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Women for the Wall, sometimes abbreviated as W4W, is a grassroots Jewish women's traditionalist organization founded in April 2013, formed in opposition to the Women of the Wall (WoW), a Jewish women's group promoting egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall (the Kotel), the Jewish holy site in Jerusalem. [1] [2]
Women for the Wall is a traditionalist group, which favors maintenance of "the status quo at the Western Wall, where rules mandate separation of the sexes and restrict the ability of women to lead public prayer groups," [3] except at Robinson's Gate, a section of the wall for egalitarian prayer that was set aside by the Israel Supreme Court in 2003. [2] [4] W4W was founded in April 2013 by Ronit Peskin, Leah Aharoni, and Jenni Menashe. The group's first event was held on Rosh Chodesh (the first day) of the Hebrew month of Sivan (10 May 2013) with some 5,000–7,000 Jewish women praying traditionally, filling up Kotel plaza, and outnumbering the WoW group. [5] The number of women who pray at Women of the Wall (WoW) services has been estimated to be between 50 and 180. [6]
Leah Aharoni, the co-founder of Women for the Wall, accuses Women of the Wall with attempting to "manipulate the Kotel for a political agenda" [7] and "engaging in political provocation at a holy site." [4] Aharoni said that "It's unthinkable for a small group to upset tradition against the overwhelming majority." [8] Women for the Wall accuses Women of the Wall of disrupting the prayer of others at the wall. [1] [9] Aharoni described the Robinson's Arch compromise as adequate for egalitarian prayer, writing that it allows "WoW to pray just a few feet down the same exact wall at what is called Robinson's Arch." [10] Anat Hoffman, the chairwoman of the WoW group, has stated that praying in the Robinson's Arch section is unacceptable, likening it to being relegated to the back of the bus, objecting to the notion of "government permission to pray next to the wall," and noting that the Robinson's Arch area "does not have the same amenities and 24-hour accessibility as the Western Wall Plaza." [11] Rabbi Eliana Yolkut states that accepting the Robinson's Arch section for prayer services would be accepting second-class status for non-Orthodox Jews. [12]
Ronit Peskin and Leah Aharoni, founders of Women for the Wall, challenge the idea that traditional women are subjugated; [13] Aharoni has accused WOW of "positioning the traditionally male experience as the only one worth living and setting up women for an ongoing game of catch-up." [13] In response, supporters of WOW, such as Yolkut, have written that WOW supporters are not seeking to "liberate" Orthodox women who are pray as they choose, but to "liberate Judaism from the ties of an Orthodox hegemony" and allow non-Orthodox Jews in Israel "to practice Judaism with equal treatment under the law, even though our way of doing so looks very different." [14]
In response to the creation of Women for the Wall, a spokesman for Women of the Wall said, "WoW works 100 percent in the framework of Jewish law. We are not violating the Torah, and this is not a halachic issue, which numerous prominent rabbis have agreed with. The Western Wall is not an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, it’s a public place – a very important, historic, holy place – but first and foremost, it’s public." [4]
Jewish prayer is the prayer recitation that forms part of the observance of Rabbinic Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the Siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book.
The role of women in Judaism is determined by the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law, by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature mention various female role models, religious law treats women differently in various circumstances. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women are slightly more numerous among worldwide Jewish population (52%).
The Western Wall, known in the West as the Wailing Wall, and in Islam as the Buraq Wall, is a portion of ancient limestone wall in the Old City of Jerusalem that forms part of the larger retaining wall of the hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount. Just over half the wall's total height, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, and is believed to have been begun by Herod the Great. The very large stone blocks of the lower courses are Herodian, the courses of medium-sized stones above them were added during the Umayyad period, while the small stones of the uppermost courses are of more recent date, especially from the Ottoman period.
The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism is the organizational branch of Progressive Judaism in Israel, and a member organization of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It currently has 40 communities and congregations around the state of Israel, 13 of which are new congregations, referred to as "U'faratztah" communities, and two kibbutzim, Yahel and Lotan.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
Shira Hadasha is a Jewish congregation in the German Colony neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which emphasizes a more expansive role for women in the synagogue. It founded in 2002 by a group of local residents, including Tova Hartman. Shira Hadasha's prayer service format has been adopted by a number of congregations in Israel, the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia.
Women of the Wall is a multi-denominational Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, in a fashion that includes singing, reading aloud from the Torah and wearing religious garments. Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high" restrictions on religion, and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. One of those restrictions is that the Rabbi of the Western Wall has enforced gender segregation and limitations on religious garb worn by women. When the "Women of the Wall" hold monthly prayer services for women on Rosh Hodesh, they observe gender segregation so that Orthodox members may fully participate. But their use of religious garb, singing and reading from a Torah have upset many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, sparking protests and arrests. In May 2013 a judge ruled that a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls had been misinterpreted and that Women of the Wall prayer gatherings at the wall should not be deemed illegal.
Shmuel Rabinovitch, also spelled Rabinowitz is an Orthodox rabbi and Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel. In his duties as Rabbi of the Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, Rabbi Rabinovich maintains the historic traditional Jewish practices of the Wall as a site of orthodox Jewish prayer and ensures that notes placed in the Wall are removed and treated consistent with tradition and halakhah. He escorts visiting heads of state and foreign dignitaries during visits to the Wall, and has published on the Jewish laws and customs of the Western Wall.
In Judaism, especially in Orthodox Judaism, there are a number of settings in which men and women are kept separate in order to conform with various elements of halakha and to prevent men and women from mingling. Other streams of Judaism rarely separate genders any more than secular western society.
Orthodox Jewish feminism is a movement in Orthodox Judaism which seeks to further the cause of a more egalitarian approach to Jewish practice within the bounds of Jewish Law. The major organizations of this movement is the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) in North America, and Women of the Wall (WOW) and its affiliates in Israel and internationally, known as The International Committee for Women of the Wall (ICWOW). In Israel, the leading Orthodox feminist organization is Kolech, founded by Dr. Chana Kehat. In Australia, there is one Orthodox partnership minyan, Shira Hadasha, in Melbourne.
A public menorah is a large menorah displayed publicly during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. It is done to celebrate the holiday and publicize the miracle of Hanukkah, and is typically accompanied by a public event during one of the nights of Hanukkah attended by invited dignitaries who are honored with lighting the menorah.
Robinson's Arch is the name given to a monumental staircase carried by an unusually wide stone arch, which once stood at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. It was built as part of the expansion of the Second Temple initiated by Herod the Great at the end of the 1st century BCE. Recent findings suggest that it may not have been completed until at least 20 years after his death. The massive stone span was constructed along with the retaining walls of the Temple Mount. It carried traffic up from ancient Jerusalem's Lower Market area and over the Tyropoeon street to the Royal Stoa complex on the esplanade of the Mount. The overpass was destroyed during the First Jewish–Roman War, only a few decades after its completion.
Placing notes in the Western Wall refers to the practice of placing slips of paper containing written prayers to God into the cracks of the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Wilson's Arch is the modern name for an ancient stone arch from Jerusalem, the first in a row of arches that supported a large bridge connecting the Herodian Temple Mount with the Upper City on the opposite Western Hill. The Arch springs from the Western Wall and is still visible underneath later buildings set against the Wall. The name Wilson's Arch is also used to denote the hall that it partially covers, which is currently used as a synagogue. This hall opens towards the Western Wall Plaza at the Plaza's northeast corner, so that it appears on the left of the prayer section of the Western Wall to visitors facing the Wall.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, often mentioned as the Western Wall Foundation, is the body responsible for administration for all matters concerning the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The group operates under the auspices of the office of the Prime Minister of Israel and the Government Companies Authority. Rabbi Ilan Cohen previously served as the Foundation's Chairman, and the position is currently held by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch.
Morton F. Yolkut (1943–2013) was a nationally renowned rabbi who served Jewish congregations in three American cities, Chicago, Illinois; Southfield, Michigan; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented the American Jewish community at a meeting in 2003 with President George W. Bush and was the Jewish rabbi at the traditional Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral the day after President Bush's second inauguration, January 21, 2005.
Susan Silverman is an American Reform rabbi and the sister of comedians Laura Silverman and Sarah Silverman. In 1997, she and her husband, Yosef Abramowitz, co-authored the book Jewish Family and Life: Traditions, Holidays, and Values for Today’s Parents and Children. She worked as a congregational rabbi in Maryland, and as a Jewish educator in Boston, and moved to Israel in 2006.
Anat Hoffman is an Israeli activist and serves as Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, also known as IRAC. She is the director and founding member of Nashot HaKotel, also known as Women of the Wall. Hoffman is a former member of the Jerusalem City Council. In 2013, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz named her "Person of the Year", noting the award reflected "the prominence that she has achieved across the Jewish world over the past 12 months". The Jerusalem Post listed her fifth, among its list of 50 Most Influential Jews, for forcefully and successfully bringing the issue of women's rights at the Kotel to the "forefront of the consciousness of world Jewry".
The Kotel compromise is a compromise reached between orthodox and non-orthodox Jewish denominations, according to which the non-Orthodox "mixed" prayer area for men and women was supposed to be expanded in the southern part of the Western Wall. In contrast to the existing situation, access to this "mixed" prayer area was supposed to be from the main entrance to the Western Wall, and in addition it was supposed to be run by a council which would contain representatives of the non-Orthodox denominations and women of the Wall.
Kolech, also known as Kolech: Religious Women's Forum, is an Israeli women's organization associated with Orthodox Judaism. The group's stance is aligned with Orthodox Jewish feminism and religious Zionism.
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