Kotel

In all of the storied history of the Jewish people, there was no single event that had greater short and long-term consequences than the revelation of Torah at Sinai. 

The festival of Shavuot, which we celebrated this week, marked the anniversary of that extraordinary (in both the literal and figurative senses of the word) day.  It encouraged us to recall, or recreate, if you will, the power, majesty and mystery of that luminous moment when God and humanity communed as one.  The world would never be the same thereafter.

Tel Aviv — Last week’s milestone prayer service at the Western Wall with women wrapped in prayer shawls and tefillin was likened by Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman to the “liberation” of the ancient holy site in the 1967 Six-Day War.

As I pushed through the jampacked Kotel on Rosh Hodesh Sivan, thousands of religious girls pointed at my kippa and screamed in my face. Not only did they stick out their tongues, but they made the shape of a gun with their hands and rotated between pointing it at their heads and pointing it at mine. Scanning through the faces of the young girls, I wondered if in a different setting, we could’ve been braiding challah or lighting Shabbat candles together as friends. Some of their eyes leaked with hatrid and disgust, while some overflowed with intrigue, curiosity, and at times boredom. A large portion of the girls seemed to be mulling about, happy to be spending time with friends, and waiting for us to leave.

Natan Sharansky’s proposal to reduce tensions at the Western Wall has lost support from both Orthodox and non-Orthodox leaders.

How welcome, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg’s call to Modern Orthodox leaders to speak out for a new, better order at the Kotel (“Time For Modern Orthodox Leaders To Speak Out On Kotel Proposal,” Opinion, April 26).

How welcome, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg’s call to Modern Orthodox leaders to speak out for a new, better order at the Kotel (“Time For Modern Orthodox Leaders To Speak Out On Kotel Proposal,” Opinion, April 26).

JERUSALEM  -- Women praying out loud at the Western Wall in prayer shawls do not disturb the public order and should not have been arrested, an Israeli court found.

JERUSALEM -- Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky was given a green light by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue his plan for a permanent egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall.

Now that Natan Sharansky is going public with his proposal to resolve the Kotel conflict, it is time for the leadership of Modern Orthodoxy to speak out. The message should not be only support for Sharansky’s Solomonic proposal but to dissociate from the policies and tactics practiced by the haredi Western Wall Heritage Foundation.

Five women were detained by Jerusalem police for wearing prayer shawls at a Women of the Wall service at the Western Wall, but a judge later said there was no cause for arresting them, and released them, according to a statement from Women of the Wall, a group that agitates for women's prayer rights at the holy site.