Fleeing Dubai -- Scuba Equipment Under a Burka

This is a great story -- a French Spy escaped Dubai by hiding his Scuba Diving Equipment under a Burka.

On a quiet spring morning, when the Arab villagers were at Friday prayers, Herve Jaubert dragged his rubber dinghy down an empty beach, started the engine, and chugged away to freedom.

As befits a former French naval officer and spy, he had made immaculate preparations for his escape from the United Arab Emirates.

The night before, he claims he had donned wetsuit and scuba diving gear, which had smuggled to him from France in pieces. He dressed himself in women's clothes, and covered himself with a black abaya, the all-enveloping burka-like robe worn to preserve modesty in the Gulf.

Not a small man, he shuffled awkwardly out of the hotel where he was staying under an assumed name, made his way to the seafront and slipped in.

From there, he swam underwater to the nearby coastguard station, on a remote outpost of the emirate of Fujairah, where he cut the fuel lines on a police patrol boat. He knew it was the only one in the area, and the coast would now be clear.

On his dinghy the next day, it took six hours to reach his destination: a sailing boat, crewed by a fellow former French spy, that was waiting just outside UAE territorial waters.

He clambered aboard, turned the prow towards India, and for the first time since he alleges the Dubai secret police had threatened to insert needles up his nose a year before, felt the fear in his stomach dissipate. He was free.

Read the remarkable story here.

I think this would be a great way for people to escape Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet. Too bad its landlocked and the scuba equipment isn't that helpful...

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

Ramat Beit Shemesh Violence and The Burka Tramp

From a post on Rafi G and DovBear on the arrest of a Burka clad woman, arrested for child abuse, molestation and terrible, almost indescribable family incest (reminiscent of the Sabbatean offshoot Frankists):

The woman arrested, it turns out, was none other than Rabbanit Bruriah keren,** herself. The founder and leader of the group. So the group is not just an eccentric group with on sicko as a member. the group is rotten from the core.

BTW, this information has been confirmed by my source - he confirmed it with her neighbors and with the police.

So now that she has been arrested and her evil exposed, hopefully that will be the demise of this evil group of people.

Not only that, but her son in law is Binyamin Friedman - the leader of the kannoim in RBS B that have been the source of all the violence in the past. The question is if the expose revealing all that she has done will now put a damper on Friedman's activities, and the support he has had from the local Rabbonim of the Eidah and of the even more extreme Rabbonim...

While many (myself included) viewed the Burka women as just some wacked-out fringe, it's clear that something far more dangerous lurked within their cult. Yet the link between the Burka tramp and the abhorrent violence in Ramat Beit Shemesh (her son-in-law) caught me off guard.

Is the lunatic fringe of Chareidi, Ultra-Orthodox society really approaching that of Islamic Fundamentalism? What's next? Honor Killings of women who aren't dressed modestly enough? Is it only a matter of time before this lunatic fringe goes mainstream? Ramat Saudi Arabia Bet?

More info over at MominIsrael here and here.

Updated from the J-Post.

A 54-year-old mother of 12 is under arrest for allegedly severely abusing her children, police said Tuesday.

The woman who allegedly abused her children arrives in court on Tuesday.Photo: Channel 2 The Beit Shemesh resident is also suspected of failing to report multiple
cases of incest among her children. She was remanded for six days by the
Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.

...

It took police two hours to gain entry to the home, with the intervention of local rabbis. Officers and social workers soon uncovered brutal physical abuse of several of the children, including whippings with both belts and electric cables, according to a police officer's court testimony. The mother is also suspected of breaking one daughter's nose with a rolling pin, leaving her children to sleep outside in a locked shed when they came home late, and preventing them from receiving medical treatment for their injuries. The mother said it was all part of their "education," according to court documents.

...

When the children of the family were treated by social workers, it emerged that the teenagers had committed incest with each other, over a long period of time, the police officer said. The teenage boy who was removed from the house told social workers that he had had sexual relations with his 18-year-old sister, and that he had told his parents and his rabbis, and that the latter told him not to tell anybody else.

**Though there is apparently a court order against using this person's name, the Haaretz article clearly links it to her, and Rafi G personally confimred this information.

PS: Note: As of 3/27/2008, the alleged behavior described above has been reported by the Israeli police and the Beit Shemesh Social Services and Welfare department - no indictments have yet been filed, though the Burka lady and her 28 year son are still under arrest, and the husband is under house-arrest.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

This Ain't Your Bubby's Burka

The Beit Shemesh Burka: Extreme Tznius (modesty). [Please note, this is NOT a parody. This is a real posting, summarized and partly translated from the Haaretz newspaper]

Kabul arrives in Beit Shemesh Bet -- and manages to even surpass the Beit Shemesh Bet "Tznius Patrol."

A group of Ultra-Orthodox chareidi women in Ramat Beit Shemesh have hyperbolated tznius to the extreme and now wear burkas whenever they go outside their home. Not advocated by any known rabbi, the burka fad is apparently radical chareidi feminist "invention", and many are wary if this custom should be adopted or repudiated. The radical Beit Shemesh tznius patrol is even scratching it's head whether someone managed to out do them, and leave them in the dust with the liberal left.

The husband of one such woman took his wife to Beit Din (religious court) to request from her to remove the burka due to shalom bayit (a peaceful home). The court ordered a religious divorce even though the husband didn't even request one -- because the court found her behaviour to be so bizarre.

The women in Ramat Beit Shemesh receive their instruction from Rabbanit Bruria Keren, who advises about 20 women in the 20s and 30s how to dress, pray and conduct their lives.

The burka dress fashion has spead to Elad, Beitar Elite, Teverya, Tzefat and even the Beit Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem.

"I don't want men to look at me. I'm happy being modest. In the past, I felt uncomfortable to walk around [sans-burka], in such a wanton fashion. At first, I just wore a wig. Now, when I see a woman with a wig, I pray to G-d to forgive her for wearing that "thing" on her head. It's difficult. We get humiliated. What haven't they said to me? My neighbors yelled at me, "Leave us alone, you smelly arab." I was pushed. But this is a test from G-d. At the Central Bus Station I undergo security checks and am asked for identification. I don't want men seeing my ID picture, so I just show them my children to prove I'm not an Arab."

--Quote from a Burka and Hijab wearing Jewish woman in her late 20s, who lives in Jerusalem.

The above synopsis is just a small part of an entire article in Haaretz. Unfortunately, it's all in Hebrew, and I don't have time to translate the entire article in English. Suffice it to say, the above is more than enough.

With all the craziness going on here, I assume it's only a matter of time before we see driver's licenses like the one below...

Hot Chanie Hijabs?

**The top picture above was taken in the Bet Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem of a Chareidi woman walking around in a Burka. Credit: Alex Libeck, Haaretz.

Hattip: Lurker!


Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael