Israeli Movement announces stance on rights at the Western Wall

In light of recent events at Jerusalem’s Western Wall – including the arrest of a member of the prayer group Women of the Wall and the subsequent police questioning and fingerprinting of Israel Religious Action Center director Anat Hoffman (who also chairs WoW; see WUPJnews #375) – the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism has adopted an official platform on rights at the site.

According to Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the IMPJ, the movement, in conjunction with IRAC and Israel’s Council of Progressive Rabbis, “views the Israel Police’s behavior toward the Women of the Wall as worrisome” and “sees the police proceedings as an attempt to threaten the members of the group and impinge upon their freedom of worship.”

Allowing that “as a religious, pluralistic and diverse movement, the [IMPJ’s] rabbinic and community leadership has a wide range of views regarding… the Women of the Wall” and on “the broader issue of the religious and spiritual centrality of the Kotel,” the movement “recognizes the importance of the site to many Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, including the Reform Movement, and also acknowledges the national significance of the site.”

As such, the “IMPJ will take part in the public effort to assure the national and Jewish character of the Kotel as part of a genuine struggle to prevent damage to freedom of worship [and] separation between men and women, and to oppose harmful and humiliating behavior by the Kotel authorities imposed on visitors…. The IMPJ will place a central focus on the creation of a third public area at the Kotel, which will be an egalitarian plaza open to the public at large, for the purpose of prayer or a visit to the Kotel.” It also favors “rescinding gender separation at the entrance gates to the Western Wall; restoring the Jewish Agency ceremonies to the Kotel and preventing gender separation at national ceremonies; stopping harassment and interference with mixed gatherings (women and men) at the Kotel's upper plaza; and removing offensive signs from the Kotel site.”


Kariv (left) and Hoffman.

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