“According to Israel’s President Shimon Peres, a fight is under way, for “the soul of the nation and the essence of the state.” But the threat isn’t coming from outside Israel. It’s over differing interpretations of Judaism.”
I recall the furor when Palideno ran for governor of New York when the Hasidic Jews who embraced him wouldn’t allow women to attend the political event that blessed this baseball bat wielding right-wing extremist. Who is funding these men who work hard to make women second class citizens in Israel – and America?
What is clear that the Cultural Warfare the religious-right (and Islamic extremists) has waged against the King of the Liberal Hippies, and thus myself, has taken root amongst fellow Zionists who demonize all those who are not one with them. It is time for the King of the Hippies to remove himself from the Demonic Pantheon of holy men who hate women. It is clear that sick virginal men hate me because I have slept with beautiful naked women who lay with me willingly, without a thought of marrying me because they just wanted to be liberated and free – no longer the slave of Mankind! Why these orthodox Jews want to render their women filthy, unclean, whores, before they purify them and marry them, is interesting, because it suggests their God-given errections are the real enemy!
Jon the Nazarite
It is common for Orthodox Judaism, especially of the Hasidic sect, to maintain gender-specific events, where men and women sit or be present separately among members of the same sex. Orthodox Jewish synagogues have separate men’s and women’s sections, typically separated by a wall or curtain called a mechitza.[18]
In Israel there are a dozens of buses, serving ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, which are segregated by sex, with males sitting in the front and females sitting in the back of the bus. There are segregated sidewalks in Mea Shearim and some sex segregated clinics and groceries in Israel.[19][20] [21] [22]
Orthodox Jewish millionaires consider segregated bus scheme
A private bus line in Israel that would enforce segregation between male and female passengers is being considered by a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish millionaires., according to reports.
Photo: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images
11:59AM GMT 21 Dec 2011
Under the proposed scheme, the buses would transport passengers from Haredi – or ultra-Orthodox – neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, Ashdod and Beit Shemesh, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported.
Israel’s transport ministry is yet to respond to the suggestions. Under the current scheme, segregation is voluntary. Israeli law says that any provider of a public service must treat everybody equally.
Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger told the newspaper: “I support segregation, but only when it is done willingly. On private lines in which all the passengers are eager for separation, and the dignity of women is maintained, then that is a welcome initiative.”
The proposals come after Tanya Rosenblit, a 28-year-old Jewish woman, boarded a bus in Ashdod last week, and was told by a Haredi male to sit at the back. When she refused, the man did not allow the driver to close the doors and the police were eventually called. She has been compared to the American civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks.
Writing on the Israeli news website Ynet, she said: “Until yesterday, I was sure that I lived in a free country. I was certain that a person’s dignity and freedom are supreme values in our diverse society. It’s still hard for me to believe that in 2011, there are men who believe they must not sit behind a woman.”
Orthodox Jewish millionaires consider segregated bus scheme
A private bus line in Israel that would enforce segregation between male and female passengers is being considered by a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish millionaires., according to reports.
As prostitute
Pope Gregory the Great’s homily on Luke’s gospel dated 14 September 591 first suggested that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? … It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.”(homily XXXIII)[13]
In 1969 the Vatican, without commenting on Pope Gregory’s reasoning,[14] implicitly rejected it by separating Luke’s sinful woman, Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdala via the Roman Missal.[15]
This identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute was followed by many writers and artists until the 20th century. Even today it is promulgated by some secular and occasional Christian groups. It is reflected in Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel The Last Temptation of Christ, in José Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Jean-Claude La Marre’s Color of the Cross and Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life.
It was because of this association of Mary as a prostitute that she became the patroness of “wayward women”, and “Magdalene houses” became established to help save women from prostitution.[16]
[edit] Artwork
“Kreuzigung” by Meister des Marienlebens, 1465.
The identification of Mary Magdalene as prostitute and adulteress is perpetuated by much Western medieval Christian art. In many such depictions, Mary Magdalene is shown as having long hair which she wears down over her shoulders, while other women follow contemporary standards of propriety by hiding their hair beneath headdresses or kerchiefs. The Magdalene’s hair may be rendered as red, while the other women of the New Testament in these same depictions ordinarily have dark hair beneath a scarf. This disparity between depictions of women can be seen in works such as the Crucifixion paintings by the Meister des Marienlebens.
There are depictions of her also showing us how various artists viewed her and Jesus’ relationship. According to Robert Kiely, “no figure in the Christian Pantheon except Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist has inspired, provoked, or confounded the imagination of painters more than the Magdalene.” Paintings can offer a deep insight as to what popular culture believed about an individual at a certain point in history. See Fra Angelico’s painting Noli me tangere.
Interestingly, the legend of Mary the penitent whore is found only in the Western church; in the Eastern church she is honored for what she was, a witness to the resurrection. Another Gregory, Gregory of Antioch (also sixth century), in one of his homilies, has Jesus say to the women at the tomb: “Proclaim to my disciples the mysteries which you have seen. Become the first teacher of the teachers. Peter, who has denied me, must learn that I can also choose women as apostles.”8
Mary’s historical role as an apostle is clearly tied to her experience of an appearance of the risen Christ. As noted above, in the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb, where she is the first to see the risen Jesus. He tells her to tell his “brethren” that he is ascending to God the Father. She then goes to the disciples and tells them what she has seen and heard (John 20:1, 11–19).9 Later that same day Jesus appears to the disciples gathered behind closed doors. He thus confirms in person the message Mary had given them. In contrast to Luke’s picture of Mary, in John she emerges as an “apostle to the apostles.”10
It’s disheartening, really, to see the life of a woman like Mary Magdalene so egregiously misrepresented for the Church’s political purposes. And don’t be fooled – the reshaping of Mary’s image was intentional. As the Christian Church rose in the first 15 centuries to a prominent place of leadership and power, women were summarily pushed away, cast as manipulative, scheming, witches out to destroy the Church. So instead of celebrating Mary’s role as one of the first leaders of the Church and an apostle who spread the word of Jesus, she was instead cast as a symbol – the embodiment of the love of Christ that is so great, it can redeem a prostitute.
This idea of Mary as the repentant whore who became a lover of Christ functions within the Church as a nod to the patriarchal hierarchy, one that celebrates obedience to male authority and sexual control over the feminine. As a repentant sinner, Mary”s femininity is restored to its proper place – a femininity that does not exert itself sexually and is submissive to domination by the male power structure. Indeed, one of the most recognized depictions of Mary Magdalene portrays her groveling at the feet of Christ. Most other popular depictions show Mary in a sexual pose, half or completely naked, in a state of barely controlled eroticism. It is only her desperate faith and supplication to Jesus that keeps her sexuality in check.
Rosamond Press 
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