Women Of The Wall Reads From Torah Scroll At Kotel Sparking Haredi Mini Riot

It was a game-changing moment. Early this morning Jerusalem time, Women of the Wall (WoW) read from a full sized Torah scroll at the Kotel (Western Wall) – the  first time since WoW was founded 25 years ago it has done so. The reading took place in violation of haredi-set Kotel rules that have been repeatedly rubberstamped by successive Israeli governments, sparking  a mini riot by haredim.

Updated at 6:20 am CDT

Women Of The Wall Reads From Torah Scroll At Kotel Sparking Haredi Mini Riot
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

It was a game-changing moment.

Less than two hours ago, Women of the Wall (WoW) read from a full sized Torah at the Kotel (Western Wall) – the  first time since WoW was founded 25 years ago it has done so. The reading took place in violation of haredi-set Kotel rules that have been repeatedly rubberstamped by successive Israeli governments.

In what looked like a trick play from the early days of American football, Ha'aretz reported a group of male WoW supporters opened a gap in the mechitzah (privacy fence) separating the men’s and women’s prayer sections and passed the Torah scroll to WoW before startled haredim or police could stop them.

As WoW’s Torah reading took place, the kotel’s haredi rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, allegedly asked police to seize the Torah scroll. Police did not do it.

At the same time, a group of haredi men reportedly physically attacked the men who passed the Torah scroll to WoW. The haredim then entered the women’s section and tried unsuccessfully to seize the Torah scroll. But before they could wrest the Torah away from WoW, police intervened and pushed the haredi men away.

When the Torah reading was over, WoW sang and danced with the Torah and then, with the help of police, passed it back to the men's section by opening a small section of the mechitza.

For years, WoW has tried to get a Torah scroll past security so they could read it at the holy site, but police and Kotel security have always stopped them, except once last year when WoW was able to sneak in a miniature Torah scroll.

Even though an Israeli court as ruled WoW can pray as it sees fit at the Kotel in the women’s section, the haredi rabbi of the Kotel and police have generally worked together to prevent WoW from fully doing so, and Rabinowitz has repeatedly refused to allow them to use one of the Kotel’s own Torah scrolls because, he claims, doing so would violate “local custom.”

After WoW's Torah reading Rabinowitz lashed out at the group.

According to a report in Arutz Sheva, Rabinowitz claimed WoW “has made another tear in the delicate fabric of the Kotel. The Torah scroll was handed over the partition in a way that demeaned it," Rabinowitz insisted – even though in actuality, the Torah scroll was walked through the mechitzah, which was unhooked and opened just like a door in a house. "This is a provocative act whose sole purpose is to 'set the Kotel on fire' – and indeed they succeeded in arousing the anger of the worshipers. It was only thanks to the hard work of the police and Kotel attendants that blood was not actually spilled.”

Rabinowitz reportedly asked the cabinet's secretary and the Minister of Religious Affairs to set new regulations to stop WoW from doing this again. Rabinowitz made that request despite the fact that a Jerusalem court has already ruled that WoW can pray in the women's section of the Kotel proper as it chooses – meaning Rabinowitz and his haredi rabbi colleagues have no real jurisdiction over it.

[Hat Tip: Joel Katz.]

Comments

[Jeff]

"But before they could wrest the Torah away from WoW, police intervened and pushed the haredi men away."

Well, that's a welcome surprise. Hopefully, next time they'll use rubber bullets. Blast the shit out of the fucking apes. (My apologies; that was an insult to other primates.)

If God exists, he is a psychopath, and I feel strongly that worship of him should be regarded as a criminal act; however, anything that upsets Haredim or evangelicals is a good thing, so I'll look the other way.

Now, of course, the trolls and the wannabes will post their babbling drivel about how insincere the women are and that they're only doing it to call attention to themselves. Don't care. If they upset you parasites, they deserve a freaking medal.

[Shayna G in NZ]

Jeff

Thanks for the belly laugh.The sky pixie the Haredi worship is
very different to a loving G-d.

[Rebitzman]

The Haredim will be ready for this to stop it next time. If not directly and physically, then with rocks and dirty diapers.

[Alter Kocker]

I believe that WOW should provide their own security. The courts have ruled in their favor. Rabinowitz and his mindless mass react the only way their reptilian brains command attack and kill. Security around WOW, combined with police that appear now to enforcing court rulings spell an end to Rabinowitz' rule against WoW.

[Jeff]

I wouldn't at all mind seeing Rabinowitz driven from his position a shattered man, forced to question his belief in a God who regards Haredim as the pinnacle of creation. Fucking little tin pot dictator.

[Garnel Ironheart]

The best way to deal with WoW is to ignore them. Once they aren't the centre of attention and see that the Chareidim can get along without being annoyed by them they'll lose interest and move onto something else.

[Jeff]

Yes, of course. They only do it to get attention. Very immature, unlike frum people. When the latter throw burning trash cans and dirty diapers, they do it for the highest motives.

[Miggo Wagga]

I'mso f-cking disgusted with both the Women of the Wall and with the Haredim who oppose them that I'd be inclined to just withdraw from this whole bloody thing and let them fight it out amongst themselves.

[Elliot]

I'm sure that WOW has its own internal politics like any shul. I will also admit that I don't understand why they feel so strongly about their women's Torah readings. With that being said, the problems today, once again, are caused by an unholy alliance between a power-hungry religious establishment representing a narrow band of society and their government allies. I don't know how to fix this problem without separating the Rabbinate from government once and for all.

[Minna Mirabai]

YES!!! It's about fucking time!!!

[Garnel Ironheart]

Two questions Jeff:
1) Why do you malign God because some idiots do ugly things in His name? Do you expect Him to intervene and stop them? Where's the line for Him to interfere in people's lives then?
2) I never said frum people who riot are doing so for the highest motives. Frankly I think they're doing it because they're a bunch of primitive ignorant savages who think that a black frock coat and peyos give them the right to do anything they want. Why can't both sides be lacking in this debate?

[Jeff]

"Where's the line for Him to interfere in people's lives then?"

Way, WAY before the point at which you're content to draw it.

"Frankly I think they're doing it because they're a bunch of primitive ignorant savages who think that a black frock coat and peyos give them the right to do anything they want."

Today you think that. Tomorrow you'll think something else.

[Ron]

Everybody should act as if these women were transparent when they do their prayer-thing. It's the attention that they crave.

They want to pray like that, let them do it. Just don't let them play the victims.

Religious midrashot, on the other hand, should invite them in their institutions for some days to see by themselves what is the "Orthodox" view of religiosity.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Jeff,

1) So God, having created us, given up life and a universe to live it, must be content to sit back and let us live out lives completely as we sit fit without having any say in it?
2) Says who? I don't see Chareidim as a monolithic block. If one says "All Blacks are.." or "All Hispanics are..." one gets pilloried for good reason but Chareidim as a culture don't get that benefit?

[Minna Mirabai]

Miggo Wagga

Why disgusted w WOW? Extreme measures must be taken when fighting for ones rights to worship as one chooses. This is not just about "reading" from a Torah. It's a fight to combat 5000 years of patriarchal injustice. The modern woman is no longer ok with being equated to ones cow.

[Jeff]

I know you won't understand this, but I have some spare time, so here we go.

> Free will, at least in any absolute sense, is an illusion. It's always been a very difficult concept to argue for, and recent advances in neuroscience are beginning to validate that position. As the Buddhists and Vedantists have been saying for centuries (not that I think they have the answers, either), we aren't who we think we are.

Humanity is like a child on a carousel. It goes around and around, we become dizzy and we reach out for something to steady ourselves. Unfortunately, what we grab onto is the brass ring, which comes off in our hand. The brass ring is free will.

We don't hold onto the concept of free will because we have any evidence for it, or because it even makes much ontological sense. We hold onto it because it makes the bookkeeping easier.

> You insist upon regarding life as a gift, and God as a benevolent giver of it, thereby necessitating a posture of gratitude on our part.

To the contrary, life is brutal. It has been horrendous for most people for most of human history and still is, and even for those relative few of us who are privileged and fairly comfortable, it's unsatisfactory most of the time (which is something the Buddha presumably understood and his followers now claim to, but really don't).

Free will, even if it exists, is an inadequate rationalization for the nightmare that is life, and we are probably the last beings in the cosmos who should be trusted with it in any case. Your god is like a parent who gives a child dynamite to play with, waits for him to blow himself up, then exclaims, "It wasn't MY fault! I didn't light the match!"

And of course, for you, the ultimate payoff, the thing that makes it all worthwhile (apart from the sense of community you may enjoy now), is an eternity of bliss. As I keep saying, I couldn't care less about that - not because I wish to lead a hedonistic lifestyle now without future accountability, but because consciousness itself, existence itself, is an abomination. I don't want to exist forever. I don't really want to be here NOW. I realize that this is impossible for you to conceptualize. If you grapple with it at all, you'll tell yourself I don't really mean it.

[jancsibacsi]

Garnel Ironheart---"Why do you malign God because some idiots do ugly things in His name?'
Get this through your thick skull God is only a word to be played around with its a game for the uber frummies to take advantage of others and dupe them its all a mind game,if it would be real god that is the things that are going on in the religious world would never every occur so its all a mind game no one outside of you mind exists its all the fabrication of the imagination.

[Jeff]

"Chareidim as a culture don't get that benefit?"

Frankly, no. They've forfeited that right.

[Garnel Ironheart]

1) Free will being an illusion is by no means a proved position. First, it depends what you mean by free will. I would agree that most of what people think means free will is an illusion but, underneath all the chemical, synapses and axons we still have a consciousness and ability to make choices.
2) To use your example, God gave us the dynamite, warned us what would happen if we lit the fuse and told us that we wanted to use it to blow ourselves up its our own problem because He gave us the ability to overcome our desire to strike the match.
3) So you're clinically depressed. Is it possible your entire worldview is warped by that?

[Jeff]

Yeah, whatever. The TED talk is over.

[Ron]

Minna Mirabai

Your resentment towards society is understandable.

On the other hand I know plenty of women who live a meaningful religious life without doing public shows of Torah reading. The halacha is different for men and women and they keep their part.

Speaking of which, do you know women who keep the Orthodox halacha? Do they seem "oppressed by pathriarchy" to you?

[Garnel Ironheart]

April, the problem isn't that women are oppressed under halacha. For many in WoW, especially the ones who don't keep kosher or Shabbos properly, it's all about rebelling against the rules. "The men" say they can't read publicly from the Torah so that becomes their principle of faith: they can only be fulfilled Jews if they get to do that.

[Jeff]

"For many in WoW, especially the ones who don't keep kosher or Shabbos properly" = "Those who don't keep it the way I think it should be done."

Rarely have I encountered someone with a medical degree less qualified to psychoanalyze others or second-guess their motives - and you think you're qualified to diagnose clinical depression?

[Sarek]

OMG! Women got a Torah at the Wall! End times are near. Run for your lives! God is angry! They did indeed 'set the Kotel on fire'. And now it has burned down, just look at the Kotelcam to see the ashes. Jerusalem, nay, all of Israel, has fallen. Moshiach is nigh.

Or, perhaps, nothing at all happened.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Welcome back, Jeff.
It's well known that WoW is divided into two groups - one which is genuinely frum and wants to lein at the Wall because they're tired of Chareidi oppression and the other which is Reformative, as exemplified by their inspiration, Sarah Silverman's sister, which openly admit they don't live al pi halacha but want to lein because the Chareidim said they couldn't. The latter group are there to cause trouble and shouldn't have higher motives ascribed to them.

[Sheri]

I think these women should have the right to worship god as they please, but I'm astonished that they really want to take on all of the religious worship stuff that men have to do. I mean, as a woman I'm very glad to be exempt from leining and davening with a minyan 3 times a day, it sounds so tiresome...

[Jeff]

As always, it's like talking to a wall (and not one you pray in front of).

[Minna Mirabai]

Ron

Long & short.. Yes many Orthox woman very happy with status quo & filled to the brim with a love for Hashem, family, life, & the good fortune "He" has afforded them. No doubt & totally agree! I'm an ex baal tshuva & have many many close friends & family that practice modern Orthox. I've lived in Israel, went to yeshiva, & served in IDF.

With being said, I know an equal amount of woman that are tragically unhappy. Most were born & raised in that community. Brainwashed a friend says. Under educated, married by 18, large families, & very little knowledge of anyone or anything else outside of said community. They feel trapped & powerless against a patriarchal society that rates them a 2nd at best & a 0 in reality.

[Minna Mirabai]

BTW... I was thrown out of the Yeshiva. Shocking that a "woman" would have dreams & aspirations outside family & home life.

It was one of the best days of my life & actually re-enforced my belief in Hashem. For I saw the light in the sea of darkness (haridem) and left the cult behind.

[MIESQ]

What is astonishing to me is that to many the issue is about worshiping G-D as "one sees fit" Shouldn't one worship as G-D sees fit? What happened at the Kotel today was a mini churban would be akin a kosher restaurant serving cheeseburgers.
From photographs and public statements it is apparent Women of the Wall have no appreciation of the place's holiness.
I sincerely doubt any one of these women or their male supporters would wear their shoes inside a mosque's prayer room.
This is a casein point why the brakes must be placed on a hyper activist Supreme Court.

[Jeff]

"What happened at the Kotel today was a mini churban would be akin a kosher restaurant serving cheeseburgers."

Oh, my. Go back to preschool. You aren't ready to talk to the grownups.

[Shari]

My cousin, a Conservative female rabbi, was one of those detained last year by the police when she attempted to read from a Torah at the Wall. She was valedictorian of the first class from the seminary to admit women. Her commitment to Judaism is extremely strong as is her commitment to find a place within Judaism where women are not second class citizens in synagogue life. If the position granted women within Orthodoxy works for the women who practice it, I'm happy for them. It doesn't not work for many, many Jewish women (including many within Orthodoxy.) I spent a number of years layning Torah. I found it to be an extremely meaningful way to participate in the service. Not every woman wants to layn Torah, nor does every man. But I remember as a teen, watching men called up to the Torah for an aliyah who had to have the blessings recited word for word for them so that they could say it, while I could say it backwards and forwards. For many of us, Judaism as a men's club, doesn't work.

[Sheri]

Shari, your reaction to Judaism as a men's club is intriguing to me. My reaction to this has been somewhat different. For example, on Simchas Torah I no longer go to shul to watch the men dance, it's such a snoozer. I don't go to shul rosh hashanah and yom kippur, can barely hear anything through the little cut out in the floor of the women's section, anyway davening all day is so boring. So my reaction has been more to disengage with some parts of Judaism where I feel that it's just a men's club. Interesting that my lack of interest is far more acceptable to mainstream Orthodox Judaim than your desire for full engagement.

[a. gadol-2015]

sheri - bravely put and with merit. may i not be sent to purgatory for supporting your remarks.shalom.

[Shari]

Sheri--Unfortunately, I think most Orthodox men would prefer that women take your route, rather than mine.

[Under the bridge]

WOW is so primitive, wasting time and effort to read some ancient mythology on parchment. They should just forget about the whole silly religion thing and actually make the world a better place. Idiots.