Reply #17: Centuries? Try three years... and not without being harrased.. [View All]

[Devils Advocate NZ]

JERUSALEM -- Curses were heard above prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday as Orthodox Jews reacted angrily to the sight of hundreds of women asserting their right to pray out loud at the wall while wearing shawls and skullcaps.

In a groundbreaking decision in May, a panel of three judges in the Israeli Supreme Court reinterpreted a law governing Jewish holy sites.

The panel lifted the bans on women praying from the Torah scroll, the Jewish holy text, and wearing the prayer shawl traditionally worn by men at the holy site.

<SNIP>

The court ruling outraged ultra-Orthodox Jews, who say that what it allows women to do violates Jewish law and the division of roles that God assigned men and women.

"They can't have the right to come to us and say I think you should change your religious law," said Rabbi Ravitz. "They don't have the right to do so."

<SNIP>

Meanwhile, under the court ruling, the Israeli government has six months to provide conditions for the women to pray at the wall as they wish.

Until then, the services will be held a short distance away in a building which in the Middle Ages served Christian pilgrims.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/06/04/israel.women/

But hey, don't let the truth get in the way of a good argument!