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 Heartland Western Wall, Face-Off Over Bucky Shvitz
Click to read the comic in full. In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by staff writer Paul Berger and artist-in-residence Eli Valley who face off over Eli’s most recent comic which takes on sex abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community. Then, Forward fellow Naomi Zeveloff drops by to discuss why an anti-abortion group…
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Fast Forward Boston Woman Detained Over Tallit at Western Wall
Jerusalem Police detained an American woman for nearly four hours on Thursday for wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, “incorrectly” at the Western Wall. Deb Houben, a native of Boston, was taken aside by police after concluding a prayer service celebrating the beginning of the Hebrew month with 65 other people from Women of the…
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Life Dirty Prayerbooks? Blame Women
Ah, the holy tears of Jewish women who weep while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Not holy, says the holy site’s chief rabbi. Instead, says Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, women’s tears are responsible for the high level of fecal contamination found in the prayer books at the Wall, or kotel, even those that are…
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Fast Forward Lack of Shade Makes Western Wall Intolerable
It was a beautiful, partially cloudy spring day in Jerusalem on Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 25 degrees Celsius in the shade. A perfect day for strolling around nearly any part of the city, with one truly glaring exception: the Western Wall Plaza. The glaring whiteness of the plaza pavement reflected the heat, and the complete…
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The Schmooze Stricter Gender Rules at Western Wall on Sukkot
During the Jewish festival season, which finished yesterday here in Israel (and draws to a close tonight in the States), thousands have descended on the Western Wall. All sorts have made their way to the popular pilgrimage site, from secular to Haredi Jews, as well as a sizable contingency of Christians from around the world…
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The Schmooze Being There
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree The recent revelation that iTunes has created an app that seems to substitute for confession underscores the power of technology to redefine the very notion of ritual practice. So, too, has “Tweet Your Prayers,” in which electronic kvitlakh, or personal petitions, can be sent to the kotel, the Western…
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Books Notes From the Tour Bus
How can young people’s first experiences of Israel be at once profound and revelatory, yet predictable and banal? This conundrum was well in place before 2000, when Taglit-Birthright Israel began offering free 10-day trips to Israel to qualifying diasporists aged 18 to 26. But the Birthright machine mass-produces the phenomenon — and now showcases it…
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The Schmooze Shyne On: Rapper Shyne Talks About His Prison Stint and Becoming a Hasidic Jew
Jewish-born hip hop star Shyne tells the Forward that he spent his nine-year prison stint “wrapping tefillin.” Could he soon be rapping about tefillin? Freed from U.S. detention 15 months ago for injuring three people when he opened fire in a Manhattan nightclub in 1999, the 34-year-old Belize native now resides in Jerusalem as Moses…
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