Can religious laws take a seat on a publicly funded bus? That's the controversy surrounding the B110 bus, which runs between Borough Park and Williamsburg, and makes stops through Kensington.
The New York World, a Columbia Journalism School publication, had a woman ride the bus, which is open to the general public but is ridden mostly by Hasidic Jews. Signs on the bus instruct women to sit in the back, apart from the men, in accordance with Hasidic tradition.
When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.
“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.
Mayor Bloomberg called it an outrage, and now the New York Post says the bus may be shut down.
Perhaps the most heated discussion about it took place on a Vos Iz Neias reprint of a Post story, where one commenter suggests placing a curtain between the segregated sections as an improvement, and another wonders why the men can't be forced to the back--or at least asked to give up their seats for women.
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