Dirty Prayerbooks? Blame Women
Image by wikimedia commons
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen May 17, 2012
Ah, the holy tears of Jewish women who weep while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Not holy, says the holy site’s chief rabbi. Instead, says Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, women’s tears are responsible for the high level of fecal contamination found in the prayer books at the Wall, or kotel, even those that are found on the men’s side of the high mechitzah.
If anyone had any doubt that the man in charge of Judaism’s holiest site — Rabinovitch not only enforces the regulation banning women from praying together with a sefer Torah in the women’s section, but also seeks to segregate men and women throughout the entire large plaza that forms the approach to the kotel — should not be in his important post, then this assertion should make that perfectly clear. His statement underscores just how backwards attitudes toward women have become in the fervently Orthodox community. It also makes clear that it isn’t the women’s tears that are full of feces.
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
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
