Who gave you a driver’s license?

Taboo regarding women drivers in haredi society is stricly an issue of male chauvinism

Tali Farkash|Published: 05.03.07 , 04:15

Two days ago when I went to throw out the garbage (yes, we do throw out our garbage) I saw a very strange sight. One of my very traditional neighbors (of the kind who shave their heads) got out of a car.

So, what’s the big deal? People get out of cars every day. But this woman got out of the “wrong” side of the car, the driver’s side. I blinked twice and pinched myself three times, but the surrealistic sight did not disappear.

When the walking wonder or the driving wonder saw me, she blew the horn, added a wink indicating that this was between us, and went to her apartment. I remained there staring into space, with the garbage bag in hand, feeling the warm engine as proof that this was not a nighttime hallucination…

Though the roads in Bnei Brak are full of strictly Orthodox women drivers, you cannot say that the personal freedom in driving a car comes without a price. Even today, when a strictly Orthodox woman drives, it is seen as an act of rebellion, excessive independence, a “complicated issue of Jewish law”.

Driving harms social standing

There are few strictly Orthodox women who take driving lessons before they are married, and even fewer who publicize this fact. Believe me, the accusatory looks at the traffic light on Rabbi Akiva street are enough to deter them.

Among the more old-fashioned strictly Orthodox, the dilemma of whether to drive is not even an issue.

And that is why I discovered that my neighbor drives only after we’d been neighbors for three years. The “terrible crime” was done, of course, for a “justifiable reason”, in order to take her feverish child to the doctor. She trusted me not to reveal her secret and I won’t give it away.

A steering wheel and four wheels would harm her proper social standing. She knows that if this were discovered, aside from the immediate result of becoming the new object of gossip, there would be a good soul in ten years time who would take points away from her for driving when she wants to marry off her children.

I personally got into trouble for daring to note, in an article I wrote about safe driving, that I myself drive. For that I got “tsk-tsk” and wagging fingers for two weeks. As far as I’m concerned, the strictly Orthodox taboo on this entire subject is a result of traditionalism of the most incorrect kind.

After all, we’re not talking about a Merkava tank or an armored personnel carrier (masculine vehicles). It’s just a car with a booster seat in back.

Feminism and chauvinism

No, folks. This is not an issue of Jewish law, it’s an issue of feminism and chauvinism. It’s the issue of what a strictly Orthodox woman is permitted or forbidden to do, without invading territories that someone, somewhere has defined as masculine or not suitable to the ideal of the strictly Orthodox woman.

After all, what is more modest from the point of view of Jewish law: a woman driving by herself, or a woman taking crowded public transportation with men?

Outside the strictly Orthodox world no one tries to camouflage their opinions on women drivers by talking about upright behavior. They just let themselves say “go back to the kitchen!” and other such pearls. But at least they are upfront.

So after I finished laughing about the “new initiative” to establish a rabbinical committee to permit women with nine or more children to drive, I started to think seriously about contacting Peugeot’s international headquarters so I could order a pink car with hearts for me and all strictly-Orthodox women drivers.

It would preferably have the stamp of approval of a local rabbi, being feminine enough to be glatt kosher, with no fear of masculinity or gears. The operating instructions would be to press the pedal gently, the way you do with a sewing machine.

Only then, perhaps the “righteous men” who are attempting to make life difficult for women everywhere would develop their leg muscles and let us step on the gas.