“The Murabitat women receive money from the Islamic Movement to create provocation and prevent Jews from ascending the Temple Mount. Whereas the Women of the Wall get money from the Reform Jews to create disturbances at the Western Wall,” Rabbi Yisrael Eichler of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party said yesterday during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Above: Rabbi Yisrael Eichler
Haredi Member Of Knesset Compares Women Of The Wall To Outlawed Muslim Group
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A top haredi member of Knesset compared the Jewish feminist organization Women of the Wall to the Murabitat women, a recently banned group of Muslim women who harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, the JTA reported.
“The Murabitat women receive money from the Islamic Movement to create provocation and prevent Jews from ascending the Temple Mount. Whereas the Women of the Wall get money from the Reform Jews to create disturbances at the Western Wall,” Rabbi Yisrael Eichler of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party said yesterday during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Women of the Wall is made up of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal, unaffiliated, and Orthodox women and was founded by a group of women more than 25 years ago that was primarily Orthodox. Its current head, Anat Hoffman, is Reform and works for the Reform Movement in Israel.
Eichler, who is a Belz hasid, was later criticized by the prime minister for making that comparison and responded by saying he made it at the Knesset committee meeting so it would be recorded in the official meeting minutes.
At the meeting, Members of Knesset Zehava Gal-on of the left-wing Meretz Party and Shelly Yachamovich of the opposition Zionist Union denounced Eichler.
In a statement, Women of the Wall said “Eichler represents a very extreme Jewish minority who see the Kotel as their own private synagogue. Women of the Wall’s struggle threatens this ‘Haredi Kotel’ vision, and in his perspective, anyone who does not agree with him is the enemy. If it were up to Eichler, women would be all together excluded from the Kotel or forced to dress up like the Taliban in order to enter.”
Women of the Wall has a legal right to pray at the Kotel as they see fit that was affirmed by a Jerusalem court ruling two years ago. Nonetheless, haredi rabbis, including the haredi state-appointed chief rabbi of the Kotel Shmuel Rabinovitch, and their followers have nonetheless repeatedly done everything in their power to stop Women of the Wall from exercising that right.
Rabinovitch refuses to allow Women of the Wall to use any of the public Torah scrolls kept at the Kotel while at the same time, Rabinovitch forbids anyone, including Women of the Wall, from bringing their own Torah scroll to the holy site. Kotel security guards often harass and physically obstruct Women of the Wall when it tries to hold its monthly prayer gathering. And, allegedly under orders from Rabinovitch, police detain and sometimes arrest peaceful Women of the Wall members and supporters while ignoring haredim who harass and sometimes physically assault Women of the Wall members.
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