{"id":616,"date":"2010-12-08T21:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/the-western-wall-a-religious-discotheque.html"},"modified":"2010-12-08T21:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T21:11:00","slug":"the-western-wall-a-religious-discotheque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/the-western-wall-a-religious-discotheque.html","title":{"rendered":"The Western Wall: “A Religious Discotheque”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Had my trip to Israel not been cancelled, there\u2019s one place that I would not have spent very much time.\u00a0 I first visited the Western Wall on my post-bar mitzva trip to Israel.\u00a0 I knew three words of Hebrew, but one of them, yeled<\/i> (boy) was enough to get my long-haired little brother into the men\u2019s side.\u00a0 I later learned that for a six year old it shouldn\u2019t have mattered anyway.<\/p>\n

What was once, briefly, a place of national gathering, has become a Haredi synagogue.\u00a0 Before that it was a neighborhood.\u00a0 When Israeli paratroopers took it in June 1967, the existing Moroccan Quarter (or Mughrabi) was demolished<\/a> to allow for the onslaught of Israelis celebrating their return to the place.\u00a0 Like most \u201choly\u201d places, it was the site of death and destruction.<\/p>\n

The more time I\u2019ve spent in \u201choly\u201d places, the more I\u2019ve realized just how unholy they can really be.\u00a0 They are mostly places of intensified conflict.\u00a0 They put the lie to any notion of a universal god.\u00a0 Everyone has their god and everyone has a place that he did something or other.\u00a0 If your god and someone else\u2019s god (or the god who took over for your god) did something in the same place, then conflict erupts.<\/p>\n

Today is Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish new month, so conflict probably arose this morning when the Women of the Wall<\/a> held their monthly service with taleisim<\/i> and Torah scrolls.\u00a0 There\u2019s a good piece on FailedMessiah.com chronicling their ongoing battles with the Haredim to be allowed to pray in peace<\/a>.\u00a0 They have the approval of a lot of Modern Orthodox rabbis to hold their service, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the Haredim from throwing dirty diapers and rocks their way.\u00a0 It also didn\u2019t stop police from arresting their leader a few months back.<\/p>\n

So here we have a \u201choly\u201d place where even members of what\u2019s supposed to be the same religion of Orthodox Judaism can\u2019t get along.\u00a0 As Haredi chutzpa continues to assert itself, there\u2019s even talk of creating a bizarre underground entrance just for Haredi men<\/a> so they shouldn\u2019t have to look at all the immodest visitors.\u00a0 Or women.<\/p>\n

It was an Orthodox Jew, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who first called the place \u201ca religious discotheque\u201d and place of idolatry (Wall-olatry?).\u00a0 He might have even coined the phrase \u201cDiskotel\u201d (from the Hebrew for the Wall, Kotel<\/i>).\u00a0 To me the place is just a reminder of the typical injustices of religious piety.<\/p>\n

A Reform rabbinical colleague once tried to move me with his observation that for centuries our ancestors prayed to go there and now we can finally fulfill their prayers.\u00a0 That only pushed me one step closer to atheism.\u00a0 My ancestors engaged in a lot of stupidity.\u00a0 Does that mean I should, too?<\/p>\n

I still visit the place when some new historical finding presents itself (or when I can\u2019t get out of it).\u00a0 I especially like the adjacent Davidson Archeological Gardens.\u00a0 I\u2019m certainly not advocating that Israel rebuild the Moroccan Quarter.\u00a0 I\u2019m no pacifist.\u00a0 War is war and I\u2019ve studied the Six Day War enough (yes, even Tom Segev) to know that it was a fair victory and to the victor go the spoils.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s become an increasingly ridiculous place, now completely dominated by the one group in Israel that had the least to do with capturing it for the rest of the Jews.\u00a0 All those Haredim are enough to keep me far away from the place.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had my trip to Israel not been cancelled, there\u2019s one place that I would not have spent very much time.\u00a0 I first visited the Western Wall on my post-bar mitzva trip to Israel.\u00a0 I knew three words of Hebrew, but one of them, yeled (boy) was enough to get my long-haired little brother into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,20,24,26,31],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-haredim","tag-israel","tag-liberal-judaism","tag-misogyny","tag-orthodox-judaism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Western Wall: "A Religious Discotheque"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Had my trip to Israel not been cancelled, there\u2019s one place that I would not have spent very much time.\u00a0 I first visited the Western Wall on my post-bar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/the-western-wall-a-religious-discotheque.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Western Wall: "A Religious Discotheque"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Had my trip to Israel not been cancelled, there\u2019s one place that I would not have spent very much time.\u00a0 I first visited the Western Wall on my post-bar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/the-western-wall-a-religious-discotheque.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-08T21:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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