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Women of the Wall

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File:Kotel wide view.jpg
The Kotel, the western wall of the Second Temple. In the background, on the left, is the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine, built on the Temple Mount.
File:Kotel mehitzah hilighted.jpg
Women and men are separated at the Kotel, as in most Orthodox synagogues, by a mechitza (highlighted).

Women of the Wall (Hebrew: נשות הכותל, Nashot HaKotel) is an organization based in Israel, whose goal is to secure women's right to hold and read the Torah and to wear religious garments at the Western Wall. They have organized a series of Women's prayer groups at the Kotel (Western Wall) each month on Rosh Hodesh. The group prays in a traditional service, and includes women reading from the Torah and wearing tallit, tefillin, and kippah. Because of laws and social attitudes regarding women praying at the Wall, members of the group have been assaulted by other worshipers and arrested by Kotel police.

History

The Kotel is a central Jewish holy site, part of the retaining wall of the Temple Mount on which the Second Temple stood before the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE. Currently, it is in the control of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and a special police force led by Chief of Police of the Kotel, Rafael Malichi.

Women of the Wall was founded in December 1988 during the first International Jewish Feminist Conference in Jerusalem. A group of approximately one hundred attendees went to pray in the women's section of the Wall, and were verbally and physically assaulted by ultra-Orthodox men and women there. After the conference was over, a group of Jerusalem women continued to pray at the Kotel frequently, suffering continual abuse; they eventually formed the Women of the Wall. After one incident, WOW filed a petition to the Israeli government; the government did not agree to the group's proposal, and included as response a list of halachic opinions that ban women from praying in groups, touching a Torah scroll, and wearing religious garments. Most Jews, even many Orthodox Jews, do not agree with these opinions; supporters of the WOW note that, according to Jewish law, a Torah scroll can never become ritually impure, even if a woman touches it.[1]

Women of the Wall have been violently attacked both physically and verbally by Haredi men.[2][3][4] As a result, Women of the Wall has fought a legal battle asserting a right to conduct organized prayer at the Kotel and challenging government and private intervention in its efforts. Their struggle ultimately led to two Israeli Supreme Court decisions and to a series of debates in the Knesset. In its first decision, on May 22, 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that it is legal for Women of the Wall to hold prayer groups and read Torah in the women's section of the main Kotel plaza undisturbed. Four days later, Haredi political parties including Shas introduced several bills to overturn the decision, including a bill that would have made it a criminal offense for women to pray in non-traditional ways at the western wall, punishable by up to seven years in prison.[1] Although the bill did not pass, the Israeli Supreme Court reconsidered its earlier decision. On April 6, 2003, the Court reversed itself and upheld, 5-4, the Israeli government's ban prohibiting the organization from reading Torah or wearing tallit or tefillin at the main public area at the Wall, on the grounds that such continued meetings represented a threat to public safety and order.[5] The Court required the government to provide an alternate site, Robinson's Arch.[6] The Robinson's Arch site was opened in October 2003, substantially after deadline, although it had not been completed.[7]

Arrests

Several members of the group have been arrested for acts that Women of the Wall members say are legal under the Supreme Court ruling.

Nofrat Frenkel was arrested for wearing a tallit under her coat and holding a Torah in November 2009.[8] She was not charged, but she was barred from visiting the Wall for two weeks.[9]

The group's leader, Anat Hoffman, was interrogated by the police in January 2010, fingerprinted, and told that she could be charged with a felony over her involvement with Women of the Wall. The questioning concerned WOW's December service, during which Hoffman said she did not do anything out of the ordinary.[10]

On July 12, 2010, Hoffman was arrested for holding a Torah scroll. She was fined 5,000 NIS and given a restraining order according to which she was not allowed to approach the Kotel for thirty days.[11]

Women of the Wall arguments

The Women of the Wall claim a right to worship at the Kotel in an organized fashion, and have presented their position in terms of equal rights for women, rights of religious liberty, and religion and state in Israel.

As Women of the Wall organizer Phyllis Chesler explained:

When a woman demands to be treated as a human being, even if she defines her humanity as (only) a "separate but equal" place at her Father's table, whether she's a "good" or a "bad" woman, she is viewed as a brazen revolutionary. We asked for our rights under civil and religious law. When we prayed, other worshipers, both men and women, verbally and physically assaulted us. We asked the Israeli state to protect us so that we could exercise our rights. The state claimed it could not contain the violence against us, and that we ourselves had provoked the violence by "disturbing/offending" the "sensibilities of Jews at worship." Women are not seen as "Jews" or as "worshipers" with "sensibilities."
What makes this line of reasoning difficult to swallow is that Israelis have continued to administer time-sharing access to the Cave of the Patriarchs at Hebron, a site holy to both Moslems and Jews, even after Baruch Goldstein shot 29 Moslems at prayer. Authorities could do as well on our behalf at the wall.
Many secular and otherwise enlightened people underestimate the psychological importance of organized religion. I am a liberation psychologist, engaged with the world's mental health. Therefore I know how important it is for both women and men, Jews and non-Jews, that women begin to claim sacred ground in spiritually autonomous and authoritative ways.[12]

Haredi arguments

The thrust of the Haredi and other Orthodox opposition to Women of the Wall praying as a group is their belief that Women of the Wall is motivated by a desire to make a political statement against traditional Judaism rather than a sincere desire to pray.[13] The influential Posek HaGaon Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled that women's prayer groups are permissible only when their motivations are deemed by the rabbis to be "sincere" and not influenced by feminism.[14] Some haredi opponents have claimed that the group's assembly is not in accordance with Orthodox halakha. According to Haredi Rabbi Avi Shafran, the group has also disobeyed the instructions of the Rabbi in charge of the Wall and of the Israeli Rabbinate.[15]

In "Trojan Horse at the Western Wall," an article first published in 2000, Rabbi Shafran wrote as follows:

The air of belligerence, too, that permeates the group’s directives to its followers bespeaks something considerably less rarefied than spiritual yearning. "Remember why you are doing this," writes Jesse [sic] Bonn, an Israeli member of the group offering "inspirational words" – "[because] Jewish women's voices, whether in polemics or prayer, will not be silenced..."
Even the language employed by the group’s spokesman is the language of war: "The struggle still lies before us... Armed with this legal declaration of our rights, we will be able to continue the fight..." [emphases added by Shafran], writes Danielle Bernstein, an Orthodox Jew, and Phyllis Chesler, a director of the women’s group’s board of directors.

In addition to opposition to group prayer, the haredi community also opposes the women's singing in the presence of men, reading from the Torah, and donning tallit and tefillin, ritual garments and objects traditionally associated with men.[16] All of these practices are prohibited by the Haredi authorities.

American response

The events surrounding the arrests of different members of WOW brought about an outcry from groups promoting religious pluralism in Israel. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), issued a statement strongly condemning the arrest The CCAR said its members "...look with shock and revulsion at today's arrest of Anat Hoffman... We view her arrest, interrogation and subsequent ban from visiting the Western Wall for a month... a desecration of God's name..."[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Szymkowicz, Sarah. "Women Of The Wall". Jewish Virtual Library.
  2. ^ Phyllis Chesler, "Wailing at the Wall", On the Issues Magazine, Fall 1997
  3. ^ Chairs Thrown at Women of the Wall
  4. ^ Video recording of chairs being thrown at the Women of the Wall
  5. ^ "The Israeli Supreme Court Denies Women The Right to Pray at the Western Wall", Findlaw. April 23, 2003
  6. ^ Backers of women’s prayer at wall weighing options after court ruling, Jewish Telegraph Agency, April 6, 2003
  7. ^ "Women of the Wall Wail Over New Prayer Site" Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2003
  8. ^ Police Arrest Woman Praying at the Western Wall
  9. ^ The ‘Crime’ of Praying with a Tallit, and a Plea for Tolerance: First Person
  10. ^ Women of the Wall Leader Interrogated by Police
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ Claiming Sacred Ground: Women's eight-year struggle to pray out loud at "the Wailing Wall", On the Issues Magazine, Summer 1996
  13. ^ Trojan Horse at the Western Wall
  14. ^ Frimer, Arye and Dov, Women's Prayer Services Theory and Practice Tradition, 1998
  15. ^ Rabbi Avi Shafran, "Trojan Horse at the Western Wall" (opposition view)
  16. ^ Stonewalled, Haaretz
  17. ^ [2]

Further reading

  • Chesler, Phylis and Rivka Haut (editors). Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site. Jewish Lights Publishing (December 2002). A collection of 35 essays.
  • Katzir, Yael. Praying in Her Own Voice. Documentary film. New Love Films: 2007. 60 minutes.
  • Lederman, Faye. "Women of the Wall". Documentary film. 31 Minutes. New Day Films.
  • Szymkowicz, Sarah. Women Of The Wall. Jewish Virtual Library.
  • Haberman, Bonna Devora, “Women of the Wall: From Text to Praxis.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 13/1 (Spring 1997): 5-34.

External links

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