"We'll do everything to keep the Western Wall true to the original
Jewish tradition, and we will not let ‘Women of the Provocation’ tarnish
its holiness."
Haredim Plan Mass Rally At Kotel Sunday Opposite Women Of The Wall Prayer Service
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Haredi rabbis have called for a mass protest at the Kotel (Western Wall) Sunday against Women of the Wall (WoW), Ynet reported.
The protest rally will be held while WoW is holding its monthly prayer service there.
The haredi rabbis also issued an order that only married haredi men are allowed to participate in the protest. Unmarried yeshiva students, young adults and teens are forbidden from participating in order to prevent violence.
Last month, haredim also held a protest at the Kotel against WoW. Dozens of haredim rioted during that protest, and riot police had to prevent a mob of angry haredi yeshiva students from harming WoW members.
Haredim consider WoW’s exercise of its legal rights to be “provocation,” and they consider the Kotel to be a haredi-Orthodox synagogue despite a court ruling (and hundreds of years of history) to the contrary. Haredi leaders have taken to deriding WoW as a result.
Yitzhak Pindaros, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem from the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party, is an organizer of Sunday’s haredi protest and a vehement opponent of WoW.
"We'll do everything to keep the Western Wall true to the original Jewish tradition, and we will not let ‘Women of the Provocation’ tarnish its holiness,” Pindaros reportedly said.
Because of last month's haredi violence and the non-stop haredi stream of invective against them since that time, WoW decided to fully exercise all of its rights by reading from a Torah scroll at the Kotel proper Sunday – the first time this will have ever been done.