Jerusalem – Israeli police with metal barriers and human chains on Friday held back hundreds of ultra-Orthodox men and women trying to prevent a liberal Jewish women’s group from praying at a key holy site, the first time police have come down on the side of the women and not the protesters.
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The switch followed a court order backing the right of the women to pray at the Western Wall in the Old City with practices Orthodox Jews insist are the role of men alone.
The “Women of the Wall” group has been holding monthly prayer services on the first day of the Hebrew month at the Western Wall in Jerusalem for more than two decades, wearing prayer shawls and performing religious rituals reserved for men under Orthodox Judaism. Accused by ultra-Orthodox leaders of violating “local custom” at the holy site, many members have been arrested.
On Friday the tables were turned because of the court ruling. Police protected the women and arrested three ultra-Orthodox men for disorderly conduct, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
It’s a turning point for the group. Along with the arrests, the women have faced heckling and legal battles in a struggle to attain what they say is their right: to worship at the wall – the holiest place where Jews can pray – as men do. Then last month a Jerusalem court instructed police to stop detaining the women.
“It’s a historic moment,” said Shira Pruce, a spokeswoman for Women of the Wall. “The police did an amazing job protecting women to pray freely at the Western Wall. This is justice.”
The plaza just in front of Western Wall, a remnant of the biblical Jewish Temples, is marked off into two distinct sections, one for men and the other for women, where they pray separately. Up to now, women have had to abide by the Orthodox strictures of prayer.
Under Orthodox Jewish practice, only men may wear prayer shawls and skullcaps, and most Orthodox Jews insist that only men should carry a Torah scroll. The more liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, marginal in Israel but the largest denominations in the United States, allow women to practice the same way as men do in Orthodox Judaism. They are ordained as rabbis, lead services, read from the Torah and wear prayer shawls.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox establishment opposes any inroads from these groups, fearing their customs and authority could be eroded. They have argued that visitors to the Western Wall, whose rabbi is ultra-Orthodox, must respect the local practices.
Israeli media reported that before Friday’s prayer service, some rabbis called on followers to flood the Western Wall in a bid to block the women from reaching the site.
Israeli TV video showed a packed Western Wall plaza with police forming a ring around the women and others shoving back ultra-Orthodox men. Female police officers had aligned in a human chain around young women peering out at the Women of the Wall.
Pruce said police escorted the women out of the area and boarded them on buses, which were then pelted with stones as they left the Old City.
The Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, who has in the past called the women’s group a “provocation,” tried to ease tensions at the holy place. “No one in Israel wants a disagreement at the Western Wall,” Rabinowitz told Israel Army Radio.
Israeli officials and lawmakers have been attempting to find a compromise that will satisfy both the women’s group and the ultra-Orthodox. They have proposed establishing a new section at the Western Wall where men and women can pray together. The proposal, if implemented, would be seen as a victory for the more liberal streams of Judaism, which have been battling to be granted recognition in Israel.
The Women of the Wall, in contrast, insist on their right to pray as they want in the current women’s section.
It’s part of a wider culture clash that has triggered a backlash against Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community.
The ultra-Orthodox make up about 10 percent of Israel’s 8 million citizens. For most of the last three decades, they have served in coalition governments, securing vast budgets for religious schools and exemptions from mandatory military service for tens of thousands of young men in full-time religious studies.
The system has bred widespread resentment among the secular and modern Orthodox majority. It became a central issue in January parliamentary elections, and ultra-Orthodox parties were eventually left out of the government.
Many Israelis also feel the ultra-Orthodox attempt to impose their values on the rest of society, with its activists pushing for gender-segregated buses and sidewalks, defacing billboards showing women or trying to force women to dress modestly.
This week, Israel’s attorney general urged Cabinet ministers to take measures to end gender segregation. Then on Thursday, Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she has instructed her staff to draft a bill that would make the segregation and humiliation of women in public a criminal offense.
“The dismissal of women from the public sphere harms not only their dignity, but also harms us as a society that aspires toward equality,” Livni wrote on her Facebook page.
whatever one thinks, violence is out of line. If in the beginning people would have ignored the small group, this whole issue would have died. It would have stayed a very small group of woman. However, by making it a big issue they gained strength and more resolve. Now, The Israeli government simply cannot give in to terrorism and the woman are there to stay.
As Marilyn manson (the rock star) told a Christen group, i love when you protest my records or concerts, you sold for me thousands or albums. The same is happening here
PS the ones that acted violently snould be drafted to the IDF immediately
So now the government’s position is that frum girls cannot daven at the kosel?
Thank you Lipman.
A media circus by a bunch of lowlife s they allow.
Beis Yaakov girls, mothers and bubbies, the ones who go regularly to the kosel and pour their hearts out are not allowed.
עולם הפוך. This is what the anti frum want. Including the holy bloggers.
This alone is a reason why these women of the wall must be removed. They want to stop , and now have stopped, others from davening at the kosel.
The great Zionist government at work. ראשית צמיחת includes stopping davening?
Prayers for the peace of Jerusalem.
I repeat what I said twenty four hours ago…Some battlegrounds and warzones act like magnets to disaffected people who flock there like mosquitoes to a blue light. The enmity, hatred and power plays of a place draw in all light. A downwardly spiralling vortex develops.
Now in the year 2013/5773 we are presented with a situation in the Old City where ongoing conflict seems to be assured due to the machinations of various “leaders”. (Maybe all these “leaders” should submit to a higher authority. If they do, even they may benefit. But, alas perhaps their egos and paypackets are getting in the way. A question…If the best factory in the world was broken how much would you pay the most qualified engineer in the world to fix it?)
I believe that G-d wants Jerusalem to be a city of peace and healing for all people. A place of uplifting spiritual thermals of potential. But you cannot heal in a place of conflict. The schechina will not dwell where there is strife.
If worship cannot be done in a spirit of joy what then is it?
Shabbat Shalom !
The protest was great, in terms of making a statement for Torah values, except for the moron who had the Chutzpah to throw garbage at the WoW. Throwing garbage at the Kotel is such a Chilul Hashem. We are supposed to set an example and be a “light unto the nation.” We should start by being a light unto our fellow Jews. The entire land is Kodesh. I wouldn’t even drop a peice of paper on the floor, let alone throw garbage. That person is worse than the WoW. They don’t know any better, he should.
It’s perfectly fine to protest, but do it like a mentch, as the thousands of people present did. One idiot makes us all look bad. We need to set an example and teach people in a constructive way, not give more fodder to our enemies.
What a Chillul Hashem, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Once again the satmar ravs vison was 1 million percent right! This is no yiddishe mdinah
WoW is Bnos Erev Rav, mamash!
It would have made sense for the girls from the yeshivos to “infiltrate” the women of the wall group and show them true love of torah and ahavas yisroel through dance and song rather than screaming from behind barricades meant to keep them apart. Kol hakovod to the police for dragging away the few Chareidi men who sought to violently disrupt the women’s davening or whatever they may call it. Overall, it looks like the new law is being respected and more women will begin to express themselves at the kosel in non-traditional forms.
Typical, really. The WoW’s protests were peaceful and orderly. The Tallitban’s were loud, violent and featured throwing rocks at people whose “crime” was a difference of opinion