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Screaming. Shoving. Rock-throwing.
Sounds like something that might happen between groups of hard-line Israelis and Palestinians. But what about when both the angry mob and its targets are Jewish?
That’s the reality for Women of the Wall, a group of women who attempt to pray aloud and read Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. A new campaign aims to cast light on the irony of it all.
Beth Abraham and several other local synagogues have joined an international campaign to inundate Israeli political and religious leaders with 10,000 photos of women teaching, studying, reading from and embracing Torah scrolls — all acts condemned by the ultra-Orthodox groups that exert authority at the Western Wall.
“The question is, what kind of Jewish values are at work here?” said Sara Yakira Heckelman, the guest speaker at San Francisco Congregation B’nai Emunah’s Sept. 26 photo session. “What we’re not seeing is tolerance, pluralism and openness to Judaism as it’s evolved all over the world.”
Heckelman is a member of Friends of Women of the Wall, a local group of men and women who stand behind Women of the Wall as a rallying point for religious pluralism in Israel.
By tapping into its e-mail list and posting information on its Facebook page, Friends of Women of the Wall helped galvanize local efforts to submit images to the Women of the Wall photo campaign.
According to the campaign website, uploaded images and a message of solidarity are being sent to officials in Israel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Speaker of the Knesset Rubi Rivlin and Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites.
Heckelman organized four photo shoots at her synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel Judea in San Francisco, adding that Conservative congregations Beth Sholom, also in San Francisco, Netivot Shalom in Berkeley and Kol Shofar in Tiburon are among those local synagogues that have contributed to the cause.
“The vehemence of the hatred against women who wear tallits and want to open the Torah and pray was just shocking,” said Lori Rosenthal, a Women of Temple Beth Abraham board member.
More than 65 women were recently photographed during two photo sessions at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. The effort was sponsored by Beth Am Women, encouraged by Rabbi Janet Marder, and spearheaded by two Israeli women who have endured harassment at the Western Wall: Orna Morad of Palo Alto and her daughter, Sharon.
Orna, who has led several of Beth Am’s trips to Israel, joined Women of the Wall founding member Anat Hoffman and others at the Western Wall two years ago.
“It was a very sad experience for me,” Orna said. “[Haredi women] were shouting at us and saying bad things. I came back really shocked. I had never experienced anything like that. I grew up in Israel, but in a secular Israel.”
Before it was taken over by Orthodox authorities, “the Kotel belonged to everybody,” Orna said. “It’s not a private place and the [haredi] made it theirs. It’s not right.”
To send a photo to the Women of the Wall photo campaign, go to http://www.womenofthewall.org.il.
Correspondent Janet Silver Ghent contributed to this report.
When a journalist presents only one side of an issue giving an uninformed reader the impression that there is ONLY one side, then that is dishonest journalism. Hardly name calling I must say. My grip on the facts seems tight.
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10/05/2010 at 02:01 PM
What? Women are forbidden to pray at the Wall? Do my eyes deceive me? I have been to the kotel too many times to count, and there, each and every time there are…..women! What kind of a “journalist” would write such nonsense?
I can ask and answer the question readily - a dishonest journalist. One that would take an events out the ordinary and re-cast them as routine. In this case the desire of a reformist movement to act in a way that is not in line with the orthodox custom; that women don’t wear a prayer shawl, put teffilin or read out from the Torah which under orthodox Judaism is reserved for men. There is no place more orthodox for Jews then the Wailing Wall, and this was a deliberate provocation as out of touch with reality as a rush to the alter during Easter Services at St. Peters in an attempt to perform a gay marriage ceremony and then have the chutzpah to claim that gays are barred from the Vatican. With such a journalistic ethic now exposed, what expectation should we have that I would now accept anything Pazornik write as truthful? None.
Login to reply to this comment or post your own10/05/2010 at 11:31 PM
It seems that when we disagree about policy, some people, like califlefty above, resort to name-calling. There’s no dishonesty in what Amanda Pazornik wrote!
Login to reply to this comment or post your own“That’s the reality for Women of the Wall, a group of women who attempt to pray aloud and read Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.” In fact, it IS against the law for a woman to pray in this way. Get a grip!
10/08/2010 at 09:20 AM
The author of “Terribly one-sided article” obviously has never seen the documentary “Praying in Her Own Voice.” It is very easy to visit the kotel and be insulated from the violence against women filmed at the Wall and to remain ignorant of the documented civil rights violence against women by the Israeli government. Ignorance is easily cured with information. I challenge “Terribly one-sided article” author and the world to watch “Praying in Her Own Voice.” If your mind is truly open to civil dialogue, I’ll make book your opinion will change and you might even become an ally of the movement for religious and civil law equal rights in Israel - what a concept.
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