Two women, who identify as veteran members of Women of the Wall (WoW), have filed a lawsuit against Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz Shlita, who serves as Rav of the Kosel and Holy Sites. The lawsuit is the result of being subjected to body searches by security guards at the Kosel.

According to the Ynet report, the attorneys who represent the women have filed suit, in which they explain the women have been subjected to “meticulous searches” to make certain no one is smuggling a Torah inside the ezras noshim.

They maintain the searches are “harmful and shameful”, not to mention a violation of High Court instructions, resulting in the women being humiliated and shamed regularly as a result of the body searches.

While women are permitted to wear a tallis and regularly wear tefilin, they continue to wage a tenacious battle to bring their own Sefer Torah from which they would read from. They have succeeded in smuggling Sifrei Torah in, under their garments, which led to the body searches.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)