Freedom of religion for all in Jerusalem – except women?

November 30, 2009 - 9:35 AM by

rallyRelations in Jerusalem between the haredi community and virtually everyone else seem to be at its nadir. In addition to almost weekly protests by hundreds of haredi demonstrators against hi-tech giant Intel’s operation of its Har Hotzvim factory on Shabbat and the Shabbat opening of parking lots outside of the Old City to accomodate the multitudes of visitors, last week another incident took place which raised the wrath of the city’s more tolerant residents and prompted a response.

A member of the Women of the Wall female prayer group was arrested and the group was expelled from the area of the Kotel for reading from a Torah scroll.

“We debated among ourselves whether or not to read from the Torah at the Kotel itself or to take the Torah to Robinson’s Arch,” Nofrat Frenkel told The Jerusalem Post. “In the end we decided that because nobody seemed to mind, we would go ahead and read the Torah at the Kotel.” She was arrested and later released by police.

The women were actually violating a compromise reached two decades ago with Supreme Court mediation, where it was agreed that women who wished to wear tallitot and kippot and read from the Torah would be allowed to do so at Robinson’s Arch, adjacent to the Kotel, and not directly in front of the Kotel, so as not to offend Orthodox worshipers.

Last week’s service, however included there was a contingent of women from North America who are here to attend a rabbinical ordination ceremony to take place at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, and the women decided to hold their service at the Wall.
Rabbi Felicia Sol, of the B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said that the attempt to read from the Torah was an experiment with “pushing the boundaries.”
“It is ridiculous that in a Jewish state that is supposedly democratic, women cannot pray the way they want to and only one definition of Judaism is accepted,” Sol told the Post.

Indeed. As a result of the incident and the ongoing Shabbat protests by the haredim, a coalition of secular, Conservative, Reform and modern Orthodox residents of Jerusalem marched in the streets on Saturday night in an attemtp to ‘take back’ the city.

According to Rabbi Barry Schlesinger, who heads the Masorti (conservative) congregation in East Talpiot which I attend, the demonstration wasn’t anti ultra-Orthodox. The message was positive, calling for religiouls pluralism in the city.

“When Gen. Motta Gur proclaimed that “the Temple Mount is in our hands” [in 1967], he never thought to exclude women wearing talitot in the Kotel plaza,” he wrote following the march.

However, according to some participants, the rally was sort of railroaded by Meretz anti-haredi sentiments, and that the average kippa sruga Orthodox resident of Jerusalem failed to support the idea of women being allowed to pray as they wish at the Kotel. An editorial in The Post asked where Orthodox rabbis like Michael Melchior and Bennjamin Lau were.

According to Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, whose group, the Council for the Protection of the Sanctity of Shabbat, is one of those leading the haredi protest, the counter-demo will do little to stop their cause.

Rosenfeld explained to the Post that some of the signs carried by protesters, including, “Iran is here” or the phrase “religious coercion,” were offensive to members of the haredi community, and would mobilize further demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the one person who could be coming down heavy on the haredi demonstrators who are disrupting life for the rest of Jerusalem’s residents – Mayor Nir Barkat – is sticking to platitudes and diplomacy.

He issued a statement after the raucous weekend which said, “We must live in Jerusalem alongside each other. The partnership between us is larger than it seems, and if we would only unify, and treat one another with mutual respect, we’d succeed in facing the major challenges that stand before Jerusalem.”

Somehow I don’t think a resident of Mea Shearim is going to unify with talit-wearing Nofrat Frenkel and dance around the Kotel holding a Torah together.

Tags: , , , , , , • Category: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion 

Comments

2 Comments on Freedom of religion for all in Jerusalem – except women?

  1. Ahuva on Mon, Nov 30th 2009 10:40 AM

    2. It’s a shame that the protest on Saturday night was highjacked by Meretz to support an entirely different notion. Barkat is right to say that we need to stand together, and find a compromise that is comfortable for both sides- but the Charedi treatment of women is an entirely different story. It was only a week or two ago that a law was passed stating that women are allowed to board the bus in the front (almost like a first rate citizen!) Do we really want to deny women the right to pray as they see fit, and to find their own identity within what has been mostly twisted into a male dominant religion? Perhaps we cannot all agree with these women’s choices, but are they really hurting anyone?

  2. Beth Frank-Backman on Mon, Nov 30th 2009 12:48 PM

    3. “Relations in Jerusalem between the haredi community and virtually everyone else seem to be at its nadir.”

    I think turning this into a haredit/non-haredi debate is not constructive. I got to the rally late Motzei Shabbat, but I saw at least one black hat in the crowd and several more near the podium holding a sign protesting the violence within the haredi community. Brave souls and perhaps an exception within their own community, but it points to the fact that much, much larger issues are at stake here.

    Do we really want a Jewish world where we protest desecrations of Shabbat by desecrating synogoues, as happened on the Intel campus? Where fellow Jews of any gender are arrested because they find a tallit an aid to prayer?

    The one principle that trumps Shabbat over and over is Pikuach Nefesh and yet we tolerate the throwing of stones and possible injury of fellow human beings on Shabbat, as happened during the fight over keeping city parking lots open on Shabbat? Or trash cans burning because the state tried to protect a child who appeared to be neglected?

    At the rally I didn’t see a single anti-haredi sign at the rally, but I sure saw a lot of anti-violence signs.

    Meretz or not, the focus should be on what was done (and what shouldn’t be done), not on who was doing the doing. Your highlighting the views of “some participants” gets the focus off the issues and turns this into a political battle rather than a matter of principle.

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