Clashes as women fight for Western Wall rights
THERE WERE unprecedented clash es at the Western Wall on Wednesday as the struggle over women’s rights at the holy site turned physical.
Dozens of non-Orthodox Jews, furious that Israel has still not set up a special prayer section for them, marched towards the Wall carrying Torah scrolls, and were met with violence.
Men in strictly-Orthodox dress and security staff employed by the Western Wall pushed and shoved the protesters. Some demonstrators fended off attempts to grab their scrolls.
Andrew Sacks, a prominent Conservative rabbi, said he was pulled to the ground. “I’m still shaken,” he said in an interview a few hours afterwards. “I’ve been through a lot of conflicts over the years but I’ve never been pulled to the ground holding a Torah.”
The Conservative and Reform movements held the march with the Women of the Wall feminist prayer group because they are furious that eight months after they were promised a formal Kotel area where they can conduct prayers as they want, nothing has happened. The plan seems to have hit a dead end after strictly-Orthodox political parties moved to block it.
The march was seen as a way to make a unilateral change that is not being delivered by the government: allowing women to read from Torah scrolls at the Wall. Normally, Torah scrolls are only allowed in the men’s section.
Many of the marchers were diaspora Jews, among them people attending a meeting of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors. The demonstration is a major headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to keep the diaspora on side by implementing the plan but, at the same time, does not want to alienate the strictly-Orthodox parties in his coalition.
The Orthodox rabbi who oversees the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, said that the protest was an abuse of Torah scrolls. “The heart is broken at the sight of Torah scrolls, the holiest of holies, bandied about like signs at a protest,” he said. “Never has there been such a thing.” He also claimed Women of the Wall were causing a “civil war.”
Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall’s board, said it was Rabbi Rabinovitch who was “holding the Torah hostage” by insisting that only men can read from it at the wall and by preventing the government from establishing the planned non-Orthodox section.
She added the foreign participation in the march was a sign the diaspora was running out of patience.
Laura Janner-Klausner, senior rabbi to Reform Judaism, commented: “As our holiest site, the Kotel must be welcoming to all Jews. It is unacceptable that this non-violent protest was met with such a forceful response. The clashes demonstrate the urgent need for a space for pluralist and egalitarian prayer at the Kotel, guaranteed and protected by Israeli law.’