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July 23, 2010

Arrest sparks Kotel ban

Anat Hoffman of Women of the Wall is detained.
EDGAR ASHER ISRANET

Earlier this month, police arrested the leader of the Women of the Wall prayer group for violating a Supreme Court order which prohibits women reading from a Torah scroll at the Kotel (Western Wall). Anat Hoffman, the leader of the Women of the Wall, which is part of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel, has been in confrontation with the police several times over the issue of women publicly reading from a Torah scroll at the Kotel. The plaza in front of the Kotel is divided so that men and women do not pray together, as is the Orthodox tradition.

In order to accommodate the customs of members of other Jewish movements, a compromise was reached that allowed for the adherents of Progressive Judaism to follow freely their own practices at the nearby Robinson Arch compound. This would be out of view of Orthodox men and women who find the practice of women reading from a Torah scroll and wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) provocative.

Earlier this month, on the first day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar, some 150 members of the Women of the Wall arrived at the women’s section of the Kotel with a concealed Torah scroll. At the beginning of each new Hebrew month, the Women of the Wall stage some kind of demonstration. During that morning’s prayers, the scroll was revealed and the women began dancing with it.  Upon leaving the women’s section, Hoffman was arrested and taken to a nearby police station for violating the court order. Later, she was released to her home and banned from visiting the area of the Kotel for a 30-day period.

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