In an interview with the Jewish Journal, the Jewish Agency’s chairman Natan Sharansky dismissed the notion that ultra-Orthodox Jews are using their religious power and authority in Israel to advance segregated army service or segregated bus lines.

“Oh, segregated bus lines. I just was told about some area in New York, near Monsey, where there are streets where women go on one side and men go on the other side, and the buses have segregated places for men and women. Somehow I didn’t hear that anybody goes to the Supreme Court in the United States of America and appeals to the First Amendment. I’m very much against all those phenomena, but these attempts to say that it turns Israel into some kind of restricted democracy, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. As long as we have the most independent Supreme Court in the world, the most independent free press and all these institutions, we are absolutely a free society.”

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)