Post date: Jul 08, 2013 11:52:49 AM
Women seeking equal prayer rights at Jerusalem's Western Wall are prevented from praying at the site after ultra-Orthodox Jews crowd the square.
JERUSALEM (JULY 8, 2013) (REUTERS) - Israeli police confronting more than 3,000 ultra-Orthodox protesters distanced a group of liberal women worshippers from Jerusalem's sacred Western Wall on Monday (July 8) and arrested three of the religious Jews for throwing objects.
The Women of the Wall are a group challenging the Orthodox monopoly over rites at the Jewish holy site.In April, a court found they were not in violation of the law by praying at the site wrapped in prayer shawls which Orthodox ritual says are meant only for men.
The issue is at the heart of a long struggle between a secular majority and an ultra-Orthodox minority over lifestyle in a country where institutions such as marriage, divorce and burial are controlled by religious authorities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked former cabinet minister and Jewish leader Natan Sharansky to seek a compromise to permit the Women of the Wall to hold prayers without exacerbating tensions with the ultra-Orthodox Jews. Sharansky has since proposed a formula to widen a separate zone at the Western Wall once designated for egalitarian prayer, a suggestion neither side nor the government has yet embraced.
On Monday, the group held their prayers a short distance from the site, guarded by some 200 police officers about 20 metres from the plaza where worship is normally held.
"We are really really upset, we have been co-operating with the police, we have been in contact with them all week," said Lesley Sachs, director of the Women of the Wall.
"They think that somehow the practices of Women of the Wall or any of the liberal branches of Judaism are somehow, I hear a girl saying 'it's another religion'. It's not. We are all Jews and it's sad that there isn't that understanding," added a member of the group.
Police insisted they had not sought to deny the women prayer rights, but to protect them from rowdy protesters who witnesses said threw raw eggs at the 300 womenand also shouted nasty epithets at them and at police.
Police said three men in traditional black dress were arrested for throwing objects, and a religious woman was also arrested for causing a disturbance.
Shmuel Rabinowitz, an Orthodox rabbi officially in charge of the Western Wall, said the group had to move because the women's section was filled with other worshippers.
"It is a place for everyone's private prayers, it's not a place for an event or a provocation or a propaganda, or a mess," Rabinowitz said.
Also spurring Israel's drive to resolve the dispute is the growing support for theWomen of the Wall movement among Jews in the United States, Israel's main ally.
The Western Wall is one of the Judaism's holiest sites, revered as part of the Biblical Jewish Temple compound.