Because

It was just because I happened to be at a certain place at a certain time. The bus pulled up as I was walking past the bus stop, and I made a split second decision. I plunged into the amorphous jumble that constitutes an Israeli line and was immediately surrounded by a group of six or seven black hatted, black suited, and for the most part, black bearded Israeli men, all trying to push their way onto the bus.
“Hey you!” someone shouted at me. “Women in the back!”
I pretended not to understand the Hebrew.
“Hey you! Women in the back!”
I looked down the length of the accordion bus and saw a group of bespectacled, bewigged, bestockinged women shuffling onto the bus through the back door.
“Sorry, don’t speak Hebrew,” I said, and forged ahead. The men scattered, terrified of my touch, then regrouped to shut me out in an effective latticework of bodies. It was a difficult time for me. Being an American, I lacked the aggressiveness that seemed to propel Israelis forward through time and bus lines. But being an American, I refused to relinquish my rights.
These ultra-orthodox Israeli, chareidi men, had no concept of rights or Rosa Parks, and their unusually tight cluster almost prevented me from getting on the bus. Almost.
The last man had elbowed his way in front of me with astonishing finesse. He was about to close me out. I had to think fast. As he lifted his leg to step onto the bus, I touched my hand to his forearm. He turned, stared down at my hand on his forearm, looked up into my face, and I smiled.
“Sliha,” I said, in an exaggerated American accent.
His face contorted into a picture of pure horror, and he jumped back. I stepped onto the bus merrily and the doors closed on the poor, dumbstruck chareidi.
On the bus, I flashed my monthly bus pass at the driver. He was not bearded or hatted. He wasn’t even yarmulkahed. He nodded, then said to me, “Women in the back.”
“Sorry, don’t speak Hebrew,” I said.
He shrugged.
I surveyed my pick of seats from the front of the bus, and saw that the men had gravitated towards the end of their segregated sector, leaving the two front seats open (an unusual occurence). I sat down directly behind the bus driver.
“Driver, this is an outrage!” came a voice to my right. A black hatted, red bearded chareidi sat on the other side of the aisle, visibly agitated.
“She must go to the back of the bus!” he said in Hebrew.
The bus driver sighed.
“Miss,” he addressed me in accented English. “Miss, women must to sit in the back.”
“Why?” I asked in English.
“Because. You want to sit in front, you must to take different bus. This bus is separate.”
“I get nauseous when I sit in the back.”
“What did she say?” the red bearded chareidi asked the driver.
“What is this, noushuss?” the driver asked me.
“Sick. I will get sick if I sit in the back of the bus.”
The driver turned towards the red bearded chareidi. “She gets sick if she sits in the back.”
“Nonsense! Women must sit in the back of the bus!”
The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror, trying to size me up.
“Miss,” he said again in English. “Please move to the back.”
“This is a public bus. I’m staying here.”
“Nu?” said the red bearded chareidi.
“She’s getting off the bus very soon,” the driver told him.
“An outrage! It is not proper for a woman to sit with men!”
“He says it is not right for the woman to sit with the men,” the driver offered me. “These men,” he nodded towards the red bearded chareidi, “don’t like to look at woman. Only wifes. No pretty girls like you.”
“If he doesn’t want to look at me,” I returned the offer, “he can move to the back.”
“What did she say?” asked the red bearded chareidi.
“She’s getting off the bus soon,” the driver repeated.
“This is not America,” the red bearded chareidi spat at the driver. “This is not America!”
“He says this is not America.”
“It’s not Europe either,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Nu?” The red bearded chareidi looked expectantly at the driver. He had yet to look at me at all.
“What can I do?” the driver said to him. “She is a stubborn American.”
“This is not America!”
“Why you make trouble?” the driver asked me.
I was silent.
“Women in back. Simple. No punishment. Just is. Why you make trouble?”
I was silent. I could sense the muttering of the women in the back of the bus.
The red bearded chareidi began his appeal to the man behind him.
“She can’t do this,” the red bearded chareidi pleaded fiercely.
“Nu, what can we do?”
“Make her sit in the back, with the other women.”
“Just ignore her,” a gray bearded chareidi enjoined. “Ignore her, and either you or her will soon be off the bus.”
“It’s not a matter of how long,” the red bearded chareidi argued. “It’s the principal of the matter. She is doing this davka l’hach’is, and I won’t have it!”
“If she is, as you say, doing this to intentionally incite you, then she’s having a grand success,” the gray bearded chareidi said softly. “Calm down.”
“She thinks this is America!”
“Maybe she thinks this is Tel-Aviv?” the bus driver chimed in. “Or even, God forbid, Jerusalem? It’s not everywhere in Israel that women sit in the back.”
“Well, on this bus they do,” retorted the red bearded chareidi.
“Okay. So here they do. But she’s not from here. She doesn’t know any better.”
“She knows. She’s doing this davka l’hach’is!”
“Tell me, brother, just looking at this girl will make you lose control?” the bus driver asked.
The red bearded chareidi bristled and the driver continued. “She is dressed b’tsniut. Trust me, I looked. Elbows, knees and neck are all covered and accounted for.”
“It doesn’t matter if she’s covered. A whore dressed as a princess is still a whore.”
I bristled. Maybe it was time to end my little experiment.
“Stop it,” the grey bearded chareidi said quietly. “This is a bas yisrael, a Jewish girl we’re talking about, albeit a bit misguided. She probably thinks that we are perpetrating a great injustice on our women. That sitting in the back of a bus is a sign of inferiority. She doesn’t realize that inferiority has nothing to do with it! That it is so very difficult for a man to look at a woman and keep his mind pure.” He sighed a long, heavy sigh. “She’s just a girl. What does she know of the mind of a man?”
“She’s at least twenty! She’s old enough to understand!”
“Maybe if we explain it to her...” the gray bearded chareidi ignored him. “Maybe if we explain our reasoning, she won’t think so poorly of us.”
I stared at the grey bearded chareidi while he stared into space. I stared at him until he looked at me, and when he finally did, I gave him a small smile. He smiled back, hesitantly. I reached up to press the red button that signaled the bus driver to stop.
“Shalom,” I said the bus driver.
“Shalom, troublemaker,” he said in English.
Instead of exiting through the front door, I walked towards the back of the bus. My eyes scanned the women’s expressions, and my face reddened under their scowls. I had been sitting in the front with their husbands.
I alighted from the bus and looked around. I found myself in a very chareidi neighborhood. I waited for the bus to drive off before crossing to the opposite side of the street. I sat down on a bench at the bus stop and waited for another bus to take me back in the direction I had come from.