It also has sparked a row over who may lay claim to the legacy of Rosa Parks, the African-American civil rights activist who famously refused to obey an Alabama bus driver's order to give her seat to a white passenger. Opponents of segregation say the mantle is theirs. But enthusiasts for segregation have begun to argue that by making their way to the back of the bus, they are actually Parks's heirs. "I see Haredi women who sit at the back as being the Israeli Rosa Parks," said writer Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, one of the leading proponents of segregation. "We see it as a stand against the deterioration of standards in the public arena, and view the chance to sit at the back without men gazing at us as a form of empowerment."
"I see Haredi women who sit at the back as being the Israeli Rosa Parks," said writer Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, one of the leading proponents of segregation. "We see it as a stand against the deterioration of standards in the public arena, and view the chance to sit at the back without men gazing at us as a form of empowerment."
