WHO is allowed to pray where at the Western Wall in Jerusalem? An answer to this fantastically vexed question was found last year, and a deal was struck. But last month the Israeli government decided to halt its implementation. This has opened an unusual rift between the Jewish state and the world’s largest Jewish community, in the United States.
Ever since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967—and with it the revered retaining wall of the former Jewish temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70AD—Jewish prayers at the holy site have been regulated according to ultra-Orthodox practices. Men and women are segregated by a partition and, as in Orthodox synagogues, women may not lead or perform prayers with Torah scrolls and prayer shawls. Women are, in effect, treated as spectators of male prayers. Women who challenged such precepts would often be met with shouting and jostling, and have been blocked by custodians and police.
This has long rankled with many...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2sUA3V4
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