Unprecedented clashes broke out at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning as hundreds of protesters from around the world, led by a delegation of prominent Reform and Conservative rabbis, marched in protest of the government’s failure to create an egalitarian prayer space at the holy site. The rabbis carried Torah scrolls into the…
The Reform and Conservative movements in Israel and the Women of the Wall have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to order the government to follow through on the plan to create the egalitarian prayer area next to the Western Wall. Should the plan not be implemented, the lawsuit filed Thursday said the current Western Wall plaza…
The latest campaign by leaders of the Reform movement of American Judaism to galvanize support for equal-access prayer at the Western Wall, known as Judaism’s “holiest site,” is a morally worthy goal. Given the remarkable degree of religious freedom enjoyed by the vast majority of Americans, an idea encoded in our very Constitution, it is…
This is not a story about Women of the Wall. That is a story for someone else to tell. So many women have been dedicated to that cause for so many years. I am just a sometimes joiner. A tourist, if you will. But my daughters really wanted to go. So, despite my dislike of…
Protestors greeted Women of the Wall participants with curses, heckling and disruptive whistle blowing during their monthly prayer Friday morning at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Approximately ten ultra-Orthodox female protestors gathered around the women, blowing whistles and yelling “Burn alive!” and “Whores!” while police officers stood on the sidelines, according to a press release…
Chances for de-escalation between Israel’s religious establishment and non-Orthodox movements in Israel and North America appear increasingly unlikely as new developments pile atop old ones adding layers of injury. Today, events seem to be careening toward a perfect storm. In recent weeks alone, the government has made clear that it intends to renege, for the…
The Kotel (the Western Wall), located in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, is unquestionably the holiest place in the world for the Jewish people. The remaining piece, the retaining wall of the Second Temple, is the place toward which Jews have prayed for as long as there have been a Jewish people….
On Thursday afternoon, around 500 men and women gathered in the Southern Plaza of the Western Wall — a stone piazza commonly used for swearing in soldiers or taking an iconic tourist selfie near Judaism’s holiest site — to hold a defiant afternoon prayer service in response to what they feel was a terrible display…
100% of profits support our journalism
