By Rabbi Stanley Davids

Resa and I returned home to Jerusalem on January 25th.  We plunged immediately into what has become a month long period of programs, meetings, encounters and conference calls.  We aren't complaining.  It's just that the days aren't long enough.

First up was Resa's challenge to organize a national meeting of the 15 chapters of Women of Reform Judaism - Israel for February 14th.  The national meeting just happened to have been scheduled in the midst of rising concern over events regarding the Women of the Wall.  By now we all know of Nofrat Frenkel who was arrested while worshipping with WOW in November at the Kotel on Rosh Hodesh.  That event set off a tsunami of anguished responses throughout the Diaspora, as Reform and Conservative Jews expressed outrage at what clearly has become a series of escalating restrictions aimed at accommodating the ultra-Orthodox at the expense of just about everyone else.

What kinds of restrictions?  Women cannot wear Tallitot at the Kotel; there is now a 'men only' walkway at the rear of the Western Wall Plaza; some bus routes in Jerusalem have been proclaimed 'women in the back of the bus' routes; some Haredi air passengers are demanding the right to wear portable Mechitzahs (barriers) over their heads while they are flying so that the sight of women won't distract them and so that they will not see the projected movies; and in some areas of Jerusalem Haredim have gender-segregated sidewalks.  Nofrat Frenkel's arrest for many was simply the last straw.

By Rabbi Eric Yoffie

I am saddened and dismayed by recent events at the Western Wall. These events are a tragedy — a blow to the State of Israel and to the unity of the Jewish people.

Love of Israel unites Jews everywhere. Love of Jerusalem unites Jews everywhere. For many of these Jews, the single most important symbol of both Israel and Jerusalem is the Western Wall.

Why turn that symbol into a source of division? Why should the Wall be an ultra-Orthodox synagogue rather than a place that belongs to us all — a place where all Jews can find space to pray, to gather, and to celebrate the Jewish homeland and the Jewish people?

Twenty years ago I proposed a solution to the problem of access to the Wall, and it remains the best answer.

By Rabbi Fred Morgan

Recently, we at Temple Beth Israel celebrated the bat-mitzvah of a girl who attends Leibler-Yavneh College, a religious Zionist school.    Her bat-mitzvah was a living example of what has come to be known as ‘pluralism’ within the Jewish world. 
 
Pluralism is one of three approaches to the religious reality of diversity.  It is a self-evident fact that the Jewish world today is a world of diversity.  Pluralism is one such response: it claims that “there is more than one way to be Jewish.”  The other two responses are the exclusivist and inclusivist approaches.  Both claim there is only one way to be Jewish - the halakhic way -  but differ in their attitude toward Jews who do not subscribe to that way of being Jewish.

By Miriam Farber

8th grade: On my first trip to Israel, with my grandparents' synagogue, we visited the Kotel on Shabbat. I started to write a note to stick in between the stones, and a security guard came over and told me to stop writing.
11th grade: When I was in Israel for a semester in high school on EIE (Eisendrath International Exchange), we went to the Kotel for our first Shabbat in Israel. I wore a kippah, even though my classmates and teacher told me it wasn't a good idea. I looked through the bookshelves in the women's section for a prayerbook that was "mine," and another woman handed me an Artscroll siddur.

On subsequent trips to the Kotel - the Western Wall, the remains of the 2nd Temple closest to its holiest spot, the Holy of Holies - I felt bored, squished, frustrated, and unspiritual (for an example, read my post after being at the Kotel in September.) For years I had heard of the prayer group Women of the Wall, a women's group that prays on the women's side of the Kotel every Rosh Hodesh (the beginning of the Hebrew month). They have a long and contentious history, with Supreme Court battles, discrimination, and harassment, but I was excited to finally have the opportunity to join them in prayer and pray at the Kotel in a way that felt authentic to who am I as a Jew.

Last Rosh Hodesh, I woke up early and shared cabs with some other students from Pardes to the Kotel, where we joined with Women of the Wall and a group of women from Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in NYC. My friends and fellow students Lauren and Evelyn led services. For the first time ever, I wore a tallit at the Kotel. I was scared; I had heard many stories about rocks, heckling from men and women who were offended by what they saw as a desecration of their holy site, even physical assaults, but I felt safe surrounded by this community of women. Singing Hallel, songs of praise, out loud at the Kotel was incredibly powerful. One line in particular resonated with me: לא המתים יהללו יה, ולא כל ירדי דומה, ואנחנו נברך יה מעתה ועד עולם. הללויה The dead will not praise Yah, nor can those who go down into silence. But WE shall praise Yah, now and forever. Halleluyah! (Psalm 115: 17-18) I felt like I was really, genuinely praying at the Kotel, for the first time in a very long time.

By Rabbi Neil Janes 

In November 2009, we welcomed Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Centre and also Chairwoman of Women of the Wall (WOW).  It was a timely visit, because one of the members of WOW had, days before, been arrested for wearing a tallit at the Kotel (the Western Wall) in Jerusalem.  WOW campaign for the rights of women to hold women’s prayer groups at the Kotel, including the reading of the Torah and wearing of a tallit. This arrest prompted a flurry of articles and blogs across the internet to explore the motivations, the legal implications and Jewish tradition concerning women wearing a tallit.

A few weeks before, I received the following question in my inbox: “Why are so many ladies now wearing tallit and yarmulkes in shul?”

Therefore, with the recent news event, it felt a good place for me to begin answering the ‘ask the rabbi’ questions. 

I would like to restrict my answer, initially, to the question of women wearing a tallit in the synagogue.  Before I answer, let us first clarify our terms.

By Rabbi Elyse Goldstein 

I was leading a group of 15 women from around the world on a Women’s Spirituality mission when the news broke: an Israeli woman had been arrested at the Kotel for wearing a tallit. The group was astonished, having just spent a lovely afternoon a few days before touring the Old City and putting their personal notes into the Wall’s crevices. Like most of my tours, this was a sophisticated group; they weren’t “just tourists” who think the haredim are exotic, interesting “specimens” of Jews. They got the politics. They got the tension. They got the history. They understood why I don’t take my groups walking through Meah Shearim, under the watchful eyes of the huge sign demanding exacting standards of modest dress from all women who enter, past virulently anti-Zionist signs (like “All Jews hate Zionists”), through narrow alleyways reminiscent of 18th century Poland where we “seculars” can take pictures of “quaint” religious children. They got that “Jews ‘R Us” as much as “Jews ‘R Them.” I hope that after an intense week in Israel, they got that they are responsible for the Jewish future as much as the haredim are.

By Rabbi Jonathan Biatch

I often think back to my first visit to Israel, in 1970.  We lived on a Jewish agricultural settlement, and we toured the entire land.  As a Jewish teenager in Israel for ten weeks, simply being there for my initial visit mesmerized me.

The people; the food; the banana harvesting; even the Hebrew classes and the anti-cholera injection we had to undergo because of a disease outbreak:  All these things – believe it or not – made me proud to be a Jew in the Jewish homeland.

Then, and since that time, all my visits to Israel have included a visit to the Kotel HaMa’aravi, the Western Wall, the remnant of the Herodian retaining wall that enclosed – and still supports the ruins of – the original Temple Mount.  This symbol of the ancient Temple served as a reminder to me of the strength and unity of our people.

Yet when I attended my rabbinic organization’s annual conference in Jerusalem last month, and I went to the Wall again, I recognized that a transformation of that holy place had occurred.  My liberal Rabbinic eyes now saw different realities.  And it is these realities – and changes – that I wish to address.

By Clare Needham

Having lived in New York, what I notice about Jerusalem is its often empty streets.  There is, of course, the mess of the Jaffa Road tramway construction and its pedestrian traffic jam, Old City claustrophobia, or the weekend crowds around the city center bars.  But take the principal King George Street: you climb and descend its curves a relative loner, nothing to keep you company but its massive hotels (Sheraton, Prima Kings), and the looming, latest construction of the next hotel or apartment complex-to-be. 

So I miss critical mass, and crowds.  When I learned about last Saturday night’s protest against religious coercion, and saw that over 1,000 people (on Facebook, of course) had pledged to come, there was no way I couldn’t go (I should also mention here that since I work for the Israel Religious Action Center, whose very mission is the advancement of religious pluralism and freedom, I felt particularly obliged – and motivated – to attend.)

King George Street was packed.  Walking north from Kikar Paris was an unfathomably long line of protestors – the official count is somewhere around 2,000, and I’ll trust this figure.  The crowd moved slowly: with dignity.  The protest was against religious coercion, but more importantly, it was for religious pluralism – the mood of the protest was positive, almost festive, as if every attendee were in a state of happy shock that so many had decided enough was enough, they had to come. 

By Beth (Elisheva Hannah) Frank-Backman 

Several years ago when I used to join WOW for Rosh Hodesh prayers, my fellow liberal Jews used to ask me, but “why pray at the wall? I don't see the point of praying there.  Let them have their wall if it means so much.  We know better that God is not restricted to a place.”

I never had an answer to that question then, but after the recent tallit arrest, I think I do.   Divided though we may be in practice and even sometimes belief, we are still Am Israel – one people.  Just as God is One despite all appearances to the contrary, so we too are one.

By Hannah Ellenson

In honor of the new Jewish month of Kislev, I joined my mom at Women of the Wall this morning. Women of the Wall is an organization that has existed for more than twenty years and meets monthly on Rosh Hodesh, the start of each Jewish month. Traditionally, Rosh Hodesh has been a time for women to gather to celebrate their womanhood around the lunar cycle (Hello Red Tent). WOW was founded in reaction to the present reality of the Western Wall in Jerusalem — the women’s section is significantly smaller than the men’s and there is not a place for women to sing or read the Torah out loud, unlike the men’s side. At their monthly meetings, WOW members and various guests gather in the back of the women’s section and pray in a huddle. Women will put on their tallitot, their prayer shawls, and a few even dare to wear kippot.