz said.
“A man is not allowed to touch a women, and when you are on a crowded moving bus, packed like sardines, everyone is all over everyone else. Once my wife was riding a bus which made a sudden stop and five men fell on top of her.”
For their part, women riders don’t seem to regard the back of the bus as a slight.
“I’m not comfortable on a regular public bus,” said Hanni, 18, who declined to give her last name. “I don’t mind sitting in the back. Besides, I think the men are more important than us.”
Such sentiments might not go down well among American feminists, but they are politically correct in the Middle East, where a surge of religious fundamentalism is one of the few things that Israel has in common with its Arab neighbors.
In Cairo, for instance, where public transport is a contact sport, female-only buses were introduced last year to soothe Islamic sensibilities. The city’s subway system also offers separate cars for female passengers.
But not everyone in Jerusalem is thrilled with the idea of separate compartments for men and women.
“I don’t like it,” said Anat Hoffman, a city council member. “I certainly don’t believe that piety is measured by the extent to which men succeed in undermining women.”
Some see the kosher buses as a disturbing sign of self-inflicted fragmentation in a city that insists it never again should be divided.
Others see it as one more example of the ultra-Orthodox minority using its political clout to gain benefits.
Israel allowed Arab bus companies to continue operating in Jerusalem after taking control of the whole city in 1967.
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And while no law says Jews and Arabs should ride separately, a member of one tribe finds himself feeling uncomfortable on the other’s bus.
Will secular Jews come to feel like outcasts on the religious buses?
“Definitely, the downside of all this is the increasing fragmentation of the city,” said David Clayman, an American rabbi who lives in Jerusalem and prefers the city buses.
“What you have is the ultra-Orthodox proceeding to build an autonomous entity within the State of Israel,” he said.
“If the Palestinians want to learn how to make autonomy work for themselves, they should go talk to these people.”
The ultra-Orthodox were the big winners in last year’s municipal elections, which saw Teddy Kollek, an avowed secularist, ousted after 28 years as mayor.
One of the first concessions the ultra-Orthodox extracted from the new mayor, Likud’s Ehud Olmert, was a separate-but publicly funded-education department.
Rabinowitz, the bus dispatcher, argues that the city should be willing to do the same with buses.
“We are taxpayers and yet the public transportation department does not take our special needs into account,” he said. “Now we can use our new service to pressure them.”