While they were praying, they were also busy sending out tweets from the official Women of the Wall account. (I guess they have some Kavana issues).
a horrible feeling. what a shanda to encage women at the kotel
what a frustrating, painful feeling. women in a cage at the Kotel.
When I heard, "women in a cage", I rushed to check out the photos.
With a turn of phrase like that, I knew what I was expecting to see. Needless to say, I was disappointed, when it turned out to be nothing even close...
Let's see what's really going on.
Here they are at the main Kotel itself, being allowed to pray with (almost) whatever alternative lifestyle demands they have been promoting - with direct access to the wall at the plaza, so they can also touch the same section of the wall as everyone else can while they pray, and all the tourists get to see them.
Yet they are using SENSATIONALIST, exaggerated terminology, tweeting to the world that they were put in cages.
Put in cages!
At first I thought it was just them being whiny, but, you know what? It's just straight out lying.
As you can see from their own photo, that is not the case at all.
The women's section has been divided by a standard police divider, so that part of the women's section is designated for those women who want to pray in the traditional Jewish manner as they have always done at the Kotel, and the other part for those who want to pray in their alternative fashion wearing male accoutrements.
And since the Women of the Wall have been demanding to be allowed to pray at the main Kotel plaza in their non-traditional manner - and they were allowed to do so, this argument should pretty much be over.
But that obviously is not what the Women of the Wall want (that the argument should be over).
It’s not enough that they have forced their alternative method of prayer into the Kotel.
Here's the truth of it, based on their own tweets.
They want to force their method of prayer onto to the other women at the Kotel too, including onto those who don’t want to pray that way - whether those women want it or not.
As part of their performance politics, the Women of the Wall are demanding that everyone else be subject to their methods of prayer, while they simultaneously prove that they won’t tolerate the way the other women (or men) at the Kotel want to hold their traditional prayers.
It's a one way street for the Women of the Wall.
I am sure that within a month or two, they’ll get their way too, and Orthodox (and non-Orthodox) women who want to pray undisturbed in the Jewish traditional manner will feel be made to feel very uncomfortable when they are unable to do so.
And it won’t end there.
Because as their tweets prove, this obviously isn’t just about praying at the Kotel in whatever manner they want that deviates from tradition or Halacha, because they already have 95% of that (and I’m 100% sure they’ll get permission to read from the Torah next month).
The next steps we’ll see are petitions to the Supreme Court to completely remove the Mechitza, and allow egalitarian (mixed prayer) prayer groups.
How long until some IRAC-connected Reform rabbi demands to be allowed to play her guitar on the Sabbath at the Kotel as she "traditionally" does in her Reform Temple?
This isn't a battle about some women wanting to dress up as men and pray at the Kotel.
There's no question that many of the backers of the Women of the Wall see the obliteration of Torah/Orthodox/Traditional Judaism in public places in Israel as their ultimate goal.
The Kotel is just one of their battlefields, and the more SENSATIONAL they can make the battle sound, and the longer they can keep it going, the better it is for them.
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6 comments:
I hadn't thought about the guitar on Shabbes, but you are right, that will come.
What will probably come next are kol isha issues as they insist a right to raise their voices enough that the men who are outside will have to hear them. To me, that will be the sgnal issue that shows them for what they are.
I'm missing something here. How do you get "They want to force their method of prayer onto to the other women at the Kotel too, including onto those who don’t want to pray that way - whether those women want it or not." from the tweet you quoted?
"How long until some IRAC-connected Reform rabbi demands to be allowed to play her guitar on the Sabbath at the Kotel as she "traditionally" does in her Reform Temple?"
"הַלְלֽוּהוּ בְּנֵֽבֶל וְכִנּוֹר"
Speedily and in our days!
If the WoW are not permitted to daven in their (minimally) halachically acceptable fashion, I believe that in another 20 years, Haredi mobs will make it difficult for any woman to approach the Kotel unless she is wearing a mid-calf length skirt, thick stockings, and a baggy long-sleeved shirt. 20 years after that, they will add a black poncho to their list of demands, and 20 years after that, they will ban women from the Kotel area entirely as a distraction to the men. Having made the entire area into a "men's section", they will declare that they cannot allow the area to be "mixed", as this would diminish the holiness of the area.
I get distracted easily enough when people talk around me while I'm trying to davven/pray. I can't for the life of me understand how anyone serious about prayer could text, tweet, blog, etc., while davvening. And I speak as a woman who's been praying in a tallit for forty years. I'm very disappointed, and I certainly hope that the women tweeting are only a small minority.
Some of those WoW look like they we're born male. I often wonder if the reason more than half of the males raised "reform" marry out is because they're looking for a pretty shiksa.
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