In Defiance Of Court Order, Cops Stop Women Of The Wall From Using A Torah Scroll At The Kotel

200 WoW members prayed at the Kotel (Western Wall) this morning – but only after police refused the entry of the group’s Torah scroll.

In Defiance Of Court Order, Cops Stop Women Of The Wall From Using A Torah Scroll At The Kotel
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

According to a statement issued by Women of the Wall (WoW) today, two hundred WoW members prayed at the Kotel (Western Wall) this morning – but only after police refused the entry of the group’s Torah scroll.

With no safe space to store the Torah they brought and after fruitless attempts to get police to allow them to enter with the scroll, leaders of WoW chose to stay outside the Kotel with the Torah scroll while the group’s members went in and held the group’s monthly prayer service.

The Kotel’s state-funded haredi Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz both forbids any group or individual to bring their own Torah scrolls to Kotel on one hand and forbids WoW from using any of the Kotel’s 300 public-use Torah scrolls on the other. This policy of banning WoW from using a Torah scroll continues despite the fact that the Jerusalem District Court ruled months ago that WoW has the legal right to pray at the Kotel out loud and openly and can also legally read from a Torah scroll there. But police have repeatedly violated all or part of that court decision and followed the orders of Rabinowitz instead, even though the court chastised police over this exact type of behavior when it issued its ruling supporting WoW in April.

WoW intends to move its monthly prayer service to the new egalitarian section of the Kotel once that section is made fully equal in every way to the current Kotel area and the Mughrabi Bridge to the Temple Mount that cuts the egalitarian area off from current Kotel area is removed or rebuilt. Until then, it has repeatedly insisted that it will continue to pray at the Kotel proper as the court ruled it can.

The director of WoW, Lesley Sachs lashed out at Rabinowitz after today’s debacle.

“According to the April 2013 Sobel District Court decision we have the legal right to pray with the Torah scroll. In opposition to this right, Rabbi Rabinowitz prevents women from accessing Torah at the Kotel with his discriminatory regulations,” Sachs said in a prepared statement.

Related:

Index Of All Women Of The Wall Posts.

Update 12:19 pm CST – Ha'aretz reports that WoW tried to "sneak" the Torah into the Kotel in a "green duffel bag." Security guards stopped them, called police and police refused to allow them to enter with the Torah, telling WoW that is is against the law for them to bring the Torah in.

In other words, becuase the court did not rule that Rabinowitz's decree banning personal Torah scrolls from being brought into the Kotel area is illegal, police are enforcing that decree, which they mistakenly call a law.

But on the other hand, police are not enforcing the actual court ruling which mandates that WoW be allowed to read from a Torah scroll at the Kotel proper.

Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky, Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are collectively allowing this flagrant nullification of a court order to continue month after month.

It is important to remember that the Kotel's Torah scrolls are public and belong to the public – they are not owned or controlled by haredim or the Zionist Orthodox, and they are not the personal property of Shmuel Rabinowitz.

Comments

[plus.google.com/105365650738687784925]

> WoW intends to move its monthly prayer service to the new egalitarian section of the Kotel

Nah. Even if every one of their current demands is met (highly unlikely) they will simply come up with new demands.

Who can blame the police? The judges in their ivory tower can issue all the declarations but it's the police who have to contain the rioting Chareidim.

[S M L]

Yes, the police do have to contain the rioting Haredim otherwise the Haredim will have won. This in a nutshell is what's wrong with Israel and why in my view it's doomed in terms of remaining a vibrant modern state.

[CHAIM BABAD]

wow stands for wackow woman.these woman are all lesbian, i join my islamic brothers who detest these people,who's only goal is to destroy the moral fabric of society. i would rather live in a palestian state then under a country who are plauristic that filled with hate and contempt to all except there "MODERN PEOPLE" AGAIN STICK TO A BLOG ABOUT WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL CHAREDIM

[rebitzman - $101 to read my posts]

" i would rather live in a palestian state then under a country who are plauristic"

Easily arranged.

[Jeff]

"Who can blame the police? The judges in their ivory tower can issue all the declarations but it's the police who have to contain the rioting Chareidim."

You know what? Then let them. LET THEM DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS.

The other day, I asked if the police in Israel actually do anything. I need to amend that; do they do anything apart from take orders from Haredim?

[Jeff]

"i join my islamic brothers who detest these people,who's only goal is to destroy the moral fabric of society."

Yes, because women davening with Torah and tefillin is dangerous to society's moral fabric. That makes about as much sense as saying gay marriage is a threat to heterosexual marriage.

[CHAIM BABAD]

you asked for it you got it! thanks for the post of ubergangster weinstein tzkeh le'mitzvos

[jonkamm624]

May it be will of God that W.O.W. wins the war over this nutjob rabinowitz.Why are they paying that retard anything.

[jonkamm624]

Oh yeah, on second thought rabinowitz can take his bastard folowers and all pray together at Robinsons arch.I think all normal people should pray a little for this situation,and maybe donate a little charity in the hopes W.O.W. will win.

[Moisheb]

Jefff-"i join my islamic brothers who detest these people,who's only goal is to destroy the moral fabric of society."

This is an excellent idea you should join you're Islamic brothers Ala John walker. this is the perfect solution for you. You might not be able to comment on blogs so freely but who cares you will have free entertainment of beheadings and great torture scenes with your brothers in Syria. Maybe even you could sneak in some hangings in Iran (although they are Persians), But all in all I think Israel is to oppressive for you they are all evil both the charedim and everyone else I think you should buy a nice little villa in Tripoli or Damascus maybe even Cario were you can experience true democracy as each new government executes their predecessor, Israel or the U.S.A. is not for you.

[Jeff]

>> Posted by: Moisheb | January 02, 2014 at 05:52 PM

Was your yeshiva education so utterly deficient you don't understand the purpose of quotation marks?

Stupid question - of course it was.

[Moisheb]

Jeff your freak you agreed with the quote y

[Moisheb]

Jeff I admit I read it wrong I'm sorry

[Jeff]

You may want to remember this moment the next time you post a reply to someone here; perhaps you don't understand as well as you think you do.

And frum people, here's one of your own guys on Women of the Wall:

"Think women putting on Tefilin is a huge problem? Maybe take a few calls from parents whose kids were sodomized."

https://twitter.com/yakovhorowitz/status/354266628151721986

[Jeff]

Haredi rabbis organize busloads of Haredi schoolgirls and legions of their followers at the Wall on Rosh Hodesh to blow whistles and shofarim and scream tehillim in order to drown out a handful of women wearing tefillin and praying in non-prescribed manner.

They should only exert a TENTH of that energy in combating the rampant sexual predation (translation: child rape) in their midst. But, oh no, there's no problem there. I mean, it isn't as though they were doing something REALLY obscene, like buying food without a heimische heckscher.

I will say it again. Even if you people are correct, even if what you believe represents absolute truth, I would not be frum. There is absolutely NOTHING in your world that would make me want to be one of you. I would literally rather go to gehinnom.

[Moisheb]

Jeff- I am sorry and I did read it too quickly -lesson learned- although my comments can be deflected towards the rebbitzin

[Audrey T Benjamin]

Who wants to raise money to send these knuckle-dragers to Saudi Arabia, where they belong?