I was in Jerusalem for a week last month, and I never once went to the Kotel. This was unusual for me. On my many prior stays in Israel, the ancient stones of the Western Wall were like a magnet, drawing me close and stripping away my journalistic skepticism, leaving me feeling a little more…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Original Women of the Wall group held a prayer service in the women’s section of the Western Wall that included a Torah scroll. It was the first time that women have succeeded in bringing in and reading from a Torah scroll at the Western Wall since an interim Supreme Court ruling said…
Member of feminist prayer group Women of the Wall and their supporters were asked to submit to body searches at the Western Wall Jewish holy site on Thursday morning, in apparent violation of a recent Israeli High Court order against such searches. According to the group’s director, Lesley Sachs, about 50 men and 20 women…
When I was invited to sing in Israel this past Hanukkah, my heart filled with joy at the chance to celebrate the Holiday of Light in the City of Eternal Light. I went in search of truth and to return to my home of homes. But going home is never as easy as you think…
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously made a distinction between sacred space and sacred time. Jews – who for much of history were itinerant, kicked out of one country, and expelled from another – sanctified time, unlike Christians, who sanctified space. Sacred space took a back seat to sacred time and Shabbat, he argued, no matter…
Israel’s high court suggested in a ruling Wednesday that women have the right to read from the Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The court ordered the rabbi of the Western Wall to explain within 30 days why women “should not be allowed to pray in accordance with their custom at the traditional plaza.”…
Men and women who want to pray together at one of the holiest sites in Judaism could have trouble finding the one spot where that is allowed, now that Jerusalem officials removed a sign marking a small egalitarian platform south of the traditional Western Wall. The East Jerusalem Development Authority took down a sign for…
A few weeks ago I ventured out into the cold, trudged over to my nearest Home Depot and bought enough PVC to redo an entire bathroom. My bathroom is just fine, thanks. So why did I do it? The truth is, the rabbis made me do it. Let me explain. Hanukkah, the festival of lights,…
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