3 Knesset Members Join Protest at Western Wall

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Three female Knesset members participated in a prayer service held by the Women of the Wall in the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem on Tuesday morning.
According to the legislators, their participation in the prayer service prevented the arrest of other women who came to worship. This marks the first time in many months in which no arrests were made at a Women of the Wall event.
The three women – MK Stav Shafir (Labor), MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz), and MK Michal Rozin (Meretz), confronted policemen who tried to prevent their entry into the area with prayer shawls – an accouterment traditionally used by men only – in their possession.
“At first they tried to stop us from entering the Wall Plaza on the grounds that we constitute a disturbance of public order but there is nothing that 100 women armed with prayer shawls can’t do,” Shaffir said. “Surrounded by police, both male and female, and to the shouts of the ultra-Orthodox men and blasts of the ram’s horn from the other side of the fence – we stood facing the Wall and we prayed.”
For more, to to Haaretz.com
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
