Reform and Conservative Leaders Demand Probe Into Violence at Western Wall

Image by haaretz

By Haaretz May 10, 2013

The heads of the Reform and Conservative movements will demand that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein investigate the involvement of rabbis on the government payroll in Friday’s violent demonstrations at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators showed up at the Western Wall on Friday morning to protest against Women of the Wall, a pluralistic women’s prayer group that holds a monthly prayer service at the wall, in which many of the participants wear prayer shawls and phylacteries. The ultra-Orthodox maintain that these practices are against Jewish law.

The demonstrators jeered at the women as they prayed, some throwing water bottles and chairs in their direction. Dozens of riot police were on hand to separate them from the women’s prayer group and they grew increasingly violent. After the women exited Dung Gate, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators ambushed them with rocks.

“I think it is very clear today who came to worship and who came to create provocations,” Gilad Kariv, the executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, told Haaretz. “The troubling aspect of it all is that the rabbi of the Western Wall and his team, all public officials, were deeply involved in organizing this Haredi protest. We intend to address the matter with the attorney general and have him investigate.”

For more go to Haaretz

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

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO