Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rabbis Recruit Ultra-Orthodox Girls for Western Wall Prayer Counter Protest

Thousands of girls from ultra-Orthodox seminaries in Jerusalem are expected to protest at the Western Wall on Friday, in response to a court ruling permitting the Women of the Wall prayer group to hold non-Orthodox services in the central plaza of the holy site.

Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, the head of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, has instructed the principals of girls’ seminaries in the Jerusalem area to send their students to conduct prayer services at the Western Wall on Friday morning, the first day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. The thousands of ultra-Orthodox girls are expected to face a few dozen members of the Women of the Wall group, who hold non-Orthodox Rosh Chodesh prayer services at the Kotel on the first day of every Hebrew month.

The prayer service was planned following consultations with Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz and Knesset members from United Torah Judaism. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is also calling for women and seminary girls to pray at the Western Wall on Friday morning, according to the ultra-Orthodox website Behadrei Hadarim.

Rabbi Sthteinman has made it clear that the ultra-Orthodox worshippers are not to resort to violence.

Friday’s protest is unique in that ultra-Orthodox leaders rarely call on women to participate in public struggles. It is even more unusual for female students to be summoned to a protest.

For more go to Haaretz

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.