T
he AP reports:
Thirteen Austrian bishops were barred from praying at Jerusalem's Western Wall last week by Jewish religious authorities when they refused to take off their crosses, according to Austrian officials.
On a planned visit on Thursday to the wall — the holiest place where Jews can pray — the bishops were given an ultimatum by the rabbi of the site: Either remove the crosses or stand behind a fence several meters (yards) from the site. The bishops refused the request and watched people praying from behind the fence, according to an Austrian official.
"They were a bit disappointed they were not let into the wall," said Arad Benko, spokesman for the Austrian embassy. "It was a disappointing moment." He said the bishops were not informed before the visit that wearing the crosses would be a problem.
Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, said that while the site is open to all religions, worshippers are expected not to offend the sensitivities of Jews.
"Appearing like that at the wall plaza and at a meeting with me is insulting and provocative," Rabinowitz told the Israeli daily Maariv. "I told them that the pope didn't show up at the wall with a cross, but hid it."
On a historic visit to the holy land in 2000, Pope John Paul II prayed at the Western Wall, stuffing a prayer between the cracks — a Jewish ritual to ask God to fulfill a wish. Pictures show the pope wearing a cross while praying.…
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch appears to be incorrect about the Pope's dress and ornament during that visit to the Kotel, the Western Wall, as you can see from the picture posted above.
But more than that, Rabbi Rabinovitch is impolite. There is no reason to treat visiting dignitaries in such a degrading manner.
(Do you think a delegation of rabbis would take kindly to hearing at point of entry and without prior warning that they must remove their kippot [skullcaps] before entering a meeting with a Catholic official? Might the term antisemitism be bandied about?)
I should also note that I spent much time at the Kotel. I co-founded and ran a small charity, the Soldiers' Kiddush Fund, that provided kiddush and cookies for the soldiers and police that guard the Kotel and those who worship and study there.
I saw the posted dress code – no shorts or sleeveless shirts, no bare shoulders (women) and no sleeveless shirts, no uncovered heads (men) – violated every Shabbat and holiday by tourists, often non-Jews. I also saw repeated violations of the posted no photography on Shabbat and holidays rule, often by the same non-Jews.
But I do not remember any postings banning cross-wearers from entry.
Further, the Kotel 'guards' (as opposed to police and IDF personnel) were consistently lax in enforcement of existing posted rules and rude when they did try to enforce enforce them.
Why? Why years of rudeness from ill-trained 'guards'? Why this unnecessarily rude behavior from the Kotel's current rabbi?
Chalk some of it up to Sabra manners. But the rest, the majority, in my opinion, comes from insensitive (and sometimes even boorish) religious leaders who wear the title rabbi.
That said, I fully understand why many Orthodox Jews would not want to pray next to a person wearing a large cross.
But the Kotel, even though its officially-sanctioned public mode of prayer is Orthodox, must be a place that all can visit and pray privately in their own manner. It should not be the job of untrained Kotel 'guards' or others to clear a person's theology before entry.
I'm not sure there is a good solution to this problem vis-a-vis the general public. But we can certainly find better ways of handling the visits of dignitaries, especially friendly dignitaries who have come to show support for Jews and Judaism.
UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post's story on the incident omits evidence that the Pope indeed did wear a cross while at the Western Wall.
But the Post does note the following:
According to a directive issued by Rabinovitch, it is forbidden to openly wear the Latin cross, which represents what Christians believe to be the redemptive crucifying of Jesus, in the Western Wall courtyard.
And Arutz 7 in its report notes:
While official government publications describing appropriate dress and conduct for the Western Wall area do not include any mention of a ban on crucifixes, Christian pilgrimage tour leaders have in the past suggested that those wearing crosses place them inside their shirts to avoid unnecessary confrontation.
Also, note again the the following graph from the AP report posted above:
"Appearing like that at the wall plaza and at a meeting with me is insulting and provocative," Rabinowitz told the Israeli daily Maariv. "I told them that the pope didn't show up at the wall with a cross, but hid it."
This whole affair seems to have much more to do with the arrogance of Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch than it does with either Jewish law or Jewish sensibilities.
[BTW, I remember seeing that Rabbi Rabinovitch is a follower of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. Can any of you confirm this? Thanks …]