As a member of Women of the Wall for more than 20 years, and as part of the group’s negotiating team, I believe that the creation of a third section of the Kotel sets a strong precedent in women’s status in Israel: women as administrators of a holy site, women as leaders, women as an…
Many are celebrating the official setting aside and expansion of a part of Jerusalem’s Western Wall for non-traditional public prayer. I’m not among them. Over nearly 50 years, the Kotel has been the only place in the world where Jews of all sorts — black-hatted and hair-covered Haredim, National-Religious, Reform and Conservative and agnostic —…
I am one of the Original Women of the Wall; you have been hearing about us for over two decades now. We are the ones who have not veered away from our single goal, fulfilling a pristine and realizable vision of the late Rivka Haut: to pray together according to our customs as Jewish women…
The new plan to create a larger, official egalitarian space at the Western Wall is a compromise of a compromise. In all the celebration, we can’t lose sight of that. Those who believe in promoting and protecting pluralistic Judaism in Israel have every right to proclaim victory — a rare emotion after years of increasingly…
When I woke to the news about the new policy for the Kotel, I was surprised to see so many of my friends celebrating. I suppose I should be, too: I’ve been wearing tefillin since I was bat mitzvahed over a decade ago. In that time, I have been to Israel twice, first with my…
Some of the loudest cheering for Sunday’s historic deal to create an egalitarian prayer space at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, came from 7,000 miles away. Reform and Conservative leaders in America called it the Israeli government’s first serious step to honor religious plurality in Israel, where the ultra Orthodox largely control Jewish expression…
JERUSALEM — A chorus of non-Orthodox and Diaspora leaders praised the landmark interdenominational compromise on the Western Wall. The compromise will expand the wall’s egalitarian section and place it under the authority of a pluralist committee, while solidifying haredi Orthodox control over the site’s traditional, Orthodox section. Women of the Wall, the women’s prayer group…
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s government on Sunday approved a compromise to expand the non-Orthodox Jewish prayer section of the Western Wall, putting to rest the decades-long fight between Women of the Wall and Israel’s haredi Orthodox religious establishment. The deal achieves what had been an elusive goal: an interdenominational consensus on Judaism’s holiest site…
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