Lies Of Omission: Sharansky Misleads American Donors Over Women’s Arrests

The head of the Jewish Agency, former refusnik Natan Sharansky, had nothing but praise yesterday for police after they arrested 10 women – including comedian Sarah Silverman’s sister and niece – at the Kotel (Western Wall) yesterday for wearing “men’s style” tallits.

Natan Sharansky

Lies Of Omission: Sharansky Misleads American Donors Over Women’s Arrests
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

The head of the Jewish Agency, former refusnik Natan Sharansky, had nothing but praise yesterday for police after they arrested 10 women – including comedian Sarah Silverman’s sister and niece – at the Kotel (Western Wall) yesterday for wearing “men’s style” tallits, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Sharansky has been appointed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to broker a compromise between non-Orthodox Jewish movements and women’s groups on one hand and the Kotel’s government appointed management, which is largely haredi.

Women wearing “men’s style” tallits violate the conduct rules dictated by the haredi rabbi of the Kotel, Shmuel Rabinovitch, but they do not violate halakha (Jewish law).

Haredim have frequently reacted violently to religious practice they disagree with. They have rioted, hurled chair over the fence into the women’s section, and assaulted both men and women.

But in the vast majority of those cases, police did not arrest any of the violent haredim.

Speaking to American Jews visiting Jerusalem on a mission sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Sharansky reportedly insisted that Israel is a country of law, noting that the High Court of Justice had ruled that the state’s haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate has the right to enforce the minhag hamakom (the existing customs of the place) at the Kotel.

The women “violated the law,” Sharansky said.

What Sharansky did not say is that the High Court’s ruling also ordered the government to create a separate but equal prayer area for egalitarian and non-Orthodox prayer. The government has failed to do that or to even try to do that, instead relegating the non-Orthodox groups to prayer near Robinson’s Arch, hundreds of feet away from the Kotel area now used by the Orthodox and haredim. The site is also ill-equipped to be used for prayer services.

Sharansky also claimed that the problem of exclusion of non-Orthodox and egalitarian prayer at the holy site wasn’t a major societal problem for Israel, ranking well below the so-called conversion crisis created by hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants who are not Jewish according to Orthodox-haredi Jewish law. And, Sharansky insisted, everyone has the right to pray at the Kotel, but that right cannot be allowed to infringe on the right of the majority of Kotel visitors who are Orthodox or haredi – even though the exclusionary policies of the haredim and Orthodox who control the Kotel significantly reduce the number of non-Orthodox Jews seeking to pray there.

“Minhag hamakom and public order have to be taken into account,” Sharansky insisted, claiming that the solution to the problem is “not about principle, but about implementation.”

“I speak to one side and I agree with them, and then I speak to the other and they have a lot of logic. We have to find a solution so that no one feels discriminated against.”

Sharansky also claimed that because non-Orthodox movements have a negligible presence in Israel while Orthodox and haredi groups are strong, Israeli politicians are much more sensitive to Orthodox and haredi demands. What Sharansky did not do is explain to these American Jews that Israel has intentionally underfunded non-Orthodox movements and has done almost everything possible to limit their growth – facts Sharansky is well aware of.

Helping the women who were arrested yesterday pray at the Kotel were six former IDF paratroopers who liberated the Kotel in 1967, including the middle soldier in the iconic photo of the Kotel’s liberation.

One of the former paratroopers compared Israel’s current policy regarding the Kotel to Iran’s theocracy. None of the others disagreed.

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Comments

[Danny 2]

More of the Women "Off" the Wall fruitcakes crawling out of the woodwork for their 15 minutes of fame before retreating for their next cycle of meshugas.

[S M L]

What a shameful and sorry comedown for Sharansky.

[Roley Poley Yoiley]

It's cool how he makes his middle finger look like his index finger.

[Ben]

Sharansky is right both about conversion crisis and about haredi influence through presence and numbers.

The conclusions that this is unavoidable and cannot change are incorrect. It is still possible for the Jewish collective to change this if we'd want it bad enough.

[normpress]

I've always thought Jews who wanted to influence Israeli politics should make aliayh. However, If the Israeli government is going to continue ceding the Kotel to the black hats and continuing feeding them and nuturing them I've got to reconsider my support Israeli based charities and Israel Bonds.

I intend to tell the leaders of JNF/KKL and Israeli bonds. My modest contributions are better off going to our local JCC.

[Jeff]

I intend to tell the leaders of JNF/KKL and Israeli bonds. My modest contributions are better off going to our local JCC.

Posted by: normpress | February 12, 2013 at 08:34 AM

I've been saying as much for some time. I don't ordinarily tell people to whom they should give their charitable contributions, but I'd suggest organizations that feed the hungry or shelter the homeless or the like. You'll be doing more real good. (And of course, Shmarya can always use money as well.)

[Jeff]

The head of the Jewish Agency, former refusnik Natan Sharansky, had nothing but praise yesterday for police after they arrested 10 women – including comedian Sarah Silverman’s sister and niece – at the Kotel (Western Wall) yesterday for wearing “men’s style” tallits, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Meanwhile, this is so insane one doesn't even know where to begin. This is the reason thousands of Jews spent the seventies and eighties writing letters and picketing embassies? It's reminiscent of Animal Farm.

Israel is now officially psychotic.

[Rocky]

No one is forced to donate to Israel or even to their local federation. If Israeli politicians want to behave like putzes, and if the federations want to behave like lackeys, they will have to live with the consequences. Wives tend to outlive their husbands.

[A Yid]

>>>"What Sharansky did not do is explain to these American Jews that Israel has intentionally underfunded non-Orthodox movements and has done almost everything possible to limit their growth – facts Sharansky is well aware of." while in Israel they demand attention to their own rights.

[Rocky]

A Yid: Be careful what you wish for. In the province of Ontario in Canada, Catholic education is funded by the province and through local property taxes through the end of Grade 12. No such taxpayer support is available for Jewish or other religious education. So Jewish taxpayers actually face higher taxes than they would if the province eliminated all religious school funding.

[ah-pee-chorus]

and the Reform Jews in the USA support policies that limit the growth of the Orthodox such as perpetuation of the discriminatory Blaine Amendments

: A Yid -

how does supporting the blaine amendments limit the growth of the orthodox?

how are they discriminatory?

[Jeff]

and the Reform Jews in the USA support policies that limit the growth of the Orthodox such as perpetuation of the discriminatory Blaine Amendments

A. You're delusional, but we knew that;

B. You people really can't get over the idea that you're somehow entitled to a free ride.

[ah-pee-chorus]

Jeff-

if youre not in favor of violating the constitution in order to have taxpayers provide them a free yeshiva education, then youre an antisemite.
further, by NOT using taxes to build yeshivas the govt. is responsible for limiting their growth. its just mind-boggling.

[Jeff]

I want the government to subsidize a kollel maintained by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[Audrey the Liberal]

I want the government to subsidize a kollel maintained by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.Ramen!

[Dave Bratcher]

I want the government to subsidize a kollel maintained by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[cosmopolite]

I have long maintained that a major collision between orthodoxy and Jewish feminism was inevitable. Many of the radical feminists of the 1960s and 70s were of Jewish ancestry, including the founder of American second wave feminism, Betty Friedan. For Israel to deliberately antagonise Jewish women living around the North Atlantic will have long lasting and pernicious consequences for Israel.