12/9/13 8:06 PM Women of the Wall hold second peaceful service at Kotel - Jewish World News Israel News

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Women of the Wall hold second peaceful service at Kotel
Worshippers contend with sporadic shouting and heckling as large demonstration by ultra-
Orthodox girls is called off.
By Judy Maltz | Dec. 4, 2013 | 8:53 PM | 3
1 Tweet Tweet 6
The Western Wall, Wednesday, December 4, 2013. Photo by Tali Meir
For the second month in a row, Women of the Wall held its monthly
prayer service at the Western Wall on Wednesday morning with relatively
few disturbances.
A few dozen ultra-Orthodox teenage girls heckled the members of the
pluralistic prayer group as they recited the Rosh Chodesh prayers, but they
were eventually dispersed by police, who formed a human barricade
around Women of the Wall.
Plans by ultra-Orthodox leaders to bring thousands of young seminary
girls to the Western Wall to demonstrate against the womens prayer
group, as theyve done in the past, were called off at the last moment. The
decision was taken after the Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz,
urged both the ultra-Orthodox community and Women of the Wall to stay
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12/9/13 8:06 PM Women of the Wall hold second peaceful service at Kotel - Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz
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away from the site, citing tensions at the nearby Temple Mount.
He also noted in a statement that discussions were underway for a
compromise, according to which Women of the Wall would move its
monthly prayer service to a new egalitarian section on the other side of the
Mughrabi Bridge. The new section is currently under construction.
About 100 women participated in the womens prayer
group service on Wednesday. In deference to the North
African Jewish tradition of marking the month of Tevet
by paying tribute to Jewish heroines, Women of the
Wall used Sephardic melodies in some of their prayers,
and groups of women were blessed under a canopy
during the Torah reading service. The Torah portion
was read from a Chumash rather than a scroll, due to a
ban by Rabinowitz on bringing Torah scrolls into the
womens section.
Throughout the prayer service, several ultra-Orthodox
men, standing on chairs on the other side of the barrier
separating the mens and womens sections, cursed the
womens group. Go to the barn, you cows, shouted
one. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.
One ultra-Orthodox man was detained by police after
he tried to throw a chair at the women. Police
confiscated whistles from two men who were using
them to drown out the sounds of the womens prayer.
Border policewomen clashed with the few dozen ultra-
Orthodox girls trying to disrupt the prayers, who were
goaded at times by a few older women.
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