Daily Archive

Ah, progressive religious thought in action.

In another unsurprisingly putrid religious offering, the devout offer a lovely pastiche illustrating the misogyny, pettiness, and insular sectarianism that makes religion so repugnant to the rationally inclined.

“A shy eight-year-old schoolgirl has unwittingly found herself on the front line of Israel’s latest religious war.

Naama Margolese is a ponytailed, bespectacled second-grader afraid of walking to her religious Jewish girls’ school for fear of ultra-Orthodox men who have spat on her and called her a “whore” for dressing “immodestly”.

After significant media attention to the young girl’s plight, thousands came out to protest on Tuesday evening against gender segregation and violence against women at a rally in Beit Shemesh, 30km to the west of Jerusalem.”

These lovely ultra-orthodox men of faith have taken to harassing 8 year old girls because their immodest dress.  Bare arms apparently qualify as immodest dress.  Of course the gender policing going on here is not new – most religions by default destroy a woman’s autonomy and rights.  The neat little twist here is that this is happening in a supposedly secular democratic state.

“Naama’s persecution has drawn new attention to the simmering issue of religious coercion in Israel, and the increasing brazenness by vigilantes from the insular ultra-Orthodox community.
“When I walk to school in the morning I used to get a tummy ache because I was so scared … that they were going to stand and start yelling and spitting,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press news agency on Monday.

“They were scary. They don’t want us to go to the school.”

The new girls’ school that Naama attends in the city of Beit Shemesh is on the border between an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood and a community of modern Orthodox Jewish residents, many of them American immigrants.

The ultra-Orthodox consider the school an encroachment on their territory. Dozens of black-hatted men jeer and physically accost the girls almost daily, the students say.  Televised images of Naama sobbing en route to school have shocked many Israelis, elicited statements of outrage from the country’s leadership and sparked a Facebook page with nearly 10,000 followers dedicated to “protecting little Naama”.

“Who’s afraid of an 8-year-old student?” Sunday’s main headline in the leading Yediot Ahronot daily said.”

    Let me answer that for you.  People so utterly screwed up on the stupid-shitty-ass Koolaid known as religion that they will verbally accost and spit on children because their magic book says so.  Actions such as this are so obviously wrong, but the power of faith and religious wankitude allows the believers to soldier on in the face reality and ethical considerations.

“Beit Shemesh’s growing ultra-Orthodox population has erected street signs calling for the separation of sexes on the sidewalks, dispatched “modesty patrols” to enforce a chaste female appearance and hurled stones at offenders.

Walls of the neighbourhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly in closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.”

Yep, take that you unseemly, unsightly, unworthy women…cover your shame.  I’m thinking the Burka treatment is in order here, lets completely dehumanize women so we can completely strip them of their rights and membership in the human race.

“The Israel police are taking, and will take, action to arrest and stop those who spit, harass or raise a hand. This has no place in a free and democratic state,” he told his cabinet.

The abuse and segregation of women in Israel in ultra-Orthodox areas is nothing new, and critics accuse the government of turning a blind eye.

The ultra-Orthodox are perennial king-makers in Israeli coalition politics – two such parties serve as key members of Netanyahu’s coalition. They receive generous government subsidies, and police have traditionally been reluctant to enter their communities.”

Ah, the reason why the burning stupid remains.  Women’s autonomy and rights can happily be thrown under the bus for political expediency.  O how odious religion is when given political power and room to exist within  a society.  Here lies yet another shining example of why states MUST be secular and the boundaries between church and state must be clearly delineated.