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 Sharansky Gets Green Light from Netanyahu on Western Wall Expansion
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky was given a green light by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue his plan for a permanent egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall. Netanyahu told Sharansky to continue reviewing the situation with Zvi Hauser, the director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, and Yaakov Amidror, Netanyahu’s national security…
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Israel News Natan Sharansky’s Kotel Compromise Gives Him New Heft as Liaison to Diaspora
Fueled by his success in brokering an unlikely deal on women’s prayer at the Western Wall, Natan Sharansky could be entering a new phase in his career as the key interlocutor between Israel and American Jews, a task viewed as urgent on both sides of the Jewish world’s divide. Once the celebrated champion of the…
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Fast Forward Orthodox Face of Women of the Wall
Earlier this month, while several hundred women held their monthly Rosh Chodesh prayer service at the Western Wall, a group of ultra-Orthodox men jeered loudly at them from across the barrier separating men and women. “Reform Jews, get out of here,” they shouted. “Reform Jews do not belong to the people of Israel. Reform Jews,…
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News Kotel Compromise; Supportive Rabbis; Hezbollah’s Paper Pushers; Vice’s Vices
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward editor Jane Eisner to discuss a compromise — wrangled by former Soviet dissident Natan Scharansky — to allow egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall. Then, digital features editor Abigail Jones phones in to tell the story of how Akiva Herzfeld, a Maine…
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Opinion Orthodox Push Back on Kotel
The rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz isn’t opposed to the plan for an egalitarian prayer section there, he announced in a statement emailed to reporters yesterday. But it’s already clear that he doesn’t speak for the Haredi mainstream. Rabinowitz is Haredi, but softer on religious issues than most Haredi leaders. This is partly…
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Fast Forward Five Women Detained at Monthly Kotel Protest
Israeli police detained five women activists on Thursday at the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s most sacred sites, for wearing prayer shawls, which Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, a spokesman said. The incident occurred during a monthly prayer session by the Women of the Wall, a group opposed to police-enforced Orthodox controls at…
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Opinion Reimagining the Kotel
We tend to think of the Kotel, the massive white stones of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, as a scene frozen in time, ancient and immutable — men praying on one side, women on another, a strictly Orthodox synagogue on Judaism’s holiest plot of land. But the mechitzah separating men and women has been there…
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News Real Battle Over Western Wall Is Just Beginning in Israel
American Jews and others pushing for religious pluralism at Judaism’s most accessible sacred space may have won a major advance for their cause with the new compromise proposal put forth by Natan Sharansky. But it is only now, in Israel, that the real debate begins. The Western Wall, or the Kotel, as it is known…
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