This is the Forward’s coverage of the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, a Jewish holy site in Jerusalem adjacent to the Temple Mount.
Western Wall
The Latest
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Fast Forward Women of Wall Splinter Group Reads Torah Scroll at Kotel
For the second time in less than two months, a feminist prayer group has succeeded in bringing a Torah scroll into the women’s section of the Western Wall, in defiance of existing regulations at the Jewish holy site in Jerusalem. This morning, an organization known as Original Women of the Wall held a prayer service…
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Fast Forward Police Lock Western Wall Barrier Over Torah Fears
A male supporter of Women of the Wall was arrested after trying to pass a Torah scroll to the women’s section of the Western Wall during prayers for the new Jewish month. The partitions separating the men’s and women’s sections were locked together and metal barriers placed alongside them on Tuesday morning to prevent the…
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Opinion My Message to the Man Who Attacked Me at the Kotel
On a sunny morning last month, I was swept into the women’s section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem in a flurry of aggression directed at the Women of the Wall, the Israeli group fighting for women’s prayer at Jerusalem’s holiest site. (JTA) One of the group’s male supporters, Charlie Kalech, was strangled and thrown…
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Fast Forward Women Read From Torah Scroll at Western Wall
Women of the Wall read from a full-size Torah scroll during the group’s monthly prayer service at the Western Wall. The Torah scroll, one of 100 available for public use on the men’s side of the Western Wall, was passed across the barrier between the men and women’s sections by male supporters of the 26-year-old…
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Fast Forward 75,000 Gather at Western Wall for Priestly Blessing
More than 75,000 people gathered at the Western Wall for the Priestly Blessing ceremony. The worshippers converged on Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday for the blessing, called Birkat Kohanim in Hebrew, during the second intermediate day of Passover. The blessing also is held on Succot and Shavuot, the other of the Shalosh Regalim, or pilgrimage…
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Fast Forward Western Wall Cleaned for Passover
Workers at the Western Wall removed the notes placed in the cracks by worshippers in advance of Passover. The notes were removed Wednesday morning under the supervision of the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovich. They will be buried in the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem. The Western Wall Institute also receives tens…
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Fast Forward Benjamin Netanyahu Takes Iran Campaign to Western Wall
Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu took his campaign against a nuclear deal with Iran to Jerusalem’s sacred Western Wall on Saturday, on the eve of his departure to Washington to address Congress on the issue. His rare pilgrimage to one of Judaism’s holiest sites was highly symbolic – and political – an apparent attempt by Netanyahu,…
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News Temple Mount Bathrooms Spark Feud With Muslims
The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, condemned as “incitement” attempts by the Muslim Wakf to politicize the expansion of restrooms at the site. Muslim leaders at the Al-Aksa Mosque located on the Temple Mount say the expansion of the restrooms, located 55 yards from the Mughrabi Gate, is designed to desecrate Muslim…
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