Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Women Smuggle Torah Scroll Into Western Wall Prayer Service

Hundreds of women joined Women of the Wall for the group’s monthly Rosh Chodesh service, which included a Torah scroll smuggled in to the women’s section of the Western Wall.

Among the some 300  women who assembled for the service on Thursday morning to mark the new Hebrew month of Iyar were those from nine pre-army leadership training programs from across the religious spectrum, the group said in a statement.

The women prayed enclosed in metal security barriers at the side and back of the women’s section manned by police and Western Wall security.

Some Orthodox women protested the service with signs and by making noise with sticks to drown out the prayers and Torah reading.

The group has held its monthly Rosh Chodesh prayer for the new Hebrew month in the women’s section for more than 25 years.

In January, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of women being allowed to read from the Torah in the women’s section at the Western Wall, and put a halt to security searches of the women for items such as Torah scrolls, tallitot and tefillin.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.