This is Israel in the 21st century:
My Name
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Once a month a group of Jewish women risk
arrest and brave a crowd of angry ultra-Orthodox men calling
them Nazis, to pray at the Western Wall, the holiest place
in Judaism.
In this Holy City, where the focus of differing opinions is
more often on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these
religious Jews say they face discrimination just because of
their gender.
Their adversaries, including the rabbi of the Wall, say the
women have no business wearing such religious garments as
yarmulkes and prayer shawls, or carrying the Torah, the
Jewish holy book.
Such things, the ultra-Orthodox Jews say, are reserved for men.
Worse yet, the women have also come under fire for singing,
with some rabbis complaining this could provoke feelings of
lust among the men praying on the other side of the
partition.
On a recent Friday, about 200 members of the Women at the
Wall (WoW) showed up to pray at the main Jewish pilgrimage
site despite pouring rain and insults hurled from across the
partition that separates the men's section from the far
smaller one reserved for women.
Men sporting the black coats and wheel-shaped fur hats that
identify ultra-Orthodox Jews yelled out at the women,
calling them "Nazis," and telling them to "go to church".
The scene is similar just about every first day of the month
on the Jewish lunar calendar. It is then that the WoW women
pray at the Wall -- also known as the Wailing Wall or by its
Hebrew name Kotel. The wall is revered by Jews as the
remnant of their Second Temple, which the Romans destroyed
in 70 AD.
In November, WoW member Nofrat Frankel, a Conservative Jew,
was briefly detained by police for wearing a talit -- prayer
shawl -- and carrying a Torah.
The offence can carry a maximum sentence of six months jail
and a fine of about 3,000 dollars.
Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich called the women's
behaviour "an unbearable provocation".
WoW leader Anat Hoffman, meanwhile, insists the Jewish holy
books do not support the kind of discrimination she says
women are subjected to.
"There is nothing in Judaism about this. This is
fundamentalism; it is a desecration of this place," she told
AFP at a recent Hanukah candle-lighting ceremony the women
and their supporters staged in the Kotel square, behind the
segregated praying areas.
In 2003, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Women of
the Wall could not hold vocal prayers at the Wall as this
presented a threat to law and order.
Hoffman said the police commander for the Wall recently told
her the women could be arrested for wearing fringed black
and white prayer shawls like those used by the men. "He did
say something flowery would be okay," said Hoffman.
She wore a paper crown with the inscription: "The Kotel is
for all," and smiled as she joined the crowd in singing
traditional Hanukah songs. The women's voices startled an
elderly ultra-Orthodox man who promptly scurried away.
The ultra-Orthodox call themselves Haredi, Hebrew for "those
who fear God". Over the years, they have gained control of
the Kotel, imposing their ways with little regard for other
strains of Judaism, says Hoffman.
"The Western Wall is now seen as the disco of the ultra-
Orthodox," she said, pointing to the prayer section where
most of the faithful were clad in the black outfits that
identify Haredi men and where a loudspeaker blared religious
songs -- sung by men.
Rabinovich insists he does his best to accommodate all the
visitors to the wall. "But the type of prayers of this group
is not part of the Jewish traditions," he told AFP.
"I wonder what this type of prayer will achieve when they
hurt the feelings of other people who are praying."
Peretz Rodman, a more moderate rabbi, compared the recent
detention of Frankel to religious persecution in the former
Soviet Union.
"An Orthodox rabbinic colleague commented to me on the day
of the arrest: 'That?s what it was like 40 years ago in
Moscow: wearing a talit and carrying a Torah in public could
get you arrested," Rodman wrote in a YNet News opinion column.
"But that was the Soviet Union, a repressive totalitarian
state; this is Israel in the 21st century'," said Rodman, a
former president of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091223/world/israel_religion_wall_women
--
A government, of Israel, by Israel, and, for: Israel.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light:
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. The light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not. The light of the body is the eye:
if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Patrick Keenan
"My Name" <n...@e-mail.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns9CEA6A86F...@walks.like.a.duck...
> Jewish women risk arrest, insults to pray at holy site
Hey, that happens in Iran to various groups too - in particular Baha'is -
except that there, they regularly face persecution, imprisonment, and
execution.
Of course, you don't dare criticise *that country*. For you, it's all
Jews, all the time.
It'd be nice if you learned something from the religion you pretend to
profess.
Have a nice day.
-pk