Tensions are running high ahead of Monday morning’s Rosh Chodesh prayers at the Western Wall, as leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis have called on young seminary women to come out in large numbers to protest the monthly service held by Women of the Wall, a pluralistic prayer group. Since the seminaries are currently on summer breaks, special…
Comedian Sarah Silverman is known for her outrageous shtick. But her sister, Rabbi Susan Silverman, and niece, Hallel, have become leading members of the Israeli activist group Women of the Wall, which fights for women’s rights to pray as they see fit at the Western Wall. The Silvermans are well known for their involvement in…
I am, in my religious behavior, somewhere between what Israelis would call a hiloni or “secular” Jew and a masorti or “traditional” one. My wife and I light candles on Shabbat, we celebrate the Jewish holidays with our children and grandchildren, and now and then, for one reason or another, I find myself in a…
Fifty years ago civil rights activists staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of Woolworth’s in Jackson Mississippi to protest the segregated seating which existed, mandating separate areas for black and white patrons. Young students from nearby Tougaloo College, both black and white, sat together at the “whites only” counter, waiting futilely to be served….
At Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the use of racial profiling is so controversial that it is the subject of a legal challenge by human rights advocates. But what about a different type of profiling — religious profiling — and of all places at the Western Wall? As we reported, the tables were turned at the…
At the Kotel, the Jewish value of elu v’elu (“These and these are the words of the living God”) has degenerated into name-calling as well as into rock, trash and coffee throwing. These objectors claim that the women who come together on Rosh Hodesh — the beginning of the Jewish month — to pray in…
The tables were well and truly turned at the Western Wall this morning, as the Israeli Police, which until this spring detained women holding communal prayers, executed a mass operation to protect them and facilitate their worship. Until April 25, the police treated the monthly gatherings by the feminist alliance Women of the Wall as…
As the new Jewish calendar month approaches, attention has once again shifted to the Western Wall and to the planned prayer service by Women of the Wall. Haredi activists in Jerusalem have already called for mass demonstrations on Sunday against the planned women’s prayer and Torah reading at the Wall, marking Rosh Chodesh, the first…
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