Jerusalem District Police arrested a teenage student of an unnamed
Jerusalem yeshiva after he asked an Orthodox rabbi through the ask the
rabbi feature of the Zionist Orthodox website and news portal Kippa if
it was permitted under Jewish law to shoot and kill Women of the Wall members.
Jerusalem Yeshiva Student Arrested After Asking Online Rabbi If It Was Permitted Under Jewish Law To Murder Women Of The Wall Members
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Jerusalem District Police arrested a teenage student of an unnamed Jerusalem yeshiva after he asked an Orthodox rabbi through the ask the rabbi feature of the Zionist Orthodox website and news portal Kippa if it was permitted under Jewish law to shoot and kill Women of the Wall members, Ynet has just reported.
The rabbi responded by telling the teen that shooting Women of the Wall members was forbidden under and a contradiction to halakha, Jewish law.
The teen was arrested while on a school field trip.
He reportedly told police that he had not intended to harm Women of the Wall members, apparently claiming that the question was only meant to see how halakha views Women of the Wall and the current situation regarding their prayer services at the Kotel (Western Wall).
Women of the Wall are scheduled to hold their monthly prayer service at the Kotel Sunday, during which they plan to read from a Torah scroll for the first time.
For decades, women have been forbidden from praying out loud and from wearing tallits (prayer shawls) and tefillin (phylacteries) at the holy site.
But a recent Israeli court decision found that Women of the Wall has the right to do all of those things, and it put the onus for maintaining peace and security at the Kotel on the police – and on the haredim and other Orthodox Jews who oppose Women of the Wall and who frequently riot or cause other disturbances when Women of the Wall prays there.
Women of the Wall could have read from the Torah last month, but did not as a show of good faith to Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett, who was trying to work out a compromise between Women of the Wall on one hand and Orthodox and haredi groups on the other.
But after Bennett failed to produce a compromise or new regulations that comport with the court’s ruling and haredim issued a long string of invective against Women of the Wall following last month’s haredi riot against Women of the Wall and police, Women of the Wall has reportedly decided to hold a full prayer service with a full Torah reading from a Torah scroll at Kotel proper this Sunday.
Haredi rabbinic leaders have called for a massive anti-Women-of-the-Wall demonstration at the Kotel Sunday to coincide with Women of the Wall’s prayer service. The haredi demonstration is expected to draw thousands (if not tens of thousands) of haredim.
Last week, a Women of the Wall board member received death threats.
This week, Israel’s chief rabbis, the haredi rabbi of the Kotel, and a haredi Member of Knesset received mailed death threats promising to kill hundreds of haredim if Women of the Wall is not allowed to pray undisturbed.
Women of the Wall strongly condemned the death threats against the haredi rabbis and the haredi MK.
Some observers believe that Women of the Wall – which has no history of violence and which is made up solely of women, many of who are middle aged and some of whom are elderly – is unlikely to have made those death threats. These observers therefore believe that the threats are either being issued by a lone individual supportive of Women of the Wall or by haredi or Zionist Orthodox provocateurs who are hoping that the threats will prompt the government to stop Women of the Wall from praying.