Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Police Plead for Calm as Women Plan Monthly Prayer at Western Wall

Jerusalem police asked haredi Orthodox members of the Jerusalem City Council and Women of the Wall leaders to refrain from confrontation at the Western Wall Plaza this week. Women of the Wall will hold its monthly Rosh Chodesh prayer service at the Western Wall on Wednesday morning.

The police and the rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, made the request over security concerns connected with the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which will require a large police presence, Rabinowitz said in a statement issued Tuesday by his office.

The haredi city councilmen were asked to refrain from bringing thousands of students to the site, and Women of the Wall was asked to come without tefillin. According to the statement, the haredim acceded to the request and Women of the Wall did not.

In recent months, the heads of haredi Orthodox yeshivas and women’s seminaries have rallied thousands of female students to fill the plaza in order to protest the prayer service and prevent its occurrence.

Last month, the Women of the Wall were forced to hold the service behind a police barrier in the southern part of the plaza, blocked from seeing the wall by the Mughrabi Bridge.

Tens of thousands of Muslims are expected to visit the site Wednesday for the last prayer of Ramadan.

Late last month, Women of the Wall asked Rabinowitz to allow them to use one of the site’s 100 scrolls available for public use or to bring in its own, which is forbidden.

Also late last month, the group held a small, non-publicized public prayer service at the wall that was not disturbed by protesters.

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.