Press Release
Women of the Wall met for Rosh Hodesh Tammuz prayers this morning at the Western Wall with 300 women in attendance in the women’s section and over 100 men in support.
Frannie
Werner and her family came from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to celebrate her Bat
Mitzvah ceremony, which they began planning over six months ago. This was the
family’s first time in Israel and at the Western Wall. Women of the Wall vowed
to ensure that Frannie would read from a Torah scroll, despite the attempts
made by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Administrator of the Western Wall, to prevent
women and girls from accessing Torah scrolls at the holy site. There are over
100 scrolls for public use in the men’s section, and Rabbi Rabinowitz runs a
lucrative Bar Mitzvah industry at the Kotel
‘-- for boys only. Though one Torah
scroll was apprehended at the security entrance and held in custody until the
end of the prayer, the women’s group did manage to covertly bring a second
Torah scroll to the women’s section of the holy site. Anat Hoffman, Chair of
Women of the Wall spoke of the morning’s prayer, “Rabbi Rabinowitz banned one
of our Torah scrolls from the Kotel today and we brought in another one. If he
bans two Torah scrolls next month, we will bring 10. You cannot stand in
between women and our connection to the Torah.”
With great joy the women surrounded Frannie,
age 13, and supported her while she read Torah amidst screaming, cursing and
shrill whistles, blown by protesters. Claire Tuner, Frannie’s mother, said
proudly of her brave daughter, “It is an experience she will remember for the
rest of her life. We all will.” Frannie’s father, Mike, added, “I am very proud
of my daughters and very glad to be here.”
Police, who in the past have detained
protesters and those disturbing the peace during Women of the Wall’s prayer,
refused to do so this morning. Police looked on while protesters displayed
signs, spit, screamed and blew whistles.
After the conclusion of the prayer, an
ultra-Orthodox protester destroyed a Women of the Wall prayer book proudly, in
front of a crowd (see a
video here). Desecration of prayer books with the name of
God in them is explicitly forbidden in Judaism. Last month, despite a peaceful
and uneventful prayer service, police detained Women of the Wall’s Executive
Director Lesley Sachs for 5 hours, 2 of those hours in interrogation, under the
guise of “disturbing the public order.”
Hoffman continues, “A religious man destroyed a
prayer book with religious, holy texts in it today at the Kotel. History tells
us that where prayers books are permitted to be destroyed, blood may soon after
be shed. It is shocking that while this happened, Israel’s Police and Rabbi
Rabinowitz stood by and were silent.”
On Women of the Wall:
For 27 years Women of the Wall have led the
struggle for women’s right to pray at the Western Wall with tallit, tefillin
and the Torah at the Western Wall. After the arrests and detentions of 50 women
at the Kotel, and thanks to the work of activists all over the world, in 2013 a
Jerusalem District Court judge ruled that Women of the Wall may pray at the
holy site, each woman according to her tradition. Unfortunately, Rabbi Shmuel
Rabinowitz, Administrator of the Western Wall and Holy Places implemented
regulations preventing women from accessing Torah scrolls at the Western Wall.
In 2016, spurred on by the insistence of Women of the Wall, partners and
activists worldwide, the Israeli government approved a plan to build a third,
pluralist section at the Western Wall. The execution of this plan may take some
time and until its completion, Women of the Wall continue to pray in the
women’s section of the Western Wall, remaining steadfast in the fight for
women’s rights to read from the Torah at the Kotel.
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