Reform Jewish leaders are calling for an investigation following reports that an Israeli colleague was roughed up by police after leading a women’s prayer group at the Western Wall. Reform leaders in the United States said Thursday that they have spoken with Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren, about the incident involving Anat Hoffman, executive…
Jerusalem police arrested the leader of Women of the Wall for singing at the Western Wall. Anat Hoffman was arrested Tuesday evening for “disturbing public order.” The organization posted on its Facebook page Wednesday afternoon that Hoffman was in court. “She is being accused of singing out loud at the kotel, disturbing peace,” the post…
Anat Hoffman was arrested at the Western Wall on Tuesday night for saying the Sh’ma Israel, Judaism’s central proclamation of faith, out loud at Israel’s holiest site. “I was saying Sh’ma Israel and arrested for it. It’s just unbelievable,” she said in an interview from her bathtub, where she was soaking limbs bruised from being…
If the current Israeli government were in power back in biblical times, there is a good chance that there would actually be no State of Israel today in need of governing. This is the message of a simulated correspondence between the Israel Religious Action Center and Israel’s Ministry of Interior, written by Anat Hoffman, IRAC’s…
Jerusalem police are recommending prosecution for Anat Hoffman, the Women of the Wall leader who was arrested in July while carrying a Torah in the Western Wall plaza. Read The Sisterhood’s interview with Hoffman — her first following the arrest — here and view our slideshow of women around the world holding or reading from…
In attempt to counter those who accuse them of being extremists, Women of the Wall — composed of women who gather once a month for a prayer service at the Western Wall — recently asked women around the world to send in photographs of themselves reading from or holding a Torah. The campaign’s goal: Get…
The monthly gathering of the prayer group Women of the Wall Wednesday morning — the first since last month’s arrest of the group’s leader for the crime of “praying with a Sefer Torah” — was a study in contrasts. The sound of women’s voices singing psalms of praise — the Rosh Chodesh Hallel prayers —…
Forward alumna and current Tablet editor in chief Alana Newhouse has an incisive op-ed in today’s New York Times today, warning that Israel’s Rotem Bill, which would enshrine official approval of conversion to Judaism in the hands of ultra-Orthodox rabbis, will lead to a split between Israel and the Diaspora. She’s right, of course, though…
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