Clik here to view.
Article 39
I’ve been screamed at before. Protests at abortion clinics leap to mind; I’ve held signs, silently, as the more vocal among the anti-abortion activists howled and shouted the rosary, the volume of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Article 38
Just days after Intel faced a throng of rioters who objected to the operation of a factory in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, the giant computer chip maker has offered an appeasement proposal: According to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Article 37
• Israel confirmed its condition for releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured soldier Gilad Shalit: mass deportation. Hamas is considering it. [Ynet] • In an exclusive interview,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Article 36
• Tony Blair, the envoy for the direct talks-sponsoring Quartet, blasted delegitimization of Israel and praised Israelis’ “openness, fairmindedness, and creativity.” [JPost] • Rabbi Avraham Bronstein,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
World War XX
A sad confluence of stories today underscores the difficulty we (the royal we, the global we, the Semitic we) seem to be having with gender equality. Here’s a round-up of things that I wish I weren’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Anat Hoffman Arrested for Praying at the Kotel While Wearing a Prayer Shawl
Last night, a violent arrest was made at the Western Wall. The crime? Reciting the Shema aloud in a prayer shawl. Anat Hoffman, who is the leader of Women of the Wall, a group that has been organizing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In the Wake of Anat Hoffman's Arrest at the Western Wall, a Global Response
This past spring, when a group of people spontaneously broke out in a synchronized dance number on the promenade near my street in Brooklyn, my 84-year-old landlord called me up to ask me what was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sundown
• A Jewish Agency committee is calling for a new approach to the prayer policies at the Western Wall in the wake of the controversial arrest of the leader of the Women of the Wall. [JTA] • Roger Cohen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daybreak
• In a statement released by Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall (who knew?), Rabinowitz decried the controversial arrest of Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman last month. He also...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sundown
• The Israeli embassy in Ireland came under fire to day for a Christmas-themed post suggesting a modern day Jesus and Mary would be lynched by Palestinians. The post was taken down and the embassy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daybreak
• In what’s being viewed in some circles as pre-election political maneuvering, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked the Jewish Agency to look into finding a way for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fight Over Women of the Wall Is a Battle With Ancient Roots
For the Women of the Wall, a group that has gathered each month for the past 23 years to pray at the Western Wall, things have never been easy: They’ve been heckled, arrested for “hurting the feelings...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daybreak
• The Women of the Wall had their biggest prayer service at the Kotel to date, with hundreds of participants, including former IDF paratroopers. In addition to ten arrests made following the service,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Powerful Alliance Between the Women of the Wall and IDF Paratroopers
There may not be a more potent symbol of the Western Wall’s liberation than the very Israeli paratroopers who daringly took it in 1967, giving the Jewish people control over its most holy site for the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sarah Silverman’s Sister’s Protest Against Gender Inequality Is the Best...
After more than a decade of rape jokes, dick jokes, and sly inversion of all forms of racism, we’re all pretty used to Sarah Silverman and her comedy, which in this era of Girls, “hipster racism,” and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Police: Women Can't Say Kaddish at the Kotel
In a strange turn of events, Jerusalem’s police commissioner Yossi Pariente sent the women’s advocacy and prayer group the Women of the Wall a letter informing them that saying Kaddish during their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Natan Sharansky Defends Women's Prayer at Kotel
Following an uproar about Jerusalem police commissioner’s threat to arrest women who recite Kaddish at the Western Wall earlier today, Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky has weighed in. Sharansky, who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Egalitarian Section at the Western Wall?
After months of increasingly newsworthy happenings, the thorny issue of gender equality and prayer at the Western Wall has reached a new plateau. Just days after Jerusalem’s police commissioner warned...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sundown
• According to a Pentagon assessment, North Korea may have the capacity to make a nuclear missile. [NYT] • The five women arrested at the monthly Women of the Wall prayer service at the Western Wall...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daybreak
• A Jerusalem district judge ruled today that the arrest of five female worshipers earlier this month at the Women of the Wall’s monthly Rosh Hodesh services was wrongful. If not reversed, the decision...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Women Have Always Been of the Wall: The Movement Is Actually Reviving Old...
When District Judge Moshe Sobol handed down a historic decision in Israel last week, ruling that the practices of the Women of the Wall do not violate “local custom,” he was more correct than he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Court Ruling Makes Natan Sharansky's Western Wall Plan Moot
As we noted last week, a Jerusalem district court decision, which ruled that the five female worshippers arrested during a Rosh Hodesh service at the Western Wall earlier this month should not have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Women of the Wall' Ruling in Limbo
Last week, a Jerusalem district court ruling seemingly granted the Women of the Wall and others equal protection for prayer at the Western Wall by deciding that the arrests of female worshipers last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Tables Turn at the Western Wall
As we noted in Daybreak (and Sundown yesterday), this month’s Rosh Hodesh service at the Western Wall was slated to be something of a turning point in the struggle between the religious groups that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Female Rabbis in New York Lead Service in Solidarity With Israel's Women of...
A torah scroll was raised high into the air this morning over New York City’s Madison Square Park during the tail end of the city’s morning rush hour. Men with briefcases and tourists with maps and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Article 14
• Syrian forces seized the Golan Heights border crossing operated by U.N. peacekeeping force. [NYT] • In response to the escalating violence, Austria is pulling its soldiers from the Golan Heights,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are Jewish Men Afraid of Dating Older Women?
It’s been a strange week (news-wise) for Jewish men and their relationships with women. On Monday, Rabbi Andy Bachman chronicled his trip to pray with the Women of the Wall, an event marked by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tisha B'Av Takes on Heightened Solemnity One Week After Women of the Wall...
Tonight is Tisha B’Av, the mournful day in which we commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temple, and the other Jewish tragedies that have historically fallen upon this date. The nine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Despite Warning, No Violence Reported During The Women of the Wall's Rosh...
For a glimpse at the tragicomedy of life in Jerusalem—in which prayers are policed, and worshipers are warriors—have a look at this press release sent to reporters yesterday by the Chief Rabbi of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Today's News: Typo Sends Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Plummeting; Should European...
• A trader’s typing error caused one of Israel’s largest corporations to drop 99 percent in value yesterday, bringing the entire Tel Aviv Stock Exchange down several pointskldsfk. [Times of Israel] •...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Today's News: Iran Cyber War Commander Killed; Harry Potter Grows Up; And More
• The commander of Iran’s Cyber War headquarters was shot and killed near Tehran in what Iran is calling an assassination. [YNet] • The Western Wall rabbi has asked Orthodox young women not to crowd...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An American Jew on Why She’s Going To Pray at the Wall
My brother smiles shyly in the photo. He glances downward, just to the right of a velvet-wrapped Torah on a table. It is a moment of benediction. The rabbi’s hand rests on my father’s forearm. My...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My Morning at the Western Wall: A Dispatch From the Women of the Wall's 25th...
“Did they pay you to come here?” one wide-eyed Orthodox girl asked us, curious about the women in tallitot all around her. No one had to pay the hundreds of women—including me—who sang and celebrated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The View From the Western Wall's New Egalitarian Plaza
The opening of a new egalitarian plaza next to the Kotel has created the possibility of compromise over how to accommodate all forms of prayer at the Western Wall. Although the plaza is only temporary,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Israel's Decision to Create an Egalitarian Prayer Space at the Kotel Is...
Newspapers in Israel and around the world have been hailing the deal between the Israeli government, the Reform and Conservative movements, and the The Women of Robinson’s Arch (formerly Women of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Women of the Wall Leader Lesley Sachs Is Detained For Taking Torah Scroll...
Lesley Sachs, the director of the Women of the Wall, was detained for questioning on Tuesday after she was caught with a Torah scroll inside the prayer plaza at the Western Wall, “in defiance of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Natan Sharansky on the Kotel Compromise
Every few years, a controversy erupts in Israel that strikes at the heart of what it means to be a Jew. These debates, between the Israeli Orthodox establishment on one side and those seeking greater...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Amid a Larger Fracas, Protesters Scream 'Nazi' at Women of the Wall as They...
It was billed as an “unprecedented act of civil disobedience” in protest of the Israeli government’s failure to implement its own decision to build an egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall. On...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Reform and Conservative Movements’ Jerusalem Problem
Many in the broader Jewish world, the one, that is, beyond my cloistered Orthodox environs, have voiced criticism of President Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of his plan to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Blames 220-Pound Boulder Dislodged From Western Wall...
Yesterday morning a 220-pound boulder was dislodged from the Western Wall and fell to the ground near Robinson’s Arch, a site currently used for egalitarian prayer. Fortunately, it missed 79-year-old...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wall—Part IV: This Wall Is My Wall
Walls can make us feel safe, warm, and protected. But that’s also their greatest danger. After all, walls can cut us off from what is going on outside, and hiding behind them can give us a false sense...
View Article
