Badatz Bus

I usually try to avoid putting myself in a situation where I'll need to take a Mehadrin bus. Touchy subject, those busses. While I most certainly am not going to condone such apartheid behavior by actually sitting in the back like they intend, I also would rather not offend anyone's delicate sensibilities by sitting in the front. So when the 418 pulls up to the bus stop, I suddenly become very busy with an important text message, some dirt on my skirt, or studying one of the numerous flyers that coat the walls of Israeli bus stops. (I acutally saw them putting those up once. Very cool, but that's a story for a different time.)

Anyway, a friend of mine happened to be on one of the Jerusalem intra-city Mehadrin busses recently. I don't know why she chose to ride this bus but I'm assuming it was the best option to take her where she was going. It was an accordion bus and relatively empty, so she sat down towards the back of the front section. Only a few minutes had passed when a teenage boy comes over to her and starts yelling at her to get up and move to the back. She diplomatically ignored him and stared out the window. He wouldn't relent, though. Every couple of minutes he would turn around tell her she shouldn't be sitting there.

Here she paused her story to remark that if this boy was so worried about seeing a woman on his side of the bus, his best option was probably not to keep turning around and talking to her. But that's neither here nor there.

Finally, she had enough of his constant harrassment, and, since her stop was coming up, got up and stood next to the door. Immediately, the teenage boy slid into her vacated spot.
Empty as the bus was, this puzzled my friend and she leaned over and asked the boy, lama ata lo yachol lashev sham, o sham, o sham? 'Why can't you sit there, or there?'

He didn't answer.

As the bus pulled up to her stop, she leaned over one more time. "You know, I'm pregnant and you just made me get up for you." And she promptly got off the bus.

Upon hearing this story, all I could say was, well done, friend. Well done.