TEL AVIV — The chair of the Knesset Finance Committee intends to block funding for a plan to expand the non-Orthodox prayer section of the Western Wall, a source familiar with the plan told JTA. Moshe Gafni of the haredi Orthodox United Torah Judaism party intends to use his committee post to deny the approximately…
TEL AVIV — Israel’s Cabinet is expected to vote Sunday on a proposal that would expand the non-Orthodox section of the Western Wall. The details of the proposal have not been released, but negotiations over expanding the non-Orthodox site — a segment of the wall called Robinson’s Arch, south of the traditional prayer site —…
The Women of the Wall group vowed to continue reading from the Torah in the women’s section of the Kotel in the wake of a report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised haredi Orthodox parties that it still would not be allowed. Army Radio reported Tuesday that Netanyahu met last week with the haredi parties…
Israel’s Knesset will hold a Hanukkah candle lighting including women and representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements. The lighting, to take place Tuesday, was set up by Knesset member Michal Rozin of the left-wing Meretz party as a response to a state candle-lighting ceremony at the Western Wall on Sunday that did not include…
Women of the Wall succeeded in lighting candles for Hanukkah at the Western Wall even after the rabbi who administers the sacred site defied an official order and refused to include women in the main Menorah-lighting ceremony on the first night of Hanukkah. Video posted by activists from Women of the Wall shows Kotel security…
A Hanukkah near-miracle reminds us of feminist divisions The quarter-century-old feminist prayer group Women of the Wall was on the receiving end of its very own Hanukkah near-miracle this week, when Israel’s attorney general’s office ordered the Kotel rabbi to include women in the state’s official Hanukkah ceremony. Women of the Wall launched a campaign…
On Hanukkah we sing, “Banu Hosheh Legaresh” (We came to drive out the darkness), as we remember the unlikely victory of the Maccabees against the Assyrians in Jerusalem. So too, Judith led the defeat of Holofernes, against all odds when the Israelites were in a very dark place of despair, having almost given up hope….
The Women of the Wall said they would not attempt to smuggle a Torah scroll to the Kotel during this month’s Rosh Hodesh prayer service due to the current security situation. In a letter sent Sunday to Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, Women of the Wall Chairwoman Anat Hoffman said the women…
100% of profits support our journalism
