Women Wage War at Western Wall
By Noah Feldman
The Temple Mount conflict has made headlines in recent months as a possible cause of a string of Palestinian stabbings and Israeli retaliations. But at the Western Wall, in the literal shadow of the site -- known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary -- another long-ranging controversy has been simmering, one posing its own challenge to Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.
The struggle concerns Jewish women who’ve been prohibited from reading the Torah at the Orthodox-dominated Western Wall. On Sunday, a group of them brought the issue to the Israeli Supreme Court, charging the Orthodox rabbi in charge of the holy site with discrimination on the basis of sex.
To understand the lawsuit, you need a bit of background. The Israeli government controls the Western Wall area, and it delegates that control to a rabbi who is appointed by the prime minister. The rabbi’s job is largely ceremonial; the one time I met the current one, Shmuel Rabinovitch, he mentioned that he’d escorted both Pope Francis and Justin Timberlake there. But the rabbi’s state-delegated authority also has an important practical component: He can in general decide who gets to pray at the wall, and how.
Starting in 1988, women -- many of them American-born Jews affiliated with progressive, non-Orthodox movements -- began trying to pray in a group at the site. Organized as Women of the Wall and devoted to pursuing women’s spiritual rights at the location, they faced angry rejection, occasional rioting, and ultimately an outright ban. Their struggle has been closely covered by the Israeli media, although it’s received less attention abroad.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-30/women-wage-war-at-western-wall