Women of the Wall asked the rabbi of the Western Wall to allow the group to use one of the site’s Torah scrolls. In a letter sent Sunday, Women of the Wall made the request to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz for their Rosh Chodesh prayer service, marking the start of the new Jewish month. The group…
On the morning of July 8, at the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av, the Western Wall plaza was a cacophonous mess. Women of the Wall, the activist group that holds women’s prayer services each month at the site known as the Kotel, loudly sang festive prayers at a spot far from the wall…
Yesterday evening marked the beginning of Tisha B’Av, the annual fast day which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the Holy Land. Regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish calendars, all pleasurable activities are forbidden. As in a period of mourning, there is…
When I woke up last Monday morning, I ditched my cozy blankets and jumped out of bed before sunrise to join my fellow Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion students as we set out on a holy mission. Heading over to the Kotel for Rosh Hodesh with Women of the Wall, we knew we were…
Today, Haredi activists headed en masse to the women’s section of the Western Wall before the interdenominational feminist group Women of the Wall (WOW) were due to assemble for their monthly prayer service. Citing concern for the women’s’ “personal safety” police said that the high concentration of Haredi opponents to the group assembled by the…
Several thousand ultra-Orthodox protesters effectively blocked Jewish women activists campaigning for equal worship rights at the Western Wall from holding a monthly prayer session on Monday at the holy site. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said members and supporters of the Women of the Wall group were escorted by police to a spot a short…
Women of the Wall conducted its monthly prayer service at the Western Wall plaza with occasional disturbance from protesters, but were quarantined far from the wall itself. The women, who came to the holy site Monday morning to mark the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av, were blocked with barricades in the northeastern corner…
Jane Eisner’s special report, A Day at the Kotel, is running in three parts, ending today. Each piece focuses on a different time of day at the Western Wall, and the implications for the battle over the future of Judaism’s holiest site. By early evening, a summer breeze is making its way across the Kotel…
