Women of the Wall

Jewish feminist organization

Women of the Wall (Hebrew: נשות הכותל, Neshot HaKotel) is a multi denominational Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, in a fashion that includes singing, reading aloud from the Torah and wearing religious garments (tallit, tefillin and kippah). Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high" restrictions on religion, and there have been limits placed on non Orthodox streams of Judaism. One of those restrictions is that the Rabbi of the Western Wall has enforced gender segregation and limitations on religious garb worn by women. When the "Women of the Wall" hold monthly prayer services for women on Rosh Hodesh, they observe gender segregation so that Orthodox members may fully participate. But their use of religious garb, singing and reading from a Torah have upset many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, sparking protests and arrests. In May 2013 a judge ruled that a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls had been misinterpreted and that Women of the Wall prayer gatherings at the wall should not be deemed illegal. In January 2016, the Israeli Cabinet approved a plan to designate a new space at the Kotel that would be available for egalitarian prayer and which would not be controlled by the Rabbinate. Women of the Wall welcomed the decision, but the plan faced opposition from other factions, including some ultra Orthodox members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, who threatened to withdraw over the government's plan to create non Orthodox prayer space at the Western Wall in deference to the Women of the Wall. In January 2017, the Israeli High Court ruled that if the government of Israel could not find "good cause" to prohibit women reading from the Torah in prayer services at the Kotel within 30 days, women could do so; they also ruled that the Israeli government could no longer argue that the Robinson's Arch area of the plaza is access to the Kotel. The petition for women to read from the Torah at the Kotel had been brought by a group that split off from the Women of the Wall, calling itself the "Original Women of the Wall". According to Ronit Kampf, the group's struggle has been "the most covered women's issue in the history of the Israeli media."

From the start, Women of the Wall included Orthodox members and opted to claim their service was run according to "Orthodox standards". This was despite the fact that according to orthodox standards, women do not wear tzitzit, tefillin, or read from the Torah. Most Orthodox individuals were offended, including some who call themselves Orthodox feminists. Women of the Wall is a multi denominational group, including Reform, Conservative and modern orthodox members. Since 1988, the group has faced a legal battle for recognition of their right to pray at the Western Wall. Their presence is deemed offensive by Orthodox worshippers at the site and there have been numerous court proceedings to settle the issue. On the Fast of Esther 1989, Orthodox men, outraged by the women's singing, hurled chairs and verbal insults at the women, which resulted in the deployment of tear gas to quell the violence. In 2010, police arrested two Haredi men at the Western Wall Plaza on suspicion that they threw chairs at a Women of the Wall group that was praying aloud at the site. In 2009, the first woman was arrested for praying with a tallit. The struggle by the Women of the Wall is seen by the Israeli Orthodox religious establishment as an attempt to undermine their influence in an effort to introduce religious pluralism. Opposition from the Orthodox stems from Halachic concerns; this manifests publicly as a general disdain for non traditional ritual in an area they claim serves as an Orthodox synagogue. Orthodoxy does not permit women to constitute a minyan (prayer quorum) and while the women have not considered themselves as doing so, this has not calmed Orthodox sensibilities. Initially, the group did not receive support from Israel's primarily Orthodox religious authorities. Supporters highlighted the fact that only in Israel are Jewish women prohibited from praying according to their custom in a public location and a 2003 High Court ruling which prevented them from conducting prayer services at the wall was overturned in 2013. A plan was approved by the Israeli Cabinet in January 2016 to designate a new space at the Kotel that would be available for egalitarian prayer and which would not be controlled by the Rabbinate. The organisation was created by Jewish women, mostly from the diaspora, and a significant number of participants are American immigrants or part of the English speaking community. This is in part due to the differing social conditions of Orthodox women in the United States and Israel respectively. Shmuel Rosner describes the phenomena as an "American imported battle" for religious pluralism, religious moderation and tolerance. He notes that civil rights and feminism are American imports, late in coming to Israel.

In their struggle for civil rights and religious freedom, members of the group have been willing to engage in civil disobedience and become "prisoners of conscience". 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. She was not charged, but she was barred from visiting the Wall for two weeks. 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. 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. On October 16, 2012, Hoffman was arrested again. She was accused of singing out loud and disturbing the peace, and was released from police custody the following day. The following morning Lesley Sachs and board member Rachel Cohen Yeshurun were detained for "disturbing public order". Hoffman described the ordeal: "In the past when I was detained I had to have a policewoman come with me to the bathroom, but this was something different. This time they checked me naked, completely, without my underwear. They dragged me on the floor 15 meters; my arms are bruised. They put me in a cell without a bed, with three other prisoners, including a prostitute and a car thief. They threw the food through a little window in the door. I laid on the floor covered with my tallit. I'm a tough cookie, but I was just so miserable. And for what? I was with the Hadassah women saying Sh'ma Yisrael." On February 11, 2013, ten women who were part of WOW, including two American rabbis, were detained for praying at the wall and "as a result of them wearing the garments that they're not allowed to wear specifically at that site." The women were barred from returning for 15 days. On April 11, 2013, five women were detained for allegedly goading and offending other worshippers. They were subsequently released by Judge Sharon Larry Bavili without restrictions as she ruled that the female worshippers did not instigate the disturbance, but rather it was the male and female Orthodox protestors countering them that initiated it. In April 2013, a group UK Progressive rabbis protested to the Israeli ambassador calling threats to arrest women saying Kaddish "shocking". On July 17, 2015, Women of the Wall board member Rachel Cohen Yeshurun was arrested by police in the prayer section of the Kotel after smuggling in a Torah Scroll to the Kotel in the early morning before the Rosh Hodesh service began. On June 7, 2016, Women of the Wall Executive Director Leslie Sachs was detained by police for 'smuggling' a Torah into the Kotel, and according to a statement released by Women of the Wall detained for 'disturbing the public order'. On June 14, 2018, several Women of the Wall board members were briefly detained outside the Western Wall plaza by police demanding to see their ID.

The Women of the Wall have consistently claimed that there is no single "custom of the place" and that their right to pray is a religious freedom enshrined in Israeli law. They believe the Western Wall is a religious site as well as a national site and therefore belongs to the entire Jewish population. Their efforts to challenge the current customs at the Wall and break the ritual status quo continues as they believe that the Wall is a holy place for all Jews. They repeatedly stress that the group is not Reform Jews, but come from all affiliations and that their conduct strictly adheres to Orthodox Jewish Law and that their prayer is genuine and not a political stunt. Orthodox Jewish law strictly prohibits women reading from the Torah, and to a lesser degree women wearing tallit and kippahs. Their central mission is to "achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall." The women have made progress and as of 1988, the women have held occasional, uninterrupted prayer services wearing tallitot and tefillin.

The Israeli Orthodox Jewish religious establishment is opposed to the services conducted by the Women of the Wall. Orthodox rabbis claim that even if such a manner of prayer is theoretically permitted by Jewish Law, it is against Jewish custom. Even if support can be found in Jewish legal sources for various activities, the force of custom is equal to absolute law and it is the custom which determines proper conduct. Various legal opinions recorded in Halacha cannot be manipulated to introduce new forms of prayer. The opinion of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, which is cited by Women of the Wall in support of their cause, is rejected by the establishment, as they view the Women of the Wall as being motivated by feminism rather than a sincere spiritual desire. Their struggle is also seen as an attempt to undermine their influence and as a strategy for non Orthodox groups to gradually gain official recognition at state level, paving the way for the introduction of religious pluralism in Israel. In a letter to the group, Yehuda Getz, the government appointed rabbi of the Western Wall, urged them to stop "straying from the hallowed traditions of generations of Jews before you"

From the outset, the Women of the Wall have been subjected to heckling and abuse from male and female Orthodox worshipers. More recently, those who oppose the Women of the Wall have been criticized by Israel's predominantly secular society, which objects not only to the harassment of Women of the Wall but attempts to ban mixing of genders in public places such buses and sidewalks. MK Yaakov Litzman stated that "there is no desecration greater than that of women who come to desecrate the holiness of the Western Wall with all kinds of provocations such as carrying a Torah scroll and other things reserved by Jewish law only to men." In 2009, former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef said: "There are stupid women who come to the Western Wall, put on a tallit (prayer shawl), and pray These are deviants who serve equality, not Heaven. They must be condemned and warned of." Rabbi Yosef Reinman suggested that it is "not religious need," but rather "religious politics" which motivates the woman. Prominent Orthodox women have also disapproved of the group. Nehama Leibowitz likened their worship to a form of "sport", and the widow of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu said the group had "gone completely mad" and their actions amount to "desecration". Ultra Orthodox former Jerusalem city councilwoman Mina Fenton said the women are "a fringe group that attracts people who read the prayer book upside down." Disapproval included a wide range of name calling, such as calling Women of the Wall "witches", "prostitutes", "weird", "childish", and "provocateurs", for wanting to pray in their fashion. The Israeli state and Ministry of Religion referred to Women of the Wall as "witches", who were doing "Satan's work"; "more like prostitutes than women"; "misled, tainted, by modern secular feminism". Yet indifference and condemnation for the women's plight came from all sectors of Israeli society, not just from the religious right. Even liberals saw their actions as a "provocation", and women's organisations in Israel viewed their behaviour as "weird and objectionable". Hillel Halkin called them "childish provocateurs" and Ithamar Handelman Smith wondered what the Women of the Wall wanted to achieve. Israeli society in general and the secular media were also initially unsympathetic to their cause, possibly reflecting a general hostility to feminism. Susan Sered suggests the public saw the group as "symbolically desecrating Judaism's holiest site" and claims that many in Israel saw the group as "American Reform interlopers trying to appropriate a state symbol of national identity." and their actions "alienated Israelis of almost all political persuasions". Consequently, the women at first received minimal grass roots support. Lahav explains that secular indifference results from an acceptance of the view espoused by the Orthodox establishment when it comes to religious issues and that those on the Left of the political spectrum ignore the women in an attempt to gain Orthodox support for their dovish positions on the Arab Israeli conflict. Popular support for the women initially came mainly from Reform and Liberal communities in North America. In 1990, the Central Conference of American Rabbis encouraged its members to support Women of the Wall. In 2000, the Union for Reform Judaism declared it "warmly commends the Women of the Wall for its courageous and principled struggle to be allowed to pray at the Western Wall" and urged Reform congregations to "express solidarity with the Women of the Wall in appropriate ways." Recently, a number of non Orthodox gatherings and services have been held publicly in America in solidarity with the Women of the Wall. Within the Reform movement, WOW has faced both support and criticism. Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who is considered the leader of the Reform movement in Israel, argued that WOW's request of 11 hours a year did not indicate an urgency that required a change in policy, but he came to support WOW's goals because they align with the Reform movement's opposition to the exclusion of women from religious society in Israel.

Some Jewish feminist activists in Israel have seen the Women of the Wall's activities as being inconsistent with their political activities. Leah Shakdiel of the anti war group Women in Black describes the Wall as "all maleness and war". Shakdiel maintains that Israeli society's general opposition to the Women of the Wall is a result of a religious and secular alliance against what they perceive as a feminist challenge. Ran Hirschl believes the conflict is "a contest for cultural hegemony between a secularist libertarian elite and traditionally peripheral group," namely the ultra Orthodox community. Frances Raday posits that the violent opposition by Orthodox Jews stems from the "desire of the Orthodox establishment to preserve religious patriarchal hegemony against the challenge of religious feminism," rather than an attempt to preserve Jewish Law itself. Phyllis Chesler of Women of the Wall wrote: "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".