Defiant Reform and Conservative Worshippers Hold Western Wall Prayer Service
Image by Haaretz
Conservative and Reform Jews held an egalitarian service at the Western Wall plaza, despite an order issued the previous day by the attorney general denying them permission to pray together at the plaza because it is not a designated area for prayer. The southern portion of the Western Wall, under Robinson’s Arch, is the area set aside for mixed prayer services.
Two other such egalitarian services have been held at the Western Wall Plaza in the last month.
The organizers of the service told The Times of Israel that they did not violate the attorney general’s order since they held a singing and dancing service and did not actually pray. Haaretz reported that the group indeed recited prayers but did not read from the Torah.
In April, the Supreme Court of Israel gave the government an extra three months to present a plan for egalitarian Jewish prayer at the Western Wall. Haredi Orthodox parties have protested any type of allowance for such prayer at the site.
The court’s ruling also declined to issue a temporary order allowing women to use the site’s Torah scrolls in the women’s section in contravention of orders by Rabinowitz.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
