Modesty squads are roaming the streets, attacking and brutally beating people who fail to live up to a narrow religious code defining moral purity. People are afraid, and women are being victimized most of all. Is the Taliban resurgent? Well, yes, but that's not what this story is about; instead, this story is about Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem taking the "law" into their own hands and punishing people for failing to adhere to strict religious standards.
Traditionalist Muslims tend to take first place in the Oppression Olympics, getting high marks for their efforts to stifle free speech and prevent women from achieving real equality in society with conservative Christians working hard to challenge them. Jews, though, tend to be quieter — but maybe some have decided that they can give the other a real run for their money? Even conservative, evangelical Christians haven't thought to create their own Taliban-inspired morality police.
Two weeks ago police arrested two alleged members of a modesty patrol accused of brutally beating M. The gang allegedly gagged her, hit her, kicked her and said she would be killed if she did not move out of the ultra-Orthodox Maalot Dafna neighbourhood. "They beat me up, tied me up and threatened to kill me," M. said, holding back her tears. "Who will prevent them from killing me?"
Neighbours had complained of what they called the divorcee's "indecent" lifestyle, which in such neighbourhoods can mean anything from wearing trousers to meeting men in private. "I don't know why I was treated this way. What has my life got to do with those guys," said M., who until three years ago was married to a Haredi -- a word used to describe the most theologically conservative form of Judaism. ...
In June, a 14-year-old Mea Sharim resident was taken to hospital with burns after an attacker hurled acid at her. Israeli media said that at the time of the attack the girl had been wearing loose-fitting trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, enough to provoke the ire of religious fanatics.
In 2006, a 50-year-old American-Israeli woman was viciously attacked by four men because she refused to go to the back of a bus while on holiday in Jerusalem. The bus was not one of the sex-segregated lines Jerusalem runs to accommodate Haredi preferences.
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