Nothing else to add!

WOMEN OF THE WALL — DENYING OTHERS THE RIGHT TO PRAY
Jerusalem Residents Condemn Group for “Offensive” and “Disturbing” Conduct at Western Wall

Women For the Wall, the grassroots organization opposing the disturbance of prayers in the traditional Western Wall plaza, today released a collection of video clips featuring unscripted reactions by Jerusalem residents to the conduct of Women Of the Wall. Those interviewed were unanimous in their condemnation of what they characterized as inappropriate and disruptive conduct.

“Women Of the Wall tell the media that they simply wish to pray in their own fashion, and that they are advocating for the rights of women,” said Leah Zakh Aharoni, co-founder and chairperson of Women For the Wall. “But what we found was universal censure of their behavior as loud, unreasonable and ultimately boorish – especially from those women who are forced to stand near them if they wish to pray at the Wall.”

On the video, both women and men criticize the conduct of “Women Of the Wall” as disrespectful of the Sanctity of the Wall, hindering the prayers of others, and personally offensive. The most frequent criticism was for deliberately singing at high volume and making a disturbance. “They have to be sensitive to the people who like to pray traditionally at the Wall… and I understand there’s another place for them,” said one American woman now living in Israel. “I think they should try to be quieter, or go to their own shul,” said another. An American yeshiva student was visibly upset that Women of the Wall disrupted his prayers on the Yahrtzeit of his mother. “For my mother, who’s a lady!” he emphasized.

Many went further, questioning advocacy for change in that specific location. “It is extremely disturbing to me, and I would rather they have a place of their own, to do their own thing and not mingle with the people who feel uncomfortable around them,” commented one woman. A young Israeli woman was more direct: “This is not the place. You want to do this? Why at a place like this? What’s the point?” An Arab resident concurred: “This is a Holy Place to Muslims and Jews, and it’s unnecessary to detract from the sanctity of a Holy Place like this.”

Women of the Wall “makes a joke of it all” concluded an American immigrant to Israel.

“Standing on the steps down to the Wall and conducting random interviews, we couldn’t find even a single individual to defend the conduct of Women Of the Wall,” said Aharoni. “In America people may think they represent women, but every woman we talked to found their behavior disruptive and deliberately offensive.”

An elderly Israeli woman expressed her sentiments with obvious pain: “it’s too bad that such a Holy Place, shared and valued by all the Jewish People, should be turned into a point of contention by a few women who think they have to prove a point by creating a provocation.”

The video is available on the YouTube channel of W4W.

Women For the Wall is a grassroots organization of women who wish to preserve a place for undisturbed traditional prayer at the holiest site in Jewish tradition. Women For the Wall seeks to ensure that all Jews may come and pray with respect and dignity at the place reserved for classical Jewish practice.

One of those women, Ale Klachko, (since seconded by several more in the comments) has wasted no time setting the record straight, stating that WoW “shattered” her “incredibly spiritual moment” — and that “I couldn’t hear anything, not because of the mechitzah, but because of Women of the Wall trying to overpower our minyan while standing right on top of us.”

None of them are (yet) affiliated with W4W, but they verify everything we have said about WoW and its true agenda.

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.

This video should move to 24:12, where you’ll see Ronit Peskin’s awesome speech. Don’t miss how she answers Anat Hoffman, when Hoffman says that Peskin is changing Jewish tradition.

WOW Board knows that it has driven away many Orthodox and non-Orthodox worshipers by their religious practices, non-stop desire for media attention, their willingness to criticize Israel in North America and Europe during the years of the Al Aqsa Intifada.
 
— Phyllis Chesler, on WOW’s Facebook Wall

Phyllis Chesler was a founding member of Women Of the Wall, and is now a founding member of the “Original Women Of the Wall.” She previously called thousands of young women praying silently “mean girls at the Western Wall,” and compared traditional Jewish women to women who conduct honor killings in other cultures. But in response to a comment by WOW on their Wall, Chesler echoed many of our complaints about WOW.

She presents a myth of her own, that only the Plaza built for traditional prayer less than 40 years ago is “the historic Kotel.” This is not true. By expressing a willingness to move to Robinson’s Arch, the WOW board is acknowledging that the government has provided them a place, at the historic Kotel, where they can pray undisturbed and without disturbing others. Chesler’s group adamantly refuses to acknowledge the right of other women to pray in accordance with thousands of years of Jewish tradition, undisturbed.

Here, in case it is removed by WOW, is Phyllis Chesler’s full and unaltered comment:

I am astounded and appalled by WOW’s board’s attempt to take credit for everything and anything and to spin their sacrificing of women’s religious rights at the historic Kotel to their own P.R. advantage. These rights are the very rights that WOW’s Board has been trying to sacrifice as they have chosen to ally themselves with the Reform mixed gender minyanim and at Robinson’s Arch only. WOW Board knows that it has driven away many Orthodox and non-Orthodox worshipers by their religious practices, non-stop desire for media attention, their willingness to criticize Israel in North America and Europe during the years of the Al Aqsa Intifada–and finally, by their violation of their own basic principle to remain at the EN at the historic Kotel, not to call elsewhere “also’ the Kotel.

[Footnote: Within 3-4 hours of being posted, it was indeed removed. Thanks to the alert supporter who told us about it.]

Public speaking is not Peskin’s natural element, she readily admits. She’s more comfortable sharing a recipe for homemade play-dough or curried turnips on her blog, Penniless Parenting, but she took on a new challenge because she felt so strongly about it, she says.

She felt compelled to start the organization, Peskin said in a recent conversation from her home outside of Jerusalem, because “I had been bothered for a while by what Women of the Wall was doing. I was basically hoping the government would take care of the issue, but when they rejected a compromise that was offered, I thought people on the ground needed to take action.”

“They say they are about equality, but it’s not about equality, it’s about respecting the traditions of” the Kotel, she says. All holy sites, including the Vatican, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, El Aqsa Mosque and the Kotel have different rules for men and women that are designed to protect the sanctity of the site,” Peskin says.

“You can pray at Robinson’s Arch” – a site adjacent to the Kotel where both women and men traditionally worship – “and it’s the same Kotel,” she says.

“Women of the Wall is going on international media and trash-talking Orthodox Jews, traditional Judaism and Israel,” she says. “They compare traditional Jews to rapists and Israel to Saudi Arabia, where there is no freedom of religion and women have no rights.”

She says she fears that the group will have a negative effect on Americans’ perception of Israel.

“We’re very concerned because we know there is a large problem with Jewish people in the United States feeling very disconnected from their Judaism, and one thing that keeps them connected is their connection to Israel. When (Women of the Wall) tells people on their speaking tours to stop visiting Israel and give all your money to us so we can fight against the Israeli government, it ruins people’s connections to Judaism.”

Read the full article at Chicago Jewish News.