Breaking the law. Photo via Women of the Wall.
In December 1988, a group of Jewish women calling themselves the Women of the Wall began what would become an over 20 year battle for women’s rights. Their mission? To pray together at Judaism’s holiest site, the Kotel (aka the Western or Wailing Wall):
What we did was the equivalent to nuns conducting an all-female prayer service—but at the Vatican. As important: The participants came from Israel, the United States, Europe, South America, and Australia; represented every religious denomination of Jewry, (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, meta-denominational); and every political persuasion (left-wing, centrist, right-wing). Some of us donned tallesim (prayer shawls) and head coverings, many of us did not. We were radiant, overwhelmed, humbled, united.
Unfortunately, egalitarian, unified worship by women at the Kotel is illegal, and the Women of the Wall have met violent opposition from ultra-Orthodox men at the Wall. Ultra-Orthodox Jews (also known as Haredim or Hasidim) are only a small minority of the Jewish population worldwide–about 10% of Israeli Jews and 3% of American Jews–but they wield disproportionate power in Jerusalem, where the Israeli government allows their rabbinate to control access to the Kotel. Unfortunately this allows the Haredim to impose their extremely narrow, misogynist version of Judaism on all who pray there. Women who want to read Torah and pray aloud–the accepted standard in many, if not most, Jewish congregations–are met with threats and harassment.
In “Returning to the Kotel” Women of the Wall member Ha-viva Ner-David describes what happens when they go to pray:
As soon as I arrived at the Kotel, I spotted my group. In fact, aside from a few female worshippers under umbrellas up at the Wall, we were the only women who showed up that stormy morning. Yet, I heard loud protests coming from the men’s section. It seems a group of ultra-Orthodox men had shown up that morning not to pray, but to protest our service. They were yelling “Gevalt! Gevalt!” over and over again. And when we left the Kotel plaza to read the Torah portions for Rosh Hodesh and Hanukkah – singing “Not by weapon and not by might but by spirit!”- they followed alongside us on a raised platform and spat on us and threw plastic bags filled with water on us from above.
There have been numerous reports of ultra-Orthodox men spitting, cursing, shoving, slapping these women worshippers, as well as throwing tear gas, bottles and metal chairs at them when they come to pray en masse. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz explains why:
The women are not permitted to pray in the women’s section at the Western Wall for three reasons: They wrap themselves in a tallit, they read the Torah and their voices rise up and trill exactly like those of the men. They thus feel closer to their God. However, this is precisely what rankles the ultra-Orthodox establishment. Their behavior offends the sensibilities of the other worshipers, say the representatives of that establishment. According to halakha (traditional Jewish law), a woman may not touch the Torah, lest she is unpure, she may not raise her voice in prayer because “hearing a woman’s voice is indecent,” and wrapping oneself in a prayer shawl is arrogance, because “the honor of the king’s daughter lies within.”
But the zealots who oppose Women of the Wall claim–completely unconvincingly–that their opposition is not gender discrimination or a denial of the women’s right to worship. The Haredi rabbis say the Women are motivated not by a sincere desire to worship, but by a desire to make a political statement against traditional Judaism. They also criticize the women’s language and behavior as “belligerent” and “provocative.” That they think they can judge the sincerity of women’s prayers is ridiculous and patronizing, and merely a front for what really offends them: that women are challenging their misogynist rules. For the ultra-Orthodox the real problem is that these women are not properly submissive, either in religion or in life:
During the 14 years of their struggle, the Women of the Wall were depicted in the ultra-Orthodox community as provocateurs, Reform and American. Although most of them are Orthodox, their liberal style of dress and their open speech could mislead an observer. The majority are independent, practitioners of the “liberal professions,” and while raising children also work at outside jobs, no less strenuously than their husbands.
To the incredibly conservative Haredim, nothing’s worse than an assertive, independent woman who wants to change centuries-old practice or challenge their patriarchial authority. This is as much a societal conflict as a religious one.
Unfortunately, because the Israeli government funds the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate and allows them to control Israel’s holy sites, the Israeli Supreme Court has gone back and forth on their support of the Women of the Wall but ultimately refuses to back them up (it’s a long story: you can read the legal details here if you’re interested). And while the Women of the Wall might normally find common cause with feminists and civil libertarians, the fact that they are overtly religious means they don’t get support from Israel’s extremely secular leftists.
Anat Hoffman, one of the group’s founders, explains:
“We are a turtle with wings,” Hoffman says. “We have no parents. If we were secular feminists, the entire liberal wing would embrace us. If we were God-fearing Orthodox, the entire Haredi wing would adopt us, but we are a hybrid with no father or mother, and so people say we are American Reform women, even though there is not even one woman among us who answers to that description.”
Personally, as an American–and Reform–woman, I bristle at the notion that being called such is considered a slur, particularly by a population that’s constantly demanding the political and financial support of American Jews, who are predominantly egalitarian and Reform.
Despite the slurs and the violence, it’s clear that the Women of the Wall will not be deterred; in fact, they’re fighting back:
[Hoffman] said that they are also considering suing the religious head of the Shas political party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who in his weekly public address last Saturday night said that women who pray in a tallit at the Kotel are “stupid” and “deviant,” and “should be slapped,” as reported earlier this week by The Sisterhood.
Apparently beating women is consistent with Rabbi Yosef’s interpretation of Judaic law, but praying alongside them is not. Oy gevalt.
After several women were arrested, detained and interrogated for praying at the Kotel in January, The Forward–America’s most influential Jewish publication–ran a fiery editorial entitled “Liberating the Wall”, in which they praised the Women of the Wall’s efforts and harshly criticized Jerusalem’s rabbinate and the Israeli government for condoning its bigotry:
The arrest in November of Nofrat Frenkel of Women of the Wall for the alleged “crime” of carrying a Torah and wearing a tallit in the shadow of the Kotel’s ancient stones cannot be dismissed as yet another oddity of Israeli life. Especially when that was followed, on January 5, by the interrogation and fingerprinting of Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center, who has led Women of the Wall for its 21 years and who was told that she is now suspected of a felony.Indeed, if Jerusalem, in whatever form, is to remain the capital of Israel, then it must truly be the capital for all Jews. The practices of a small number of fundamentalists — a minority in Israel, in the United States and around the world — cannot be allowed to dictate the religious future of the Jewish people. That is close to happening now, and unless this current destructive trend is stopped and reversed, the precious City of Gold will become a place of alienation to a sprawling Diaspora it, ironically, must count on to survive.
Women like Anat Hoffman and Nofrat Frenkel are the vanguard of the fight for Jewish women’s rights, as well as the fight against religious intolerance and the tyranny of a fanatical minority. It’s discouraging that Israel’s nominally democratic and secular government, when confronted with a fairly straightforward test of gender and religious equality, behaves like their absolutist, theocratic enemies in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
By demanding that their prayer be recognized as equal to men’s and refusing to be cowed by a campaign of harassment and intimidation, the Women of the Wall are following in the non-violent footsteps of leaders like Gandhi and King. In the Jewish world, they should rightly be held up as the purest examples of eishet chayil--the woman of valor.
Becky, I’m so glad you’re covering this. Our Jewish women’s group here has been a supporter of WoW since they began, and about 10 years ago when a number of us visited Israel, they were able to pray with the Women. What they have gone through is beyond outrageous.
And now that Netanyahu is in power, and owes his power to the extreme right, women in Israel are in trouble. WoW has very obviously been targeted, since they haven’t done anything lately that they haven’t done before. And there is a haredi (extreme Orthodox) group that wants to ban women from public buses and force them on to gender-segregated ones. They want this even though the buses that run through the haredi area are already segregated, with women forced to sit in the back (and I think a divider, although I’m not positive about that).
The right-wing extremists in Israelare perverting and insulting what Judaism is supposed to be. We have our gender problems, and they are serious ones, but on the whole, Judaism is and has been progressive in its attitude towards women. This attack on WoW is just another manifestation of a loud, pwerful minority of men refusing to give up any crumb of control over Jewish practice in Israel. WoW are fighting for all Jewish women and they deserve our support, financially and otherwise.
This makes me want to complete my conversion and go join them…
@veggiewood: You should! I’ll pack my tallis and go with you!
@MM: Ugh, I could go on and on about my white-hot loathing for Shas and the ultra-Orthodox establishment, but I won’t. The bigger problem is that the Israeli government entered into a devil’s bargain with the Haredi a long time ago, and now they can’t–or won’t–try to curb them, even when they commit flagrant abuses of civil rights that wouldn’t be tolerated by any other group in Israel.
Thank you for posting about this. I was completely unaware of the issue. It is shocking that such a vocal misogynist minority can control a holy site.. and in such a vulgar fashion (spitting, etc).
Fascinating story, I hadn’t heard of this group before so thanks for sharing it.
It reminds me of the issues that Muslim and Catholic women have also had in being allowed to lead prayers in their respective religions. It’s sad that women in every religion have to fight this battle.
Becky, thanks for posting this and bringing it to the Harpies attention! I have a few friends who are in Israel this year, and one was even with the Women of the Wall when Nofrat Frenkel was arrested. I plan of davening with them if I am in Israel for Rosh Chodesh- don’t know when that will be, but I would love for it to happen.
@CollegeBookworm: That’s wonderful! Here’s a link to their site, which includes their schedule for all the Rosh Chodesh services planned for 5770: http://womenofthewall.blogspot.com/
For those who don’t know Israeli history, the irony of the extreme right controlling the country this way is profound. The founders allowed the religious right to run religious affairs, believing with all their naive socialist hearts that religion was a vestige of pre-industrial society and would soon wither away. This situation would utterly horrify them. Their power over religion, combined with the Israeli parliamentary system that gives huge amounts of influence to very small groups, has created this deeply unJewish state of affairs.
Yeah, MM, Ben Gurion is head/desking in heaven every time Shas wins another seat in the Knesset.
Becky, you know how obsessed I am about religious history. So naturally, I not only devoured this post, but I went to the computer lab so I could print it out. Awesomely done.
thanks for posting about this! i had heard of women being denied prayer and men throwing chairs at them, but i had no idea how far back in history this movement went. i hope they can change hearts and minds (of the orthodox) within their religion and find freedom to express themselves without violence.
*without the threat of violence.
Thanks so much for this post. These women are my new heroes!
That is so sad. I was first attracted to Judaism because, compared to the Southern Baptist church I was raised in, it looked like a form of institutionalized egalitarianism.
I know the Jewish faith isn’t anywhere near monolithic, but these guy’s attack strikes very close to the heart of what being Jewish means to me.
@bella: I feel exactly the same way. It’s discouraging to realize that the thoughtful, egalitarian religion I practice is made so completely unrecognizable by these fanatics.
The Haredi are why I dislike Jerusalem. Muslim fanatics in East Jerusalem are somehow less offensive to me than the Jewish fanatics in West Jerusalem. It’s so much worse when the religion being perverted is MY religion.
Spitting???!!! Seriously, what are they – twelve?
And this just sounds so familiar:
“We are a turtle with wings,” Hoffman says. “We have no parents. If we were secular feminists, the entire liberal wing would embrace us. If we were God-fearing Orthodox, the entire Haredi wing would adopt us,…
This is exactly what happens when a right-wing woman here in the US is the target of misogynistic attacks too (e.g. Sarah Palin). Political alleigance should not be the basis for how women support each other.
Honestly, what makes me even more upset is the support they get from more moderate Jews. My grandparents (on my dad’s side, not MM’s parents) are Conservative Jews by nature but attend a modern Orthodox shul for various reasons and I had a long argument with them a couple months ago about the Orthodoxy and how misogynistic it is and that by attending an Orthodox shul they’re enabling it and they not only didn’t believe me, their response was that: a) Orthodox women have no problem with it (this is false) so it isn’t a problem and b) even if Orthodox women did have a problem with it, it will never change. This even though there are several Orthodox congregations in Israel that are starting to ordain female rabbis! It’s like moderate Jews feel guilty somehow for not being more “frum” so they support the Orthodox no matter what they do. The number of times my Hebrew school acted like a shill for Orthodox groups in Israel was astounding to me. Ugh.
I’ve read and heard about this from my customers at work before, but to read Becky’s editorial on it was so much more informative and gut-wrenching. Women who have committed no crime, are getting arrested and interrogated, possibly charged with a felony….for PRAYING?? That is just so diametrically different than what I think Judaism is about that I could scream. Now I want to convert, move to Israel and help these brave women out. The hard-core orthodox rabbi’s in my area have a choke-hold on the local conservative jewish community, but that makes his attempts to make every new restaurant or fast food joint hire a religious observer and certify themselves kosher seem like a small child throwing a tantrum in the candy isle. If someone threw a CHAIR at someone for praying, how does the Israeli gov’t not see that this will escalate until one of these women are seriously harmed? And for a government official to encourage assault on women? WTF?
If you’re so inclined, here are a couple of organizations that support progressive, egalitarian Judaism in Israel:
http://www.irac.org/
Anat Hoffman’s organization, The Israel Religious Action Center, devoted to egalitarian and pluralistic Judaism in Israel.
http://www.arza.org/aboutus/
Association of Reform Zionists in America, provides support and advocacy for Reform and progressive Judaism in Israel.
http://yozma.org.il/eng/1about.htm
Kehillat YOZMA, a vibrant, activist Reform congregation in Modi’in, founded by Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon, Israel’s first female rabbi.
Now wait a minute, Chevalier. Palin is no friend of feminists or even of the female gender in general. I agree that no woman deserves attacks based on her sex, but political allegiance does absolutely determine how and how much I support anyone. Palin, from the first moment, played on her gender and her looks, so having those used against her is unsurprising. There are certainly substantive reasons to attack her politically, but if pose like a cover girl, you’re going to get talked about like one.
Ms Pinot, this is in no way normative Judaism. American Jews support and contribute to practices in Israel and in the US that they would never obey themselves-it’s the worst kind of hypocrisy. Btw, the haredi don’t just do this stuff to WoW. They will attack anyone they see as violating the Sabbath by driving, shopping, being improperly dressed,etc. And that means spitting, throwing chairs, throwing rocks, throwing bags of excrement, creating barricades and other acts that are as offensive as they can get. Why this stuff isn’t criminal is beyond me. And yes, someone is going to get hurt.
This is not why Israel was created.
@MM – Indeed. I have a friend who lives in the US but is Israeli-born and she goes back to visit her family every year in the summer. She’s told me numerous stories of, for example, walking around in shorts and having a man literally run away screaming from her.
I am not Jewish but ever time I see something about WoW I read about it because I think they are simply awesome.
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