Women’s Rights Attacked (literally) by Haredim

Women’s Rights Attacked (literally) by Haredim

I am posting this because it is one more issue that Israel needs to contend with.  I was on the Bd. of Women of the Wall many years ago when the group first began as a consequence of the first, and only International Jewish Feminists conference in 1988.  I was on the conference planning committee.   Though praying at the Wall is not my issue from the point of view of a need for religious observance, it is my issue regarding equality for women.  This Jewish Week editorial is a good summary of what women are facing. –Lilly:

Don’t Waste Israel’s Moment For Change

Wed, 05/01/2013
Editorial

A growing number of American Jews have been following with increasing outrage the plight of the Women of the Wall, the small group of activists in Jerusalem seeking to pray as a group at the Kotel (the Western Wall) in prayer shawls, kippot and tefillin.
It’s embarrassing and shameful that they have at times been treated like criminals by the police, whose forceful behavior has only drawn greater attention to and sympathy for the women, culminating in a district court ruling this week that it was wrong to arrest them.
But the truth is that focusing on their treatment, disgraceful as it may be, has masked the far more serious offenses against women and non-Orthodox religious institutions by the state and its rabbinic authorities. … Click link for entire editorial.

And there is a more recent Huffington Post story (click link below): 
Ultra-Orthodox Haredim Attack Women of the Wall
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox jeered, spit and threw rocks at the 400 ‘Women of the Wall’ who prayed at the Western Wall today, according to the Jerusalem Post.

By | 2013-05-10T18:04:00-04:00 May 10th, 2013|Blog|0 Comments

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