The Women of the Wall are coming up with the provocation of the month, each time insisting on something else they think is their right. Recently, it was to decide that Birkat Hakohanim, the Priestly Blessing that, in contrast to a daily recitation in Israeli synagogues is a dramatic ceremony at the Wall on the first of the Intermediate Days of Passover (see photograph), should also be “Birkat Hakohanot” – blessing by female priestesses, whatever that is supposed to mean. Judaism did not have priestesses, ever. Idol worshipers did, often with accompanying licentiousness.

I am disgusted. I am outraged. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. Equal before G-d and man, but different. Neither should be slaves to the other. But, grow up. Stop trying to be what you are not. They have their mitzvot and we have ours. You don’t see men demanding the right to give birth. God made us different – thank God. Accept it. Be all you can be and stop trying to be something else!

You have no right to provoke, not at the Kotel. I am disgusted. You want to bless the Jewish people, Am Yisrael? So do I! I do it every week, every day – but unlike you, I don’t need to flaunt myself. God listens to every prayer…from the most modest and humble, whispered in the women’s section by a woman who gently rocks her infant and forgets which prayer she has just said, to the greatest cantor singing at the top of his lungs.

I do not for one minute believe that the prayer said by a harried mother holding one child while trying to calm another is of any less value than that of a man who stands tranquilly in a synagogue.

Your insecurities, your inability to accept the value of women – and I speak to women now, not to men – is YOUR hangup, your problem. Like the Jew who cannot let go of the ghetto, you cling to accusations of inequality as the greatest tallit of all. But we are free of whatever ghetto there might have been in society – if we have the courage to let it go. There are very few real injustices that we cannot fight against in the realm of male-female relationships. Today, women can protect themselves and do not need a man to support them in many cases. But just as they need us, we need them.

Just as a man can never give birth, can never know the wonders of carrying a child or nursing one, you can never be Kohanim. Accept it; get over it. You are, at most, daughters of Kohanim and that does give you a special status, but it does not include standing up in front of the world “blessing” Am Yisrael under a tallit and stretching your arms out. That is not for women – and I wish you were half as focused and concerned with all of the real mitzvot with which you have been tasked before rushing to grab the limelight once again.

Read the full article on Arutz Sheva.

Anat Hoffman, head of Women of the Wall (WoW), was trapped by her own rhetoric.

For decades she claimed that WoW simply wanted to pray in its own fashion, despite dozens of editorials and statements from WoW leaders about forcing traditional women to “change their world view,” in the words of its late founder, Rivka Haut. Now that American Reform and Conservative leaders agree this new space is adequate for alternative prayers, how could Hoffman argue, especially with the Reform movement paying her salary? So her core supporters have left; Vanessa Ochs calls her “a pawn of the liberal movements,” while Phyllis Chesler says Hoffman was “used.” They and Shulamit Magnus refuse to betray their quest to change the “Jewish sacred space” – to leave no site at the Wall that accords with traditional Judaism.

Gabriela Geselowitz complains that the compromise means “if I want to pray at such a holy site in a way that feels meaningful to me, I have to go to a part that isn’t from the postcards.” The problem remains that had the site not maintained traditional standards, none of those postcards would exist.

We can only join together when we surrender what “feels meaningful to me” in favor of what is shared by us. What Forward editor Jane Eisner calls “the area of the Wall considered most holy” is only so because it has felt the tears of millions of traditional Jews, none of whom could comfortably pray there had the site not maintained traditional norms. When the ad-hoc “Women For the Wall” called for a show of support for the status quo, they brought more women to the Wall on a single day than WoW does in a decade.

Read the full op-ed for more.

The Women of the Wall (WoW) will once again attempt to worship at the Kotel in a non-Orthodox fashion by reading from the Torah and singing out loud, practices that have upset many more-traditional worshipers. Their monthly prayer event has been a constant source of controversy in Israel for more than two decades.

Supporters of the WoW frequently argue that female Kotel worshipers should be allowed to pray as they do at home, including reading Torah and singing loudly – with any restrictions being a violation of their freedom of worship…

Curiously, though, my extensive Googling suggests that non-Orthodox Jews have never complained about another major way they are unable to worship at the Kotel as they do at home: with musical instruments on Shabbat…

Shouldn’t true religious freedom enable the maximum number of people to pray according to their beliefs? I recently asked a friend of mine who is a prominent WoW member what kind of Shabbat guitar policy the Kotel should have. She said she didn’t know. That’s a good answer, but not a surprising one, given that the conversation on non-Orthodox worship at the Kotel has really been about feminism and identity rather than the right to worship according to one’s custom.

Read the full article at the Jerusalem Post.

Liberal-minded American Jews rightly regard Pamela Geller, who organized the Garland, Texas, cartoon-of Islam’s-founder contest earlier this month, as an irresponsible provocateur. What’s odd is that many of those very same liberal-minded American Jews enthusiastically champion (and generously support) another irresponsible provocateur.

That would be the “Women of the Wall” — the attention-addicted feminist group bent on holding vocal women’s services at the Kosel Maaravi that offend the sensibilities of the traditional Orthodox women and men who most frequent the site and have regularly prayed there in traditional fashion for decades.

It might seem at first thought that Ms. Geller’s stunts are in a category of their own… But Ms. Geller isn’t misguided only because of the violent reactions she invites. She is misguided because, put simply and starkly, it’s wrong to provoke people. There is nothing wrong with condemning Islamist terrorism or holding the banner of free speech as high as one chooses. But to try to make one’s points by insulting the sensibilities of all Muslims is boorish.

Which brings us to the “Women of the Wall.” They are free to make the case that their feminist vision should trump Jewish tradition. But seeking to flaunt their conviction in the faces of others for whom it is anathema is crass.

Read the full article at HaModia.

We rend our garments if a sefer Torah is, chalilah, desecrated. If one should fall to the ground, it is customary for those present to undertake to fast that day. I don’t know what the proper reaction is to seeing a sefer Torah employed as a prop in the service of a social cause, but a recent such exploitation made my heart hurt.

The exploiters, for their part, were jubilant. Members of the feminist group “Women of the Wall” had obtained a sefer Torah small enough to smuggle into the Kosel Maaravi plaza, where they proceeded to hold a “bat-mitzvah” ceremony, complete with a woman reading from the Torah and the 12-year-old reciting birchas haTorah.

“Today we made history for women @ Kotel,” the group announced on social media. “We must recreate this victory each month with great opposition.”

The latter phrase may have been incoherent, but the sentiment was clear. By flouting the Jewish mesorah (and current Kosel regulations) and by evading the Israeli police, the intrepid women had, at least in their own minds, scored points for their team.

For more than three decades, the Kosel has been a place — perhaps the only one in the world — where Jews of all affiliations and persuasions have regularly prayed side by side. What has allowed for that minor miracle has been the maintenance of a standard at the holy site that all Jews can abide.

Last year, to maintain that uniqueness, Women of the Wall was assigned an area in front of part of the Kosel, Robinson’s Arch (or Ezras Yisrael), for their “non-traditional” services. But the feminist group’s leader, Anat Hoffman, blithely dismissed that equally holy area as a “sunbathing deck.” With its recent incursion into the main Kosel plaza, the group has made it clear that it has no interest in avoiding offense, but rather, on the contrary, is committed to being “in the face” of the vast majority of regular visitors to the Kosel for tefillah, whom it views as the enemy.

Part of the recent verbal victory dance was performed by Women of the Wall’s Executive Director, Lesley Sachs, who seized upon the fact that the small scroll, which she said was 200 years old, had likely been written to avoid its seizure by enemies of Jews. “This time,” she explained, it was used to avoid “Jews imposing restrictions on Jews.” That would be the Rav of the Kosel, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, and those who, like him, wish for the standards of Jewish tradition to mediate public services at the Kosel.

It wasn’t only the sefer Torah that was conscripted for the cause. So was the bat-mitzvah girl.

The daughter of an immigrant from Russia, she was one of four whose images appeared in recent bus ads in Yerushalayim that were part of Women of the Wall’s campaign to hold such ceremonies at the Kosel. The Hebrew text of one, featuring a young girl in a tallis and holding a Torah, read: “Mom, I too want a bat mitzvah at the Kotel.”

After the celebration, the honoree shared that, amid the merriment, she had become “very emotional” at the Torah reading, and “just had a lot of fun.” As, from all appearances, did her minders.

Predictably, the mainstream media were full of praise for the successful subterfuge, and the cause in which it was committed. Among the effervescent expressions was a piece by Lexi Erdheim, a rabbinic student at a Reform institution and a “Women of the Wall Intern.”

Ms. Erdheim wrote that she “could only imagine” the “overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment” felt by those who had been fighting for years to obtain “women’s right to free prayer at the Kotel,” and who were finally able to “witness a young girl chant from a sefer Torah.”

But she injected a note of reservation, too, since, “despite this momentous occasion, the battle is not over.” Still and all, she wrote, she was “reminded of a quote from Pirkei Avos: ‘You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it’.”

Another Mishnah in Pirkei Avos, though, is more fitting for the occasion of a sefer Torah employed as a PR prop. It was cited well before Ms. Erdheim’s piece appeared, by Leah Aharoni, a co-founder of the mesorah-respecting group “Women For the Wall”: “Rabi Tzaddok would say… ‘Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, or a spade with which to dig.’”

It seems that the Women of the Wall and their leader Anat Hoffman have not gotten the message. Israel has changed recently. The boys, the war have brought us together. We have been trying to be more sensitive, more tolerant, and more caring. But that doesn’t always help when you need to raise money for a cause.

In recent months, ultra-liberal Hoffman (if the charedim are ultra-Orthodox, she must be ultra- liberal) has dropped from the headlines. She is still turning up every month at the Kotel with her tiny group of followers. The numbers have dwindled to a couple of dozen. There have been no confrontations, and the media has had bigger fish to fry. However, to coincide with her fundraising tour in the US, Hoffman has been orchestrating events.

First, she launched the BusMitzva ad campaign on Jerusalem buses, imploring young women to buttress WoW’s numbers and celebrate their event at the Kotel. This created the first round of PR in newspapers in Israel and around the globe, as we read about 11-year-olds’ noble battle for equal rights.

Then, to stroke tensions a bit more, Hoffman sponsored the ads to go on buses that run through Meah Sherim and other charedi neighborhoods, secretly hoping that someone would deface them. Guess what, it happened. WoW went to work again with press releases and blog posts decrying the sin of defacing the buses. It created yet another round of articles about the repressive “ultras.” WoW’s spokeswoman, Shira Pruce proudly told the media that the bus campaign was meant to be provocative all along. (In contrast, our group, Women FOR the Wall put out a public statement asking people to leave the ads alone and to respect everyone’s freedom of speech).

Friday’s Rosh Chodesh service is round three of the campaign. Women of the Wall will smuggle in a Torah Scroll into the Kotel Plaza. Last time they tried that, the Sefer Torah was desecrated by been brought in a duffle bag. I’m sure the press releases are ready, the blog posts are written. We are going to see another round of negative press about the “repressive” Orthodox, ominous black hats and all.

All the while, Anat is on a fundraising tour in the US. Going from Reform temple to Reform temple decrying religious Jews, who deny her and her friends freedom of religion, in modern Israel of all places. Liberal Jews will be horrified, open up their check books, and with memories of marches in Selma support the battle for “freedom” in Israel.

Anat won’t tell them that there is an area of the Kotel designated for non-traditional prayer – Ezrat Israel. Nor the fact that the area stands forlorn and empty, since very few liberal Jews turn up for prayers there. She will not reveal that her group can read the Torah there and no one will interfere. She will not share that a compromise is in the works to enhance the area. It doesn’t help the fundraising and she does not care how much she vilifies religious Jews in her quest for her version of “religious freedom.”

Truth be told, the charedi community in Israel is not very happy about creating an egalitarian section at the Wall. They do not agree that an area of the remnant of the Holy Temple should abrogate the traditions practiced there since time immemorial. But they have chosen communal peace over major confrontation. They chose to agree to disagree, difficult as that may be.

The only really “ultras” in this whole story are the ultra-liberal Women of the Wall. They don’t care about the negative press about Judaism and other Jews. Compromise does not seem to be their ultimate goal. It’s to get a foothold at the new section and slowly pressure to change the existing area. After all, Hoffman has always said that turning the Kotel into a secular site is her ultimate goal.

i would hate to see the situation disintegrate into another fight. I would hate to see the religious community put it foot down and say enough is enough.

But we are all sick and tired of fun and games at the Kotel. Is there really another way out?

It’s not common for a society to undergo a mindset shift in the space of four months. Yet that’s exactly what happened in Israel this summer.

The Israel of October 2014 is not the same country we lived in just a few short months ago. Most of us didn’t do anything to make it happen. Yet the society around us shifted. The Israelis of today are kinder, more sensitive, more geared towards values than they have been in years.

In May, Israel was on the verge of a societal schism. But that was before the kidnapping and murder of the three teens – Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali. And before the war in Gaza. These successive shockwaves have not only traumatized the Israeli society, but pushed it to unprecedented solidarity. In my twenty years in Israel, I don’t remember a time when we all felt closer, differences notwithstanding.

The new-found unity is fragile. Even politicians and the media are tiptoeing around controversial issues, so as not to shatter what came together in months of blood, prayer, and tears.

This is why Women of the Wall’s current Bat Mitzva ad campaign on Jerusalem buses is so troubling. WoW leaders know that any girl can celebrate her Bat Mitzva and read the Torah at the Kotel. Over a year ago, the Israeli government set up the Ezrat Israel section at the Western Wall, which is open to egalitarian services.

The group itself has been praying undisturbed. With no media attention, Women of the Wall’s numbers have dwindled to a couple of dozen. The only restriction on WoW is their inability to bring in a Sefer Torah to the traditional plaza, though they are free to read the Torah at the Ezrat Israel section, just a few yards down the same exact wall.

The bus ad campaign was timed perfectly to coincide with Anat Hoffman’s fundraising trip to the US. After being absent from news coverage for close to a year, the group needed to revive its visibility and found no better way to do so than to raise a new controversy. But does that really justify pushing Israel back to a social rift? Is painting Israel as a divided society, even as it makes strides towards greater interconnectedness, the only way to promote an agenda?

The campaign is not only disingenuous; it is downright harmful. While the charedi community was unhappy with the establishment of Ezrat Israel and the Sharansky Plan, it chose not to oppose it publically. This act of responsibility was geared towards creating peace and preserving the sanctity of the Kotel. Clearly, Judaism’s holiest site is not the right place to wage battles.

The new campaign signals that WoW is not interested in compromise. Its agenda involves continuously pushing for new gains and undermining the quiet at the Kotel. Each new settlement is just a starting point for the next confrontation. By reviving the controversy, it is hoping to spark a new round of hostilities for PR and media consumption. Elementary school girls are meant to star to further its goals. It plays well on the evening news: “Young girl wants a Bat Mitzvah only to be squelched by the ominous ultra-Orthodox.”

Hoffman’s current US speaking tour strives to align her organization’s goals with Israel’s security interests. In truth, social cohesion is the greatest asset for all of Israel’s security and domestic concerns. Israelis have finally understood that any gains made by one demographic at the expense of the others are offset by cumulative damage to the country as a whole. Hence the collective effort to find the widest possible common denominator. WoW’s current campaign to divide the house of Israel against itself is antithetical to Israel’s security and social development.

Bat Mitzva bus ads would have been a terrific idea on the streets of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. They could truly inspire some of the tens of thousands of American Jewish girls at risk of assimilation to participate in at least one religiously significant event in their lives.

As to Jerusalem, it’s time to get real. If Women of the Wall want to pray and read the Torah, they have where to do so. If a family wants to make a Bat Mitzvah, there is a whole section waiting to be used. Women of the Wall have had over a year to prove their ability to bring out the crowds that have a deep desire for egalitarian prayer. Clearly they have failed. During the holiday season, a million and a half Jews visited the Kotel. While the Kotel Plaza was full daily, the egalitarian section at Ezrat Israel stood almost empty. Jews are voting with their feet for the traditional plaza, Orthodox decorum and all.

The Israeli society and the Jewish Diaspora have bigger challenges ahead of them. We need to pull together and focus on those. We need to concentrate on what unites us, not what divides us.

Have you ever found yourself in a different country, all the while never leaving home? I have.

The Israel of October 2014 is not the same country we lived in just four months ago. None of us moved. But the society around us shifted. Today we are kinder, more sensitive, more geared towards values than we have been in years.

In May we were on the verge of a societal schism. But that was before the boys. And before the war. The successive shockwaves of this past summer have not only traumatized the Israeli society, but pushed it to unprecedented solidarity. In my twenty years in Israel, I don’t remember a time when we all felt closer, differences notwithstanding.

Sure, there have been wars before and yes even then we came out from our bubbles, but what makes this time different is that mutual consideration still continues, though the guns have been silent. Israeli society realizes just how fragile the new-found unity is. Even politicians and the media seem to be moving on their tiptoes so as not to shatter what came together in months of blood, prayer, and tears.

This is why Women of the Wall’s renewed efforts to stir up their divisive agenda at the Kotel is particularly troubling. For the past year, the group has been praying undisturbed. With no media attention, their numbers have dwindled to a couple of dozen. The only restriction on WoW is their inability to bring in a Sefer Torah, though the group is free to read the Torah at the Ezrat Israel section of the Kotel, just a few yards down the same exact wall.

Now that news coverage is uneventful, Women of the Wall are hoping to make gains in their negotiations over procedure and circumstance at the egalitarian plaza, being discussed as part of the Sharansky proposal. But does that really justify pushing the envelope on a hot-button issue at Israel’s holiest and most unifying site? Do we need to go back to the rift? Is pitting Israelis against each other (as most media reports present it) the only way to promote an agenda?

During the holiday season a million and a half Jews visited the Kotel. While the Kotel Plaza has been full daily, the egalitarian section at Ezrat Israel stands almost empty. If the past few months are an indication for the future, all the tumult about equality at the Wall has come down to one fact. Not too many people are really interested in another section. The Reform and Conservative movements have been throwing around a new slogan, “One Wall for One People.” It seems the Wall that Jews are choosing is the same Kotel Plaza, with a divider between the men and women and traditional decorum.

What is this really about? The American movements are in crisis. In the last twenty years, the Conservative movement has lost over 60% of its members. According to the Pew Study, only 11% of American Jewry are actual members of Reform Congregations (more identify as Reform, but they don’t participate in temple life). The movements need something to rally the troops. It’s the old Wag the Dog syndrome – when you have domestic problems look for an enemy to fight against. The Israeli ultra-orthodox, black hats and all, are a perfect target.

Women of the Wall have had over a year to prove their ability to bring out the crowds that have a deep desire for egalitarian prayer. Clearly they have failed. The organization is great at orchestrating the media, and now it is using elementary school girls in a new campaign to pressure for Bat Mitzvahs with a Torah reading at the Kotel. It plays well on the evening news: “Young Girl wants a Bar Mitzvah only to be squelched by the ominous ultra-Orthodox.”

The bus ad campaign, funded by American liberal movements, should be running in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It can truly inspire some of the tens of thousands of American Jewish girls at-risk of assimilation to participate in at least one religiously significant event in their life.

As to Jerusalem, it’s time to get real. We have bigger challenges in Israel. We need to pull together and focus on them. We need to concentrate on what unites us, not what divides us. If Women of the Wall want to make a Bat Mitzvah and read the Torah at the Kotel, they have an entire section to do so.

Undisturbed. Undisturbing.

In her fanciful description of the year following Judge Moshe Sobel’s decision, Bonnie Riva-Ras demonstrates that one doesn’t need to wait decades before engaging in historical revisionism. One can do so mere months later. While claiming to promote the advancement of women, Riva-Ras has attempted to write them out of history.

Perhaps her most offensive claim is that her “opponents” are men – “the most extremist haredi (ultra-Orthodox rabbis)… and politicians.” We are not rabbis, two-thirds of us are not haredi, and we certainly are not men – we are the founders of Women For the Wall, the group that disarmed Women of the Wall.

A simple question: If we formed our group in response to Sobel’s decision, then why did we create our Facebook page and website 10 days prior? Obviously Riva- Ras does not comprehend this, but we were as surprised by his decision as anyone else.

She writes that her “opponents” – thousands of Jewish women – “would not allow the law of the land… to be exercised at the Kotel.” This is akin to claiming that the privileges of democracy are reserved for preferred classes. We exercised our civil right to demonstrate, via silent prayer, that we do not wish to see the traditional plaza changed into something different – an agenda admitted by the head of Women of the Wall, Anat Hoffman, several months later.

Riva-Ras fails to recall that Women of the Wall were opposed by rowdy teenage boys prior to our formation. She claims a level of violence that simply never happened, even after the police unwisely placed Women of the Wall as close as possible to the men’s section when they found the women’s section filled to overflowing. And it is pure fiction to assert that “the riots continued for several more months and the police became less accommodating.” In actuality, our intervention got the boys to go away.

She claims that “a loudspeaker was used to try to prevent us from being able to pray.” Perhaps she is referring to the time when 10,000 Jewish women gathered to recite prayers for the health of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Rav Ovadiah Yosef. Ninety members of Women of the Wall waded into the middle of this massive group, set their cantor up on a chair with a microphone, and proceeded to disturb all around them. Who was trying to prevent whom from praying?

If Women of the Wall wants to see women stand up for themselves, they should be celebrating our efforts rather than obscuring them. To their great surprise, we and other Orthodox women do have minds of our own. If WoW has the right to come and disturb the prayers of traditional women in order to change them, then we have the right to respond and declare our fealty to millennia of Jewish tradition.

Women of the Wall cannot brook our existence – or the absence of the boys.

Without their thuggish behavior, WoW cannot capture media attention. This explains why WoW was caught on video deliberately attempting to provoke them and draw a reaction. By highlighting every negative response, their Facebook page documents the effectiveness of our efforts – from water bottles one month, to a single egg the next, to nothing more than whistles, to complete silence. That silence, of course, was characterized by WoW as “seething hatred,” as if they could read our minds.

Here, then, is the truth. We did not create Women For the Wall to respond to the Sobel decision, or to serve as the tools of “rabbi handlers.” We created our organization to express the voice of the silent majority of women who pray consistently at the Holy Western Wall, and do not wish to see its traditions discarded or traditional Judaism maligned by WoW members around the world.

The boys did not go away due to government intervention, but due to our own. We showed them that they were misrepresenting the overwhelmingly non-violent Orthodox community, and that there is a far better answer to the animosity and provocations of the Women of the Wall. We have robbed WoW of what they sought most of all: publicity, and the opportunity to bad-mouth Orthodoxy. When they come to the Wall now, they are easily outnumbered by the traditional women who simply happen to be there. The boys no longer pay them attention, and the media no longer comes to see what will transpire.

The silent majority has spoken. It anxiously awaits the government’s response.

There was an impressively large turnout for her speech on a cold, wintry Rochester evening. I anticipated listening to a gifted speaker, and I wasn’t disappointed. Anat Hoffman, of Women of the Wall, is passionate, articulate, charismatic, and funny.

Unfortunately, her gifted oratory made her disparaging portrayal of Orthodox and especially Haredi Jewry all the more hurtful. I am not offended by constructive criticism — but unfortunately, her stinging rhetoric did not qualify.

I have never met a Haredi man incapable of finding the post office or writing a check. I take issue with a caricature of Talmud study and the implication that Torah scholars are unable to function in the modern world. Rabbis do not feel threatened by the superior secular education and earning power of women, and I am horrified that Ms. Hoffman accused them of responding to this perceived threat by oppressing women. Anat’s portrayal of Orthodoxy as backwards and misogynist is apocryphal and a device for furthering her political interests.

I commented from the audience, during the public question and answer session, that as an Orthodox Rabbi I was offended by her portrayal of my community. Though attempting to maintain a friendly tone, Anat responded by tossing out yet another insult — calling me a coward for not having the courage to condemn the violence and racism she attributes to the Orthodox community. She said I would be her hero if I publicly condemned violence.

If that is all it takes, Ms. Hoffman could have many Orthodox heroes. Every Rabbi, of any stripe of Orthodoxy, whose guidance I seek, whose opinion I respect, or whose friendship I value, demands nonviolence.

Anat claimed that “I could give you 49 names of Rabbis who are racist according to halacha, who are inciting for violence in Israel.” Presumably she was referring to a 2010 Rabbinic ruling regarding selling land in Israel to non-Jews. She asserted that I, as an Orthodox Rabbi, needed to criticize the ruling and said that “…until then your silence is support.” What she neglected to tell the audience is that the vast majority of the Orthodox Rabbinate had distanced itself from this ruling long ago. The most prominent authority on Jewish law at the time, Haredi Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv zt”l, strongly criticized the ruling. Preeminent Religious Zionist sage Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein did as well, as did the Rabbinical Council of America, which speaks for Rabbis from many parts of the Orthodox community. And finally, without condoning it, the ruling in no way advocated violence.

Ms. Hoffman apparently views violence and racism as endemic in the Orthodox world and feels that there is inadequate condemnation from within Orthodoxy when violence occurs, but she fails to demonstrate that this is the case. Yes, there are a relatively small number of violent individuals — something unfortunately true of virtually all communities. There was the “Beit Shemesh spitter,” there are vandals, and there were teenage boys violently protesting against Women of the Wall – until Leah Aharoni and Women for the Wall put a stop to them. There was also the recent assault committed against an Orthodox woman in Beit Shemesh by an Orthodox man who disapproved of how she was dressed. These acts are regarded as contemptible by the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jewry, who vocally condemn them, as do I. I, along with the vast majority of Orthodox Jewry, am embarrassed and distressed by the small minority of Orthodox Jews who act in hateful, intolerant, and violent ways in exactly the same way that all Jews are embarrassed by criminals like Bernie Madoff, Ivan Boesky, and Michael Milken – who are no more representative of Jews than hotheaded zealots are of the Orthodox. Violent Orthodox extremism is a rare phenomenon, and when it occurs it is condemned.

Now that I am Ms. Hoffmans’s hero, I would like to ask her to reciprocate. Anat: inflammatory words can cause real pain. Please stop caricaturing Orthodox Jews. Don’t falsely depict Orthodoxy as primitive, violent, racist, and misogynistic.

Don’t tarnish Israel by demeaning Orthodox Jews and then exaggerating their influence. Don’t advance your political agenda by promoting stereotypes, demonizing the Orthodox, and maligning Israel.

You seem to want to change us. I suggest that you try to actually understand us first. You don’t even seem to understand the differences within Orthodoxy, as you incorrectly described Leah Aharoni as Haredi (full disclosure: I helped organize a subsequent speech in Rochester by Leah Aharoni of Women For the Wall, to respond to Anat Hoffman). Exaggerated criticism from someone who seemingly sees nothing of value in our community will not help the Orthodox community or anyone else.

And when others incite hatred against the Orthodox — like in 2013 when a senior government official called Haredim “parasites” (before apologizing), and more recently when an IDF colonel said she hated Haredim and hoped they die — I hope you’re the first to issue a condemnation. And when your words or deeds are the source of the problem, I hope you are brave enough to own them.

Anat — please become my hero too.