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3 Ultra-Orthodox Men Arrested in Confrontation at Western Wall Standoff at Western Wall Over Praying by Women
(about 9 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Heeding calls from their rabbis, thousands of ultra-Orthodox teenaged girls and women flooded the Western Wall early Friday morning to prevent close access by a group of women who pray in garments traditionally used by men, while hundreds of black-hatted Orthodox men heckled the group from behind, whistling, catcalling and throwing water, candy and a few chairs at them. JERUSALEM — Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews tried to block a liberal women’s group from praying at the Western Wall on Friday morning, creating a tense standoff in the latest flash point of a broader battle over religion and identity that has engulfed Israel.
Scores of uniformed police hands locked hands in cordons to protect the group of about 100 women from Women of the Wall, in a tense standoff that exemplified the broad battle in Israel over identity and religion in the public sphere, where holy sites and rites like marriage, divorce and conversion have for decades been controlled by the ultra-Orthodox minority, known here as Haredim. Heeding calls from their rabbis, religious teenage girls turned up in large numbers to protest the group’s insistence on praying at the wall in religious garb traditionally worn by men. The girls crammed the women’s section directly in front of the wall by 6:30 a.m., forcing the liberal women to conduct their prayer service farther back on the plaza. There, hundreds of police officers locked arms in cordons to hold back throngs of black-hatted Orthodox men who whistled, catcalled, and threw water, candy and a few plastic chairs.
The confrontation came after a court ruled last month that the women should be allowed to wear prayer shawls and sing out loud at the wall, challenging years of policy and practice that had required visitors to the wall to follow ultra-Orthodox custom. Recently, women in the group had been arrested as they prayed at the wall once a month, sparking outcry among Jews worldwide and prompting a government initiative to reexamine the regulations at the site. The fight over how women pray at one of Judaism’s holiest sites is a singular fault line among many. Friday’s mass demonstration at the wall was widely seen as part of the intensifying culture war that poses a threat, if internal, to Israel’s social cohesion.
“All this commotion because of a group of women who want to pray to God,” Lesley Sachs, director of Women of the Wall, said after the confrontation. “We hope that the government won’t succumb to any kinds of threats or bullying and they will let us continue praying. This is part of the social battle. They need to get used to us.” “We are looking at a process in which the public disdain with the way religion and state matters have occurred in Israel has reached a peak,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, the founder of Hiddush, a group that advocates for religious freedom and equality.
Three ultra-Orthodox men were arrested and two others detained for questioning in the course of the confrontation. But Rabbi Israel Eichler, an ultra-Orthodox member of Parliament, warned that “if the state of Israel fights” the ultra-Orthodox, in Hebrew called Haredim, “it may win, but it will be erased from the face of the Earth.”
Israel’s government is at work on developing new regulations governing prayer at the site, a remnant of the retaining wall surrounding the ancient Temple Mount and a place revered by Jews around the world. “There were thousands of seminary girls there today,” he said. “Each one of them will have 10 children. That is our victory.”
Earlier this week, Israel’s attorney general advised government ministers that they should immediately ban gender segregation on buses, in cemeteries, at health clinics and on the radio. At the same time, the new government coalition that took office this spring has vowed to end widespread draft exemptions for yeshiva students, to overhaul the curriculum of ultrareligious schools, to curtail the subsidies their large families rely on and bring far more Orthodox men into the work force and tax base. The showdown on Friday came two days after Israel’s attorney general ordered government ministries to end gender segregation in buses, cemeteries, health clinics and radio airwaves, and as Parliament is drafting sweeping legislation to integrate the swelling ultra-Orthodox minority into the army and work force, while cutting back the subsidies their large families rely on. Following decades in which ultra-Orthodox politicians provided critical swing votes in exchange for control over religious institutions, they were shut out of the governing coalition that formed this spring and have become an increasingly shrill part of the opposition.
Much of that was in the background at the Western Wall on Friday morning, as the ultra-Orthodox protesters shouted “The holiness of the place!” as well as curses at the women wearing prayer shawls and singing, both of which violate ultra-Orthodox custom. Women of the Wall have been praying and protesting at the wall for a quarter century. Until last month’s court ruling, Israel’s Parliament and Supreme Court had held that prayer at the site must adhere to traditional practice. Most Israelis care far less about the rules at the kotel, or Western Wall, a remnant of the retaining wall that surrounded the ancient Temple, than the ultra-Orthodox control of marriage, conversion and other matters that affect daily life. But a spate of arrests last fall of women wearing prayer shawls at the wall sparked an outcry from Jews abroad. That prompted Israel’s government to develop a long-term plan that would provide a new space where men and women can pray together and as they wish.
“God, thank you that we’re able to pray here in the same way that our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers did,” said Mattie Shaller, who identified herself only as a grandmother who lives in Jerusalem. “We are alive today, the Jewish people, because we’ve retained Torat Imeinu, our mother’s Torah. We don’t need any changes.” Buoyed by the recent court ruling allowing them to use prayer garments traditionally reserved for men, the women’s group, called Women of the Wall, has vowed to continue the monthly services it has held for a quarter century.
Ronit Beskin, who helped organize the protest against the women’s group, said, “They’re trying to push the limits.” Friday was the first time ultra-Orthodox girls and women showed up in force to block them.
“They’re trying to change the religion and politics in Israel — they should do that in the Knesset and not at the Kotel,” Ms. Beskin said, using the Hebrew terms for Israel’s Parliament and the Western Wall. “The rules should be, honestly, just respect the tradition here. What about our rights as women?” “I’m here so they won’t be,” said one of the teenagers, who like a dozen others interviewed spoke on the condition that her name not be published. “It’s forbidden for them to be here. It’s allowed by the court, but it’s forbidden by God. If I’m here, there won’t be room for them.”
About a dozen of the teenage girls, all of whom refused to give their names, said they had gotten up as early as 4 a.m. and poured onto buses from across Jerusalem as well as ultrareligious suburbs like Beit Shemesh and Beitar Illit chiefly because their leaders had ordered them to. The girls, who woke before dawn and poured onto buses from schools across Jerusalem as well as the ultrareligious suburbs of Beit Shemesh and Beitar Illit, said they had come because their leaders ordered them to.
“I’m here so they won’t be,” one said. “It’s forbidden for them to be here. It’s allowed by the court, but it’s forbidden by God. If I’m here, there won’t be room for them.” Among the liberal women, a smaller-than-usual group of perhaps 100 made it to the Women of the Wall prayer circle, where much of the spirited chanting was drowned out by the boisterous men. Three of the men were arrested and two others detained for questioning.” Every time, there’s another stumbling block,” said Haviva Ner David, a rabbi and mother of seven who has been praying with Women of the Wall for two decades. “There are more non-Orthodox Jews than there are Haredi Jews in Israel, but they’re able to gather more troops.”
Indeed, the girls filled the women’s section where the pluralistic group usually gathers, and spilled onto the plaza, a few holding small prayer books and reciting in a low mumble, but many more snapping photographs, even as their teachers exhorted them to pray. Ultra-Orthodox men, meanwhile, lined the plaza as well as the porches of buildings hovering above it, occasionally breaking through the police lines and causing a scuffle. As the crowds dispersed, Yossi Parienti, commander of Jerusalem’s police force, said it was “painful and a pity to see the Western Wall become a field of battle instead of a holy place of prayer.”
In the center was a smaller-than-usual circle of women, who in addition to reciting the prayers for the new month, named a baby girl and lifted 12-year-old Devorah Leff on a woman’s shoulders to celebrate her recent bat mitzvah. Another 12-year-old, Hallel Ner David, said she had earlier been hit in the head by a rock thrown by the ultra-Orthodox protesters, but was not injured. Later, more stones were thrown at buses ferrying the pluralistic women from the site. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the head of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation — which controls the site — said, “We must find a solution that is acceptable to all, or to the majority, so that the Western Wall does not look as it did today.”
“Every time, there’s another stumbling block,” said Hallel’s mother, Haviva Ner David, a rabbi and mother of seven who has been praying with the pluralistic group for two decades. “There are more non-Orthodox Jews than there are Haredi Jews in Israel, but they’re able to gather more troops. Next month we’re going to have to come camp out here the night before to get a spot at the Kotel? It’s a little ridiculous.” The heightened attention to the wall comes after more than two years of friction with the ultra-Orthodox over gender in the public sphere. Women have been barred from speaking at conferences, and an 8-year-old girl was spit on for dress that her ultra-Orthodox neighbors considered immodest. Vandals routinely black out women’s faces on advertising billboards.
Anat Hoffman, the chairwoman of the pluralistic group, whose October arrest prompted an outcry among Jews around the world and helped push the government to embark on its new plan for prayer at the site, tried to put a more positive spin on the situation. Menachem Friedman, a sociology professor at Bar Ilan University who has studied the Haredi society, said that while a universal military draft and cut in subsidies are more substantive issues, “gender is the most vulnerable.”
“This is the first time we’ve seen so many women here — I’m delighted,” Ms. Hoffman said. “The rabbis who sent them don’t understand that some of them will be asking, ‘Why not me?’ It’s a very subversive question.” “The most threatening thing for the Haredi society is the mixture,” Professor Friedman said. “Sex is always something we can’t control — we have to defend against it, we have to separate, to make it very clear separation between men and women. Why? Because sex is really penetrating inside everyone, even the most sacred man is not protected. That is the main idea of ultra-Orthodoxy.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a law professor and director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University, said: “What’s at stake here is the very characteristic of the state of Israel. Are we part of the Western world or are we part of the fundamentalist world?”

Irit Pazner Garshowitz contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 10, 2013Correction: May 10, 2013

An earlier version of this article said incorrectly that Devorah Leff was lifted on a chair to celebrate her recent bat mitzvah. She was lifted on a woman’s shoulders.

An earlier version of this article said incorrectly that Devorah Leff was lifted on a chair to celebrate her recent bat mitzvah. She was lifted on a woman’s shoulders.