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
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Fast Forward UNESCO Will Vote on Plan To Declare Western Wall a Muslim Site
A Palestinian effort to have a United Nations agency declare Judaism’s holiest site a Muslim holy site is “an attempt to distort history,” Israel said. UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural body, is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the proposal concerning the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In a statement Monday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the proposal “an…
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Fast Forward Woman Detained for Taking Torah to Kotel
Israel Police officers detained a women’s rights activist at the Western Wall and confiscated her Torah scroll. Rachel Cohen Yeshurun, a Women of the Wall board member, was taken into police custody prior to a service Friday and released shortly afterwards, The Jerusalem Post reported. Women of the Wall runs gender egalitarian services at the…
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Fast Forward Western Wall Rabbi Apologizes for Turning Away Woman in Kippah
The rabbi of the Western Wall apologized that a woman was turned away from the holy site for wearing a kippah, but said he was not familiar with the incident. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch said in a statement issued Tuesday that if the incident did occur, the response was incorrect. Rabinovitch also said that the Israel…
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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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