In his letter to the Jerusalem Police Chief, attorney Harel Arnon, on behalf of the Women for the Wall organization, calls on the police chief to distance Women Of the Wall members and supporters from the Kosel on Wednesday morning, 2 Rosh Chodesh Elul.
On the eve of Rosh Chodesh Elul, the Women for the Wall organization appealed to the rabbi of the Kosel to demand that WoW women and Reform organizations, which are planning provocations, be distanced. “The event is illegal. Avoiding their removal is incompatible with the duties of the Custodian,” they explain in their letter to Rabbi Rabinowitz.
Preempting, on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Elul and before the provocations at the Kosel by WoW, the Reform and Conservative Movements, Attorney Harel Arnon, representing Women for the Wall, called on Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the commander of the David District in the Jerusalem District Police, demanded that the government take action to prevent the planned event because it is illegal.
In his letter, attorney Arnon writes the ceremony planned will include mixed tefilla, men and women without separation, at the Kosel! They will wear tallis and tefilin, blow shofaros, and attempt to read from a Sefer Torah.
“The ceremonies planned by WoW, the Reform Movement and the Conservative Movement at the Kosel Plaza on Rosh Chodesh Elul are illegal. The illegal ceremonies of these organizations are expected to cause serious harm to the public and many mispallalim who are expected to arrive en masse to the Kosel for tefilos Rosh Chodesh Elul. Public prayer will be severely damaged if representatives of the organizations arrive to hold their protest ceremonies at the Kosel, Wall, ceremonies that lead to fierce public opposition and police intervention.”
According to Arnon, the planned actions are illegal because according to the Regulations for Preserving the Holy Places, “the performance of a religious ceremony that is not in accordance with the local custom, which harms the feelings of the congregation towards the place.”
Their use of Sifrei Torah is also contrary to the law. For it is forbidden to bring private Torah scrolls into the Kosel area.
Advocate Arnon also notes that even in the High Court of Justice, he never recognized the existence of prayer services as planned by the organizations, and that in previous petitions, they were granted only a limited right to pray in the upper square only and not near the Kotel only ten hours a year.
Arnon, on behalf of Women for the Wall, call on Rabbi Rabinowitz to use his authority and make the request that police prohibit the provocative actions on Rosh Chodesh Elul.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Kol HaKavod to Women For The Wall! Keep up your holy work! 🙂
The women of the wall are nutcases who want to flaunt their feminism. They practice a cult-movement called Reform which is in no way related to Judaism even though they claim to be a stream or a branch of Judaism. Their practices are foreign to Torah Law and their leaders are outright liars who have been trying to convince their gullible followers that their Reform practices are Jewish when, in fact, they’re not. Most or many of the Reform leaders don’t believe that Hashem gave us his Torah. These Reform liars believe that different men and women wrote various portions of what was compiled to be a Torah. Many of their leaders practice toeivah and many of them are not even Halochicaly Jewish since they laugh at Halocho and they don’t believe in it. These Reformers have a convention every year to determine what to believe in going forward. They make up their beliefs and what they refer to as a religion as they go along. Reform is not Judaism.
If the government doesn’t put a stop to the shenanigans of these “Women Off the Wall” it will in the end come back to bite them. For sure those that go on to the Har HaBayit (albiet against Halacha) will use the Bagatz’s ruling of “equality” to demand legalizing Jewish Prayer on the Har HaBayit. This will in turn infuriate the Arabs and could potentially set off another Intifada risking the lives of many Jews. Thus, the Bagatz will then be placing themselves between a rock and a hard place; either to be consistent and compromise National Security or to be two faced and jeopardizing any respect and legitimacy that they still receive from the Judaically ignorant. In short, the Bagatz has very little to gain by supporting this small group and their cause. The Bagatz can easily wipe their hands clean on this issue by declaring that “to their dismay the court system has no Jurisdiction over this matter being that the government had already declared the Kotel to be an official religious site back in 1967 and appointed the Rav of the Kotel as officiator over all religious matters concerning. Furthermore, if they would ruled the present conduct of “separation of the sexes during prayers at the Kotel” as “discrimination” they’d have to demand all Synagogues throughout the country to remove their mechitza being that synagogues are a “public” place of worship. This would obviously cause tremendous chaos throughout the country.”
In summary – nix the WoW (Woman OFF the Wall) organization
(added note: they should also declare WoW a “Hate Organizations” being that WoW does not recognize Orthodox Jews rights to pray with a Mechitza.)
Then why did police have an area cordoned off for them INSIDE THE WOMEN’S SECTION?!!!! The Police should be ordered to escort them to the multi-million shekel section Bennett made us Israeli taxpayers pay for!