Published in the Jewish Chronicle on 23 February 2007
In July 2004, after spending too much time sitting behind a computer, I took a walk in downtown Jerusalem. I bought Vanity Fair magazine, and looked forward to reading about the goings on at a famous writers’ colony. In this serene state of mind, I boarded the number 40 bus towards my home in the suburb of Ramot.
In an incident which made headlines worldwide, I found myself insulted, humiliated and physically threatened because I refused to be bullied into giving up my seat and moving to the back of the bus. Unbeknown to me, this unmarked bus was part of a mehadrin, or stringent line, in which rabbis, in cooperation with the public bus company Egged, dictate where women can sit – at the back – and what they …
Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist, playwright and journalist who has lived in Jerusalem since 1971 and who writes regularly to her mailing list about Israel and Jewish issues.
Naomi has published eight internationally best selling novels, and is the author of a hit play (Women's Minyan) which has been performed more than 500 times in Israel's National Theatre (Habimah) as well as in the United States and Argentina. She is a tireless advocate for women's rights in Israel, campaigning against gender segregation on Israeli buses and bias in rabbinical courts.
Naomi is a sought-after lecturer all over the world. If your group is interested in hosting Naomi, please click here.
Women to the Back of the Bus!!I Am Not Sitting in the Back of the Bus (published in the Jewish Chronicle on 23 Feb 2007) - Why, together with other women, I filed suit to put an end to the primitive and degrading gender-segregated bus lines now popping up all over Israel.
Read my original article about how I was attacked by a religious fanatic because I refused to move to the back (the "women's section") of a Jerusalem bus.
Read about an American woman beaten because she refused to move to the back of a Jerusalem bus.
Read my article explaining why segregated buses are just the latest crazy idea of fanatics with too much free time on their hands.
Read about haredi women who want to sit with their families and don't want to be forced to crowd together in the back of the bus.
Israel Bus Rule Sparks Religious Row - How the liberal western media perceive all this fanaticism.
29 April 2012 - At the First Annual Jerusalem Post Conference at New York's Marriott Times Square Hotel, I was a featured panelist along with Mr. Ron Prosor, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Mr. Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents. The subject was the media war against the delegitimization of Israel.
15 March 2012 - Sotah published in Italian as L'amora proibito. March 2012 - Jephte's Daughter published in an Italian paperback edition, as Una moglie a Gerusalemme. October 2011 - The Ghost of Hannah Mendes published in French as Le Fantôme de Dona Gracia Mendes.
October 2011 - The Tenth Song published in paperback.
May 2011 - Four-time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh directs a staged reading of Women's Minyan at New York's Westside Theater. The reading was produced by One Circle Productions, in partnership with Safe Horizon.
Watch the reading.
Watch an interview with Naomi and Tovah Feldshuh.
April 2011 - The Tenth Song is published in Hebrew, as השיר העשירי.
January 2011 - Israel Supreme Court declares gender segregation on buses illegal, but says women may continue to "voluntarily" move to the back of the bus.
January 2011 - Jephte's Daughter published in Italian, as Una moglie a Gerusalemme. October 2010 - The Tenth Song published.
October 2010 - Jephte's Daughter published in French, as fille de Jephte.
November 2010 - Sotah awarded the Prix WiZO for 2010.
June 2009 - Sotah published in French.
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