Slideshow: Women of the Wall’s Photo Campaign

By Elissa Strauss August 24, 2010

In attempt to counter those who accuse them of being extremists, Women of the Wall — composed of women who gather once a month for a prayer service at the Western Wall — recently asked women around the world to send in photographs of themselves reading from or holding a Torah. The campaign’s goal: Get 10,000 women to send these images (via the organization’s website), along with a letter of solidarity, to political and religious leaders in Israel.

The letter implores: “We ask you to open your eyes and see what is ordinary every place else in the world: women embracing Torah, reading from the Torah, rejoicing with the Torah and learning from the Torah. We ask that you see and be blind no more to the injustice of religious oppression.”

The campaign follows the June arrest of Women of the Wall chair Anat Hoffman for the crime of “praying with a Sefer Torah,” according to a spokesman for Israeli police. Hoffman insisted that she was not praying with the Torah, but rather holding it as she walked from the Kotel plaza to the section of the wall where the group is allowed to hold its service.

Already, women from around the world, daughters, mothers and grandmothers, alone and in groups, have sent in pictures of themselves with a Torah, to show their support for Women of the Wall.

Watch a slideshow featuring some of the images that have come in:

Elissa Strauss has written for the Forward over a number of years. She is a regular contributor to CNN, whose work has been published in a number of publications including The New York Times, Glamour, ELLE, and Longreads.

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