Lack of Egalitarian Prayer in Israel Is
Described as “The Wall That’s Growing Between
Us.”
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
April 2017
Jane Eisner, editor of The Forward (Jan. 27, 2017), laments the fact that
the government of Israel has reneged on its promise to provide for
egalitarian prayer at the Kotel, or Western Wall.
She writes: “I was in Jerusalem for a week last month, and I never once went
to the Kotel. This was unusual for me. On my prior stays in Israel, the
ancient stones of the Western Wall were a magnet, drawing me in, stripping
away my journalistic skepticism, leaving me feeling connected to the
spiritual yearning that prompts so many of us to stuff notes in the crevices
and prayers in the air. But this time, instead of being drawn to what is
considered the most sacred site in Judaism, I felt repelled. The
unwillingness of the Israeli government to follow through on its promise to
expand the Kotel plaza to include a proper egalitarian prayer space left me
resentful and alienated. If the Kotel didn’t want to welcome Jews like me
well, then, I had better uses of my time in Jerusalem.”
It is now a year since an agreement was reached between the government of
Israel, the ultra-Orthodox authorities and American Jewish religious and
communal leaders. Eisner notes that, “These 12 months were the opportunity
for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prove how much he cared about the
Diaspora, and allow Israel to shine as an example of religious pluralism in
a region with precious little of it. And we have nothing.”
When Eisner asked the prime minister why he hadn’t done anything about the
Kotel agreement, she writes, “He essentially brushed off the question by
blaming Israel’s byzantine political process for the delay. Worse, members
of his party and others in his ruling coalition are pushing legisl¬ation
that would bar women from wearing prayer shawls, reading from the Torah or
blowing the shofar at the Western Wall — all standard religious practices
among non-Orthodox Jews — punishable by a heavy fine or six months in jail.”
Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall, states that, “The court has
always, since 1989, recognized our right to pray in our way. It always used
strong compelling rhetoric to emphasize that our rights exist. However, the
court usually goes wishy-washy with its orders to the authorities. They
basically surrender to the police, who claim that in order to prevent
violence, the victim’s rights must be limited.”
Even if the court’s ruling prevails, writes Eisner, “… the Kotel still needs
a separate egalitarian prayer space at the holy site. Many men and women —
including the vast majority of American Jews — wish to pray together in a
space not dominated by an increasingly strict and unreasonable rabbinical
authority. And the Kotel is not just a synagogue; it’s a national shrine, a
place for official ceremonies, a public statement of Jewish heritage. … The
tine for pleading and exhortation may be over. It may be time for Jewish
religious and communal leaders to follow the suggestion of Elazar Stern, a
Knesset member from the centrist Yesh Atid party and a former major general
in the IDF who … boldly urged a boycott of Israeli leaders.”
Whenever he meets with Jewish leaders visiting Israel from abroad, Stern
states, “I tell them they must insist that these issues be dealt with
immediately. And until that happens, I say to them, ‘You need to stop
inviting them as guests of honor to (AIPAC and Jewish Federation
conferences). … Hold back for just two years. It won’t take longer than that
for them to see that they need you even more than you need them.”
Although Israel represents itself as a Western-style democracy, there is no
separation of church and state. Rabbis from non-Orthodox streams of Judaism,
which represent the overwhelming majority of American Jews, do not have the
right to perform weddings or conduct funerals. Their conversions are not
recognized. Orthodox chief rabbis are government employees, paid with
taxpayer funds. There is no civil marriage in Israel and Jews and non-Jews
are not able to marry. •
|