Celia Rossen, a junior high-school student, chose Women of the Wall for her class project. We think she did a sophisticated job of describing our situation!
Overview
The Kotel in Israel is divided (see above) because the law (before August 2013) “… prohibit[ed] any religious ceremony at a holy place that is not in accordance with the custom of the holy site and which offends the sensitivity of the worshipers at that place.” The Rabinek of the Kotel (Shmuel Rabinovitch)took it to mean that as he was Orthodox, everyone else has to follow Orthodox ways. That means that women should not pray with Torah and should be separated from men. In the picture above you see that the women’s side is about 1/3 the size of the men’s side. In addition, the men have 100 Torah scrolls, while the women are not even allowed to bring one in. They are told to borrow the public ones from the men’s side. They ask to use a Torah and are told that they are not part of the public that is allowed to use them. The women then feel they have no chose but to stand up for their rights and protest the rule of not bringing Torah to the Wall and not allowing mother to stand by son as he is Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel.