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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News Women of Wall Deeply Split Over Anat Hoffman’s Acceptance of Prayer Deal
A dark cloud hangs over Women of the Wall’s 25th anniversary celebrations slated for November 4, as the movement stands on the verge of a major split. More than 100 supporters from North America, who are taking part in a special anniversary trip, will join WOW’s Israeli members at a monthly prayer meeting at the…
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Fast Forward Western Wall Rabbi Warns Ultra-Orthodox To Stay Away During Women’s Prayer Protest
The Western Wall rabbi requested that haredi Orthodox girls not fill the plaza for the next Women of the Wall service. Aiming to reduce tension at the plaza, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz made the request on Thursday, one day before the monthly Rosh Chodesh service by the group. Rabinowitz said in a statement that the mass…
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Fast Forward 80,000 Men Gather at Kotel for Priestly Blessing
Some eighty thousand men gathered at the Western Well for the holiday priestly blessing. Some 100 kohanim blessed the men gathered for morning prayers on Sunday, according to a statement issued by the office of the Rabbi of the Western Wall. Among those in attendance at the prayer service were the chief rabbis of Israel,…
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Fast Forward Western Wall Rabbi Condemns Muslims for Riot on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
The rabbi of the Western Wall called on the world to condemn riots by Muslims on the Temple Mount during Rosh Hashanah. Palestinians threw rocks at police and at Jewish worshipers on Friday on the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, following Muslim prayer services at the Al-Aksa Mosque there, as well as at…
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Fast Forward Western Wall Prayer Platform Slammed by Jordan
A Jordanian government minister condemned Israel’s construction of a new prayer space south of the existing Western Wall Plaza. Jordan’s State Minister for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani on Monday called the construction of a platform in the area for egalitarian prayer “a blatant attack on the Muslim monuments and Wakf land which is an integral…
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Opinion A Truce in the Kotel Wars?
The ongoing drama over who is allowed to pray at the Western Wall, and where, and how, and under what circumstances, encapsulates all that divides and distresses the Jewish people today, and all that can unify us. We understand the skeptics and cynics. We appreciate how difficult it will be to pry control over what…
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Fast Forward Women Hold Peaceful Selichot Prayer Service at Western Wall
It was a first in quite some time: The Women of the Wall held a prayer service at the Western Wall and got to worship, sing and even dance at the holiest site in Judaism largely unperturbed. Unlike their controversial “rosh hodesh” service marking the start of each new month in the Jewish calendar, the…
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News Is Western Wall Prayer Platform Step Forward for Women — Or Back?
For more than a decade, Jews have been permitted to hold egalitarian prayer services at a southern section of the Western Wall that lies out of sight of Orthodox worshippers. But the area, known as Robinson’s Arch in the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, never became a government-supported prayer facility. Worshippers have always been guests of the…
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