Ultra-Orthodox Summer Fun

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is summer and hence, the height of secular vs. religious tensions on what constitutes appropriate dress in the Holy Land. An acquaintance of mine thought that jeans and a tank top were reasonable attire for the increasingly hot Israeli sun. And so, one fine day, the girl got on a bus – a regular, public bus that is – full of the ultra-Orthodox. The ultra-Orthodox in question seemed to be under the impression that since they constituted the majority on the bus, they had the right to institute the dress code for everyone on it. One of the men started yelling at her, and asked if she thought that this was the beach. To the bus driver’s credit, he refused to heed the ridiculous demand to kick her off the bus because of her scandalous summer wear. Nevertheless, she got off. When I asked her why, she told me that: “There were many of them there, and I am afraid of them.” Of course, her mother and I spent a good fifteen minutes discussing the various variants of what she could have said to tell them off. My comebacks would have been: 1) Is this Iran? 2) Is this Siberia? Add yours in the comments, who knows, the summer is just beginning, and I have lots of buses to catch…