Actually, the Torah refers to him as a rasha - it’s not Moshe, although presumably he would have agreed with the characterisation.

“al pi halacha dina d’malchusa dina. They are as bound by the law as everyone else and if they don’t agree they are absolute reshoim.”

Shimon wrote:

“And, like it or not, many chareidim – especially those on “znius police” squads hold nothing of this government. It doesnt have the power of dina dimalchusa dina.”

Shimon also wrote:

“It’s a well known idea of none other than the Chazon Ish that dina dimalchusa dina does not apply to a non-Torah approach in EY. …The CI is not a rasha, obviously. These Yerushalmim have poskim on their side. You can disagree, but dont call their following a psak of their gedolei haposkim “reshaim”.

—————-

I think dina demalchusas dina is a distraction here. Beating people up or destroying property by pouring bleach on women’s clothes — these things are forbidden by Torah law. If you “hold nothing of the government” you are permitted to steal and beat people up? I don’t think so.

Shimon is right in one detail — you can’t call a person a rasha just because he holds that dina demalchusa dina doesn’t apply in E’Y.

But people who hold that since they don’t recognize the Israeli government, therefore assault and battery are permitted — of course such people are reshaim!

The source for this is Rashi on Shmos 2;13, where two Jews were fighting and Moshe called one of them a rasha. Rashi says the man was a rasha because he LIFTED HIS FIST TO STRIKE HIS FELLOW. He was ABOUT to hit him — he had not done so yet — and that already made him a rasha.

So I don’t think you can say that the men on the bus who committed several acts of violence were just innocent “Yerushalmim who follow the Chazon Ish.” They were reshaim, at least according to Moshe Rabeinu and Rashi.

Only if there were eidim (witnesses), which so far have not come forth. As things stand, there is nothing to go on but Mrs. Shear’s own account.

“Why should they be in jail? Is that the Torah answer to this crime? Is that the halachic answer?”

You are right. They should not be in jail. They should receive 39 lashes and pay damages.

Menachem, there is an exception to every rule, and this is definitely an exception.

Gabe Klein is just expressing what many of us–perhaps the majority–think about this situation.

A reasonable person knows when to insist on her rights and when to yield to avoid unnecessary unpleasantness. By her spiteful response to the request of the majority of people on the bus that she join the women in the back, Mrs. Shear demonstrated that she is not a reasonable person–that she prefers confrontation to accomodation.

Every morning, we pray that we will not run into unreasonable and difficult people– a PeGa Ra!

“In order to be considered for publication, comments must be on-topic, polite, and address ideas rather than personalities.”

[I removed the offending comment -- TK]

With all due respect, here we see one of the problems with the Internet.

It is a leveling medium. Like Communism and Socialism, it pretends that all people and all ideas have equal currency. That is not true in the real world.

In the real world, there are great Torah sages who are many orders of magnitude superior in wisdom then we are. The fact that we can write whatever we please about whomever we please does not change the reality.

Would they have approved of your actions? Absolutely not. You are off. Your self-righteousness is repulsive. Those thugs lynched Mrs. Schear in the bus. You lynch her verbally on line.

Just as you sometimes have to overcorrect when the car skids — steer into the skid to get control of the car — I suspect some of the rabbanim are trying to outfrum the “frum Taliban” to gain control of them.

Mrs. Shear does not deserve the ugly comments coming her way. Nothing she did was so reprehensible as to “deserve” the criminal attack perpetrated on her. The men who assaulted her should be in jail. Sadly they never will be, but the Ribono Shel Olam will take care of it.

Neither does Mrs Schear, who defiantly ignored the repeated requests from her fellow passengers. Is that what you call Bein Adam L’chavero? To ignore the request of the majority of the passengers?!?!? To remain sitting there because “No-holier-than-me-Charedi-is-gonna-boss-me-around”?????

>Please don’t sully the tzadikeim by including them among these poshim dressed up as chareidim.

Please stop being Motzi Shem Ra on Yereim U’shlemim.

>All Litvishe Gedolim were machmir in bain odon l’chaveiro more than in such issues as separate seating.

And none of them would have approved of Mrs Schear’s despicable actions.

“The closing statement in one of your posts includes the same type of innuendo that you accused others of.”

Not inuendo at all. I literally live on the “front lines” her between Beit Shemesh and RBS B. I see things on a regular basis that many of you only have second-hand knowledge. I was offering to give Mrs. Katz a first-hand tour of what goes on here. Nothing “implied” about that.

Since this initiative is spearheaded by Rav Shteinmen, SHLIT”A, a recognized Gadol Hador http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/abeitarvrh67.htm,
Your comment implies that you consider yourself his superior, or even his peer, giving you the right to challenge his judgement and wisdom.

Mordechai

Recognize by who? The type of violent thug who attacked Miriam Shear.

There is no official gadol appointment in Judaism. The same arguement is used by Neturai Karta thugs who state their support of Israel’s enemies is endorsed by “gedolim”

I’ve never found Shemayisrael.com to be a very accurate site. I hope that others more factually based like Rabbi Rosenblum will comment on this assertion by this site. I guess I should judge Rav Steinman favorably and assume shemayisrael.com is spreading motzei sheim ra on him.

Hillel, you also wrote:

“However, as a person cognizant of Orthodox Jewish values, perhaps you should have shown more empathy with the desire of some Hareidi people to maintain some level of Kedusha in their immediate environment, even if it would have somewhat inconvenienced you.”

It is becoming more and more clear that the men involved had absolutely no desire to “maintain some level of Kedusha in their immediate environment” since their behavior showed exactly the opposite of kedusha. We are talking about thugs here.

If your version of events is accurate, I can certainly understand your shock and trauma at what transpired on that morning.

To a Westernized woman like yourself, a demand that you “go to the back of the bus” smacks of Rosa Parks and Civil Rights abuse.

However, as a person cognizant of Orthodox Jewish values, perhaps you should have shown more empathy with the desire of some Hareidi people to maintain some level of Kedusha in their immediate environment, even if it would have somewhat inconvenienced you.

The real culprits here are the secular managers of the Eged Bus Company who were criminally negligent in setting up a “Mehadrin” bus service in which the buses were not marked in any distinctive manner, and in which the “Mehadrin” seating rules were to be enforced by the passengers themselves.

This irresponsible arrangement virtually guaranteed confrontation and conflict, like that which you evidently experienced.

However, notwithstanding the trauma that you experienced, I find it difficult to understand how you, as a nominally religious woman, find it possible to openly attack the hareidi community on the pages of the secular newspaper Haaretz; and how you feel comfortable joining Shulamit Aloni and the Reform/Jewish sect in bringing a case against “Mehadrin” buses before the anti-religious Israeli Supreme Court!

No Jew should think that this crazed man in the name of tzniut is representative of Torah-true Judaism, and no Jew should think that this provocative woman is representative of Torah-true Judaism.

The closing statement in one of your posts includes the same type of innuendo that you accused others of.

There is no question, the four characters that assaulted her deserve to be handed over to the police. How about the people in the bus who witnessed the avlah and stayed quiet? Yithro protested the avlah that was about to take place, ran away, and the parsha containing the 10 Commandments is named after him. Bil’am encouraged the avlah. Yiov ….. We cannot claim ignorance. It happened before. We are our worst enemies.

Ms. Shear deserves our empathy and justice certainly must be served. It is possible that as a new visitor to Eretz Yisroel, Ms. Shear is not familiar with the anti-Jewish orientation of the various Israeli publications, Ha’aretz in particular, and she may have fallen into their trap? If that’s the case, we owe her our sincere apologies for not giving her the benefit of the doubt which we expect and demand when clouds of suspicion hover over us. She went through more than enough trouble without our ill-considered comments.

Mixed seating at a wedding is not forbidden by Jewish law.
http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2006/02/mixed-seating-at-weddings.html