Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Women Hold Peaceful Selichot Prayer Service at Western Wall

It was a first in quite some time: The Women of the Wall held a prayer service at the Western Wall and got to worship, sing and even dance at the holiest site in Judaism largely unperturbed.

Unlike their controversial “rosh hodesh” service marking the start of each new month in the Jewish calendar, the women gathered late Sunday night to say Selichot prayers, which are traditionally said in the lead-up to the High Holy Days.

Given that the women were neither unfurling a Torah nor wearing tallits (prayer shawls) and tefilin (phylacteries), leaders of the Haredi community reportedly decided they would not send out legions of young religious women to block their access as they did at the last two prayer services.

While the Women of the Wall stood at the back of the women’s side of the Western Wall plaza, singing the words of age-old prayers asking God for forgiveness, streams of Orthodox teenagers and women filtered by on their way to and from the wall. Some stared, some sneered, some snapped photos on their smartphones as if happening upon an odd and exotic tribe.

Few of these stopped to say or shout anything at the group of about 80 worshippers connected to Women of the Wall. One aging ultra-Orthodox woman, after quizzing a member of the group about their “unusual” choice of prayer in unison and blowing of the shofar, shrugged: “Alright, then. May you all have a good year.”

For more go to Haaretz

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.