For the first time since 1983, the United States Supreme Court is taking on a case that could overturn its long-held approach to deciding when government-endorsed prayer in the public square violates the Constitution. The case, which involves an upstate New York town whose legislative meetings opened with prayer invocations that were given almost exclusively…
My Israeli-born kids recited Tehillim in kindergarten. Tehillim, the Psalms of David, are background music here in Jerusalem. But they weren’t when I was growing up in mid-20th-century New York. David’s words lived on in my siddur and set to Shlomo Carlebach’s music, but the idea of reciting them on their own, and not during…
Far-right Israelis are pressing for an end to an effective ban on holding Jewish prayers at a Jerusalem holy compound once dominated by Biblical temples and now home to al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s most revered sites. Palestinians oppose Jewish worship at the vast stone plaza overlooking Judaism’s Western Wall as a potential threat to…
Nearly 20 years ago I was living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a haven for observant Conservative Jews. I had my choice of multiple minyanim to attend; even the crowded weekend city streets had an air of the Sabbath, and kosher food abounded. There were so many Conservative and egalitarian options that I rarely ventured…
My first reaction to the ugly confrontation at the Western Wall on Friday was to be appalled and sickened. Attacks carried out mostly by ultra-Orthodox men, who heckled, shouted, and threw things at approximately 100 members of Women of the Wall attempting to pray at Judaism’s most sacred site, were a chillul Hashem, a desecration…
Natan Sharansky’s proposal to reduce tensions at the Western Wall has lost support from both traditional supporters and opponents of egalitarian prayer at the holy site. When Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, made the plan public a few weeks ago, it received at least tacit approval from a range of activists, including…
Images of police detaining women for public worship at the Western Wall could be a thing of the past, after an important ruling today by the Jerusalem District Court. A judge considered the main grounds that police cite for detaining members of Women of the Wall, the interdenominational feminist group that gathers monthly for prayers…
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky met Thursday with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, to express his shock at a letter sent by police warning that women would be arrested for reciting the Kaddish mourner’s prayer at the Western Wall. “The Kotel must continue to be a symbol of unity for…
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