Theocrats at it again – in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) this time.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines from their aisles. It’s only the latest example of the Hasidic community trying to enforce their strict religious laws for everyone who lives near their New York enclave.
“No Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline Allowed in the Store,” declare the English/Spanish signs that appear in stores throughout the Hasidic section of the hipster haven. The retailers do not just serve Jews — they include stores for hardware, clothes and electronics.
…
“We’re not concerned about the way women dress in Manhattan — but we are concerned with bringing 42nd Street to this neighborhood,” said Mark Halpern, who is Orthodox and lives in Williamsburg.
Some called the policy un-American.
“It’s further evidence of this era’s move toward Balkanization in the United States,” said Marci Hamilton, a First Amendment scholar at Cardozo School of Law. “It’s no longer sufficient that they have shared norms among themselves, they are increasingly trying to impose their norms on the rest of the culture.”
Theocracy, in fact.
The dress code appears to be the latest effort by the Hasidic community to separate itself from the greater population.
There’s an Orthodox ambulance service and a private police force called the Shomrim.
On the B110, a privately operated public bus line that runs through Orthodox Williamsburg and Borough Park, women are told to sit in back, also in accordance with Orthodox customs.
The neighborhood embarked on a successful 2009 crusade to remove bike lanes from a 14-block stretch of Bedford Avenue — fearful of the scantily clad gals who would pedal through.
Talibanesque – for real this time.
Fuck that.
I seem to remember a woman became famous for breaking a similar rule some years ago.
Compared to whats going on in the atheist community at the moment and how they treat women, this is trivial
I call troll! Troll on # 3.
42nd Street is, or at least used to be, a red-light district. IOW Halpern is calling women who don’t dress Orthodox-style whores. This is of a piece with Orthodox men approaching non-Orthodox women who are passing through their neighborhoods and asking them how much they “charge.”
Americans have a right to bare arms!
Hey, they do that in Manhattan, too. Come to think of it, one of the times a Hasidic guy yelled at me from his car window (yup, happened pretty regularly, pretty much only Hasidic men), it was pretty close to 42nd St., although long after it ceased to be a red light district. I was walking home, wearing office-y clothes. It makes me want to get together a group of women, dressed in shirts and tank tops, sit in the front, and ride the B110 back and forth all day. For a year or so.
I suggest an underwear march.
In fact, it has been perfectly legal in NY state for many years now for both men and women to go topless in public.
(Here in SF they have a Bike Naked day as many cities do. I suggest a re-route.)
Morality tends to corrupt, and absolute morality corrupts absolutely.
As feminism represents an existential threat to their worldview, they must really be terrified of women.
If a religious group wants to follow arcane rules, that’s their right. But they do not have the right to insist that people who don’t follow their religion play by their rules.
Except she was told to sit in the back/give her seat up because she was black, not because she was a woman.
One would get the impression that they want their businesses to go belly-up, with them keeping out so many people who aren’t covered head to toe.
Mr. Halpern seems to think that Williamsburg is the exclusive territory of the Hasidic community. Guess what, dude? Manhattan has already made its way into “your” neighborhood, and they are not interested in your dress code.
I would totally flash them if they did that. Well, in my mind I would. In real life I’d probably be too stunned to do anything.
Wait, we let religious communities have private police forces? Why the fuck do we do that?
The stores and buses are one thing, but this? This will result in deaths.
Surely, though, there are also signs in English and Spanish prohibiting men not dressed in proper Hasidic garb from entering the stores. Right?
That was more or less my point. If a woman were told to sit in the back of a bus because she were black, there would be almost universal condemnation. But when she is told to do it because she is a woman, many people, including many woman find it little more than mildly distasteful. After all if treating women like this is part of Hasidic culture who are we to object?
But enslaving Africans was part of sixteenth century European culture, exterminating Jews was part of Nazi culture and cutting the members of whole families in half at the waist was part of ancient Chinese culture. If remnants of any of these cultures existed today we would surely not accept the same argument.
Forcing a woman to sit in the back of a bus is no more or less wrong if it is done because she is a woman than if it is done because she is black.
Since we all know that religious beliefs trump all other rights the only option is to fight fire with fire.
Set up a new faith that insists a certain percentage of the body ‘must be exposed to the benevolent gaze of the life giving sun god’* and watch the courts try to square the circle.
* Obviously if the life giving sun god decides to stare less hard and you get cold feel free to cover up all you like.
I’m actually cool with stores imposing clothing restrictions on their customers. It’s legal to go topless and barefoot but many stores still follow “No shirt, no shoes, no service”. Likewise a store is well within its right to refuse naked customers even if it’s close to a nudist community. The reason they’re uncomfortable with low necklines is sexist, but the reasons most people are uncomfortable with nudity aren’t very smart either. The discomfort still exists.
Bike lanes, on the other hand, belong to everyone, and the people using them are literally just passing through. Busses are a bit more complicated – they’re privately owned, but it’s not like there’s a public equivalent. And the nature of the discrimination (blatantly sexist, with very unfortunate parallels, and controversial in Israel which openly is a theocracy) makes it much worse.
I think it’s disingenuous to say they’re trying to impose their norms on everyone. Laws banning public nudity and vegans forbidding anyone to bring animal products in their house are also imposing norms on everyone. I do think there should be a compromise, but it shouldn’t be all against community norms.
There’s certainly a need for the opposition to be louder. But please don’t do it through actions like underwear marches that will antagonize them. This doesn’t look like a time for firebrands saying “We’re taking what we want whether you like it or not”, because we want them to be more accepting and willing to compromise.
This sort of thing isn’t happening just places with a large community in NY – it has been the focus of several “controversies” in Montreal, as well (where there is a sizable, but I imagine, much smaller one).
@Leo in #19:
Depends. Local bus companies are often publicly owned, or at least publicly funded.
Why is that disingenuous? Your argument following that assertion doesn’t even attempt to show that they aren’t imposing their norms onto others, but instead tries to argue why imposing your norms isn’t always wrong. I suppose we can have that discussion, but it doesn’t support your accusation of dishonesty. You may want to either properly support that accusation or withdraw it.
If these men ask women what they charge, wouldn’t it be possible to arrest them for soliciting prostitution or something?
The parade of examples of why religion-based laws are detestable never ceases.
Your eternal soul.
Seriously, I remember how bad that was when real Johns did that to me when I walked home (I would joke at the time that the street I lived in started with the red-light district and ended with me).
Combined with some touching as to test the goods offered and some rude agressiveness if I told them I wasn’t a hooker.
Leo
There’s a big difference here and you missed it. No shirt, no shoes, no service refers to everybody. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re proudly displaying your C-cup, six-pack of beer-barrel, and whether you’re not wearing no high-heels nor business shoes. These rules explicitly target women.
Your business is not your home. They are often counted as “public places”, with restrictions and special rules applying, because they are, generally speaking, open to the public the same way your home isn’t. At the moment it’s a small area, but we know places where, although no laws exist about that, religious extremists force women to hide under bedsheets.
The charge of theocracy is totally misplaced, since the government isn’t involved in any of this. A store owner can impose whatever dress code he or she wishes, however irrational it may be. If you don’t like it, shop elsewhere.
I suggest a retaliation policy: the hipsters of Williamsburg should ban Hasidic people from their stores. Should also buy up buses and make all men, Hasids included, sit in the back.
Don’t like it? Shop somewhere else. No bared arms, no uncovered head, no service.
I think if a Hasid approached me and asked me how much I charged, I’d say “You’ve sinned badly by even thinking that, and broken the prohibition on lashon hara by saying it out loud. Go away and think about how you’re going to fix that.”
This goyishe devil can quote scripture to her own purposes. And their own doctrine says they’re wrong, twice over, to do that. I’d love to see that reaction.
‘Tis Himself: “If a religious *individual* wants to follow arcane rules, that’s their right.”
FTFY.
cpt banjo: “If you don’t like it, shop elsewhere.”
And how about the busses and cycle lanes? That’s a bit different from a shop.
I feel like this blog post is conflating an issue with a non-issue
Non-Issue (from my perspective):
“No Shorts, No Barefoot, No Sleeveless, No Low Cut Neckline
Allowed in the Store,”
You realize that this dress code also applies to men in wife-beaters and those ugly v-necked sweaters cut to show chest hair. I know that the quote the article references afterwards implied that the rule was aimed at women only, but go to any K-mart and count how many people (men and women) would fail the entrance test. I actually see nothing wrong with the dress code stated above.
Issues – though only 33.33% for religious reasons:
There’s an Orthodox ambulance service This is why I hate the idea of private EMS as it is in the US and much of Canada – one of the few reasons I’m glad to be an Albertan
and a private police force called the Shomrim. I suspect (though don’t know for sure) that these people have no more authority than the private security firms hired by home owners associations. Again, I find the proliferation of private security firms – problematic, but not just because they can reflect the strange religious ideologies of the communities they serve.
On the B110, a privately operated public bus line that runs through Orthodox Williamsburg and Borough Park, women are told to sit in back, also in accordance with Orthodox customs. This is just nuts – and also anger-making.
@25:
IANAL but I don’t think this is exactly right. Its like at-will firing or a casino refusing service: IF there is a stated reason for your action, that reason needs to be legal, and some reasons aren’t (legal).
So, I would guess that just as an at-will company can fire you for no cause but can’t fire you for the cause of being black, white, straight, gay, old, young, etc…, a store can impose a dress code but can’t impose a dress code because you are a woman.
For some reason, people seem to regularly miss this point, even though its a pretty simple one: the fact that there are no specific laws governing some behavior does not mean you have the right to break more general laws which might apply to your situation. You can’t discriminate against protected classes in dress code because you can’t discriminate against protected classes, period.
@James Howde #18 – Hail to the Sun God! He is the One God! Ra! Ra! Ra!
Sure it does. If they had a sign prohibiting people darker than a paper bag, we’d all understand that as okay, because it would apply to white people with bad tans too. And I’m sure it would be enforced that way.
It’s amazing how, just like clockwork, dudes show up to tell women to shut up, calm down, stop lying, there’s more important things to worry about – just as long as the victim in the piece is female. Its amazing how it absolutely never fails that boys are all “bitches , fuck ‘em” no matter WHAT the issue is.
If it’s women who suffer for it anyway. If the topic is about hangnails, or an inability for dudes to get laid on command, THAT they care deeply about. But bitches? Fuck ‘em.
Never fucking fails.
Ahem. Those (and v-neck tees) can be hot, depending on the style, person, and amount of chest-hair.
So when do the lawsuits begin?
Leo:
Nah. Just women. And bitches ain’t shit, so who cares.
Christ, did you even read Bernard’s comment?
Why shouldn’t they be antagonized?
Do you even pay attention to politics? You give fundies an inch, they take a mile.
This reminds me of a post on Feministe about the same issue. The suggestion of a topless march elicited so much whining from the theists. WE HAVE TO RESPECT THEIR BELIEFS!! IT’S THEIR CUUUUULLLLLTURRRRRE!!!
…yeah, fuck that noise.
Cpt Banjo, no, actually, stores are not allowed to discriminate against protected classes of people. And what Dirigible said about buses and cycle lanes.
Kimz:
Gosh, I wish I had the time and energy to fashion-police other people. If you don’t like how someone is dressed, and they’re not committing indecent exposure, look the fuck away.
@Bernard Hurley,
I completely agree that culture is not an acceptable excuse for discrimination.
That said…
“If a woman were told to sit in the back of a bus because she were black, there would be almost universal condemnation.” I actually don’t think there would be quite that much condemnation. Plenty of prominent people in the US get away with being openly racist.
“But when she is told to do it because she is a woman, many people, including many woman find it little more than mildly distasteful.”
I wonder if that’s actually true. I would think that most people would find it more than mildly distasteful.
Also, when Rosa Parks sat in the back of the bus, many people thought that was the way things should be. It’s not as if public response at the time it happened was different that public response to this situation.
Also, I wonder if some of the indifference is that a) this story isn’t being widely reported and b) it affects a very small group of people. Doesn’t make it right, but that might explain the response.
Godless Heathen: It’s true that Rosa Parks endured a lot of criticism for refusing to sit at the back of the bus. It’s also true that the United States remains virulently racist.
That said, there is less tolerance for up-front racist expression in public spaces. Mostly you will see dogwhistles and other forms with “plausible deniability.” Up-front racism still exists and is expressed, but it is considered less acceptable overall now than it was 50 or 60 years ago. I don’t think up-front misogyny has reached that stage.
Ya know, re: #3 troll…
When I was a christian I never, I mean NEVER heard fellow christian men joke about raping other christian women they found annoying, and if they complain about it they can suck their c***s the way some atheist men are saying the Skepchicks should be raped, etc. Or that they should be kicked in their cunts. Likewise for mormons.
Just sayin.
Callistacat, I’ve heard xtian men say similarly vile things. I’ve also heard xtian men say things with similar underlying meaning but a “nice” façade.
Also, I forgot to address Kimz’s use of the slang word “wifebeaters,” meaning undershirts. Such a delightful term, with its implication that domestic violence is largely the terrain of poor and working-class men.
I was perusing the website on the subject and discovered that there is controversy surrounding the use of the term “ultra-Orthodox”. See opening line quoted by OB. Some regard this term to be misleading. For example: Canada’s Centre for Faith and Media, while stating that the term “sometimes… cannot be avoided”, advises journalists to try to avoid the term ultra-Orthodox to describe very observant Jews, partly because ultra implies extremism. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency also stopped using the term in the 1990s, substituting “fervently Orthodox” or “Haredi” or both. Then-editor Lisa Hostein stated “‘ultra-Orthodox’ was seen as a derogatory term that suggested extremism”. A New Jersey based newspaper, The Star-Ledger, reportedly dropped the term ultra-orthodox in 2009.
They believe their faith separates them from the general population and that their style of dress should reflect this distinction. It’s also an expression of their commitment to tradition, as their dress today was typical for Ukrainian Jews 250 years ago. It must be very difficult, on one hand, being such an integral part of the hubbub of American business city life, while on the other hand, wanting to remain separate from the cultural practices and traditions of the very people who create the hustle, and the bustle, and more importantly the business to keep them going financially. If they don’t want to be a part of the people why ever do they set themselves up right in front of their noses? As with other cultic religions, who don’t want to integrate, should they not perhaps live on the periphery in the hinterland, where they don’t have to rub up with bare arms, or bare whatever else that obviously bother them so much.
Thanks, Ms. Daisy Cutter.
It often seems to me that when people (who I assume are white) compare racism to sexism, they are implying that racism isn’t as prevalent as sexism. Which I don’t think is true, I just think racism has become more subtle (as you said).
Although, in some ways sexism has become more subtle: (most) people don’t out and out state that they won’t hire a woman, for example.
If it quacks like a duck….
Godless Heathen, racism may or may not be more prevalent as sexism. I’m not sure how one would tell. However across the pond in the UK they have different levels of social acceptability.
I well remember the discussions in the UK media when the first Race Discrimination Act was being debated The letter pages of even the broadsheets such as the Times, the Guardian and the Telegraph were full of missives from white men who apparently had a black best friend who agreed with them that this would be just the start of a slippery slope which would end, horror of horrors, with women demanding a Sex Discrimination Act. I once helped organise a talk given by Mark Bonham Carter, who was considered to be a leading reformer, on this very subject. (By coincidence it was the same day as Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech.) In answer to a question about a slippery slope he had some elaborate answer, which I can’t for the life of me remember but must have been rehearsed, as to why this was nothing to worry about. After the meeting I told him that this was one slippery slope I hope we would slide down, but he just put it down to my youthful idealism and told me I would grow out of it.
Even now there is far more sting to being called a racist than to being called a sexist. Down in my local pub, where it will surprise you to know I have a reputation of liking to argue about anything with anyone, the former accusation feels worse than the latter. Now I know this is irrational but this is actually how it does feel. Now I can’t just stop feeling in certain ways but I can try to look at my feelings rationally. When I look at things like this I have to say that if a woman in the USA were compelled to sit a the back of a bus it would be equally wrong if it were because she wass black or because she was a women. However if it were because she was black it would cause an tsunami in the world’s medial; if it were because she was a woman it causes hardly a ripple.
Incidentally, Godless Heathen, I am male, white and middle class (actually peitit bourgois would be a better description)and my mid 20th century upbringing does colour the way I see things. But I am not saying that racism isn’t as prevalent as sexism, for all I know it may be much more prevalent. But I do think that society as a whole is much more enlightened in its treatment of the former than the latter.
@Deen (#21): I said “They’re trying to impose their norms on everyone” was disingenuous because that phrasing is never used about pushing for community norms we like. I agree it’s technically accurate but disagree with the connotations.
@Giliell (#24): If I’m not mistaken about Orthodox Jews (though I don’t know about Chassidim in particular), they’re likely to apply the dress code to men as well. Showing collarbones or shoulders is a big no-no.
Laws seem to treat them as intermediate. It’s certainly legal to ban topless or barefoot customers, pets, loiterers, and in Canada even swearing in shops. I haven’t found the exact law anywhere but I’d be surprised if it allowed “No shirt, no shoes, no service” and forbade “No sleeves, no service”.
@Ms. Daisy Cutter (#36): This isn’t the Westboro Baptist Church. These rules are religious but most of the community ties aren’t, it’s a closed group, not an aggressively recruiting one, it has a long tradition of reacting to conflict by closing its ranks and avoiding contact with the outside, and it has learned to be very suspicious of anyone messing with it on religious grounds. You can’t fight them in the hope that they’ll have to act more tolerant to fit in, or that the next generation will be on your side. All you can do is make them powerless and closed-off. This doesn’t strike me as morally preferable, and it’s a huge powder keg. (I might be overestimating it. I don’t have any historical examples where the hostility wasn’t motivated by antisemitism.)
Godless Heathen: Yes, “ultra-Orthodox” is considered derogatory. Which is why I insist on using it, or “black hats,” to describe those assholes.
Leo, I was raised Jewish, and I spit on your implication that any hostility to the black hats is necessarily antisemitic. So would a friend of mine who is an agunah. I’m bloody sick of accusations of bigotry being used to defend misogynist acts by cultural minorities.
What difference does it make that the group does not recruit? Or that its “community ties” aren’t religious, given that membership in the group depends on religious practice? They’re overstepping their bounds by attempting to police the dress of women who don’t adhere to their beliefs. If you really think men are going to be policed anywhere near as much as women are, or that they have been, you’re pretty clueless about patriarchy and patriarchal religions.
I am not in favor of catering to religious fanatics who threaten to become “more closed off.” They want to live amongst and reap the benefits of secular society. They need to obey the laws of secular society.
@Ms. Daisy Cutter,
Oh, my quacks like a duck comment was in reference to Ultra=extremism, not about the derogatory part. Well, I guess I was saying that Ultra-orthodox Jews ARE extreme and that it’s therefore not derogatory because it’s true. Can something be derogatory and true? I’m sure it can, I’m just blanking out at the moment.
.
I agree. One of the many reasons I wasn’t raised Jewish is that when my great-grandfather died when my grandmother was 14, she got all sorts of shit from grown, adult men for going to the synagogue and performing the rituals that the oldest son usually performs. Well, she was the oldest of two girls, who else was going to do it? And she was 14 and had just lost her father, Pete’s sake. Grown men should know better.
That’s one reason my mom was mostly raised as a secular Jew and one reason my mom never considered returning to Judaism or raising me and my brother to be Jewish.
Interesting. People say that about the US, as well, but I generally disagree. Or, if the difference is there, it’s smaller than people think it is.
I can see that being the case, even in the U.S.
I agree that we’ve (in the US anyway, can’t speak for other countries) come a long way since the 1950s. We’ve come a long way with regards to both race and gender/sex.
I guess I just see too much (what I would consider) blatant racism to say that it’s become completely unacceptable to be blatantly racist. (see: Obama’s birth certificate).
“There’s certainly a need for the opposition to be louder. But please don’t do it through actions like underwear marches that will antagonize them. This doesn’t look like a time for firebrands saying “We’re taking what we want whether you like it or not”, because we want them to be more accepting and willing to compromise.”
There is no compromise to be made with misogynists regarding women and women’s rights. The truth doesn’t lie halfway between right and wrong.