Rabbi Suggests Attacks On ‘provocative’ Women Are Justified

THERE were chaotic scenes yesterday (Friday) when thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters targeted a group of women who came to pray at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Before the protests erupted, rabbi Dov Herbertal, above, ex-senior aide to former Chief Rabbi Lau, said in an interview last month that women who come to pray at the wall were being “provocative” and should expect to be violently attacked.

Religion News Service reports that, “in a historic first,” hundreds of Israeli police mobilised to protect a group called Women at the Wall (WOW) from Haredi men who jostled and screamed abuse at the women, even calling them “Nazis.”

Since WOW’s establishment in 1988, the police have allowed Haredi protesters – who believe women aren’t permitted to lead prayers or read the Torah aloud – to verbally and sometimes physically attack WOW and non-Orthodox prayer groups.

The large police presence yesterday was reportedly the result of a Israel having a new coalition government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. No ultra-Orthodox parties are represented in the new administration.

Anat Hoffman, above, WOW’s chairwoman, said:

We feel a difference in the government, a commitment that there won’t be bloodshed at the wall. In the past, we felt that the police weren’t protecting us. Today’s level of protection was unprecedented.

Police led about 300 WOW supporters, both men and women, to the Western Wall plaza through an entrance parallel to but physically separated from the large crowd of mostly young Haredi men, who were blowing whistles and yelling “Nazi” and other slurs.

Several of the WOW activists carried colorful velvet Torah mantels – the elaborately decorated cloths that cover Torah scrolls – sent by synagogues around the world in a sign of solidarity.

The mantels were empty because Western Wall authorities prohibit people from bringing a Torah to the wall. Although the Western Wall Heritage Foundation provides Torah scrolls to male worshippers, including bar mitzva boys, the scrolls are off-limits to women.

Yochi Rapaport, Director of WOW, said:

Women at the Western Wall are not allowed to hold a Torah scroll or read the Torah. We are discriminated against and excluded in the holiest place for Jews. All that is left for us to do is hold empty Torah scroll covers to protest the terrible injustice.

At the security checkpoint leading to the plaza, Western Wall authorities refused to permit WOW to display the names of the synagogues attached to the mantels, calling them a form of protest.

The large police presence was mostly due to Aryeh Deri, above, an ultra-Orthodox Knesset member who on Thursday called on the public to:

Prevent the wall, a remnant of the holy Jewish Temple, from being desecrated.

Despite the strong police presence, Women of the Wall issued a statement noting the day was still marred by violence.

When WOW was preparing to read from the small Torah a supporter had smuggled into the women’s section, the wall’s private security guards tried to pull it out of their hands.

The statement said:

A mob surrounded the group and eventually physically pushed them out from the plaza. We were unable to read from the Torah this morning.

Hoffman said her group will continue to assemble in the women’s section and try to pray with a Torah until the government honours its 2016 promise to fund and officially recognise a prayer space for non-Orthodox prayer.

Former PM Netanyahu, who had spearheaded the effort to create such a space, backed down after MK Deri and other ultra-Orthodox politicians threatened to bring down his government unless the pluralist prayer space was blocked.