“The last thing that WOW desires is for quiet, undisturbed prayer without media attention,” said Leah Aharoni, cofounder of W4W. “On the contrary, their agenda is the disturbance of the prayer of others, and it is high time that the rights of the true victims be respected.”

The W4W website meticulously documents statements from WOW leaders reflecting their desire to disturb prayer and spark confrontation — what WOW’s own founders described as an agenda to “shock” and “change” traditional women. Leaders and members declare that they seek attention from the media and public. One of WOW’s own members describes how her colleagues “sing at the top of their lungs in an operatic voice.” Last Elul, WOW members blew over 10 shofaros in unison, disturbing prayers held at synagogues elsewhere in Jerusalem’s Old City.

“WOW first creates a confrontation, and then portrays itself as the victim. When we were able to bring 15,000 women to the Wall to stand in silent prayer and to ask that this opportunity be preserved, WOW responded by trying to tar our efforts due to the misbehavior of twenty-five or so uninvited, rowdy (male) students,” explained Jenni Menashe, also a W4W cofounder. “WOW consistently refuses to dialogue or consider the rights of the thousands of women who come to pray at the Western Wall in traditional fashion each day.”

“This level of hypocrisy would be mind-boggling,” added Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director of the CJV, “were it not sadly typical. [WOW Director] Anat Hoffman’s career is about opposing religious growth, not advocating for women, yet she and the American Reform movement deliberately misportray her intent and credentials.”

“What sort of advocacy for women’s rights involves trampling upon the rights of 10,000 women for the sake of fifty? If WOW desired undisturbed prayer, they would pray at the plaza created for ‘alternative services,’ a platform deemed acceptable by the American liberal movements,” added Menashe. “It is clear that they have an alternate agenda, and are simply playing the victim for crass political purposes.”

“WOW is imposing their own form of worship on Judaism’s holiest site, in violation of the sanctity of the place and existing practice, deliberately fomenting discord and acrimony,” concluded Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the CJV. “Such brazen actions would be unthinkable at the holiest sites of other religions. WOW should demonstrate the same respect for Jewish traditional practices that decent people everywhere show for those of all religions.”

Women for the Wall founder Leah Aharoni rejected the notion that the young women are being used unfairly in the fight over the Western Wall. She said that her group was simply providing a “platform” for the teenage fervor about the Jewish holy site.

She said that she met with 40 young female leaders recently and they named the Western Wall as a major area of concern. “They were very disturbed,” she said. “That is their spiritual home.”

Yigal Canaan, an activist with The Liba Center, conceded that young women have a strategic role to play in countering Women of the Wall. His group is countering a now-stalled government plan, negotiated with Women of the Wall and other liberal Jewish groups, to create an egalitarian section just south of the traditional Western Wall. In a video released last week, The Liba Center accused the feminist group of seeking to “divide” the heart of the Jewish people.

“I think that in every struggle, young people are more enthusiastic and more ideological,” he said. The presence of women also helps counter claims that the Western Wall religious authorities are discriminating against women. Women want the “traditional way,” he said.

Aharoni said that the prayer service was a lesson for the teen girls: “This is a message for our daughters to learn. If it is something that concerns you, it is productive for you to voice that concern.”

Read more at The Forward.

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.

Nothing else to add!

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.

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.

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.

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.