1.
There are not enough arguments? You want to set everything on fire? If not for us, the haredi public, there would not even be a Kotel. There were people who said that these are just plain stones... When I see a woman donning tefillin at the Kotel, it tears up my heart. Hundreds of thousands of men and women see this desecration of holiness. I request with a plea - come to pray and not make provocations. Do that in your shuls and not in the place that has so many people.
-- MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ)
2.
I sat in the session next to MK Gafni and I heard him say that it hurts his heart to see women at the Kotel wrapping themselves in a tallit and donning tefillin. As a haredi, I must say I am surprised. I do not understand why the eyes of the men [davening at the Kotel] are looking in the womens section..
-- MK Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid)
The police were right for arresting the women [wearing tallitot]. Just as the police arrest somebody who counterfeits money, these people are counterfeiting Judaism and should be arrested..
-- MK Menachem Eliezer Mozes
4.
Most women around the world who daven, do so wearing a tallit.
-- Yizhar Hess, head of Conservative Movement in Israel
I must add, I have no idea what world he is living in to be able to say that with a straight face. Even though Orthodox Jews are in the minority around the world, their women pray far more than the women of any other movement, and probably even more than the men of every other movement as well.
5.
We must stop arresting women for attempting to pray. I have no problem with women praying at the Kotel even in tallitot. There is no debate that halacha allows women to pray in tallit and tefillin. The Kotel is not a shul and not even a holy place. The Kotel is the wrapper around the candy that is Har Habayit itself... The Kotel is nothing more than a heritage site..
-- MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud)
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Cute line on Lipman's part, but it's only a deflection. I find it hard to believe that he's unaware of the press involving the Women of the Wall, and that Gafni has seen photos of them wearing tallit and tfillin in the news.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the context of his statement? Was it in response to a serious question, and if so, why didn't he answer it? If not, why just make fun of someone else?
I did not see or hear it being asked during the session. It is possible I missed it. People were screaming out things and interrupting at different points and I was watching while doing other things. so I might have missed it. Or else it was not asked at the time but said later. I did hear Lipman repeat the question during a radio interview later in the day when he and Mozes were being interviewed together about the session.
ReplyDeleteHis point was that they are not doing this in the mens section, and what happens in the womens section should not bother the men. They should not even know about it. The reason it has become a provocation with media is because the haredi men (and MKs) started getting involved and fighting it. for years it has been happening quietly and few people noticed or cared. suddenly we are turning it into a fight and it is getting out of hand because of us.
Rafi, perhaps these women on the wall are bothering the Orthodox women?
ReplyDeleteLipman op-ed ffrom a year ago while still with Rav Amsalem.
http://m.jpost.com/HomePage/FrontPage/Article.aspx?id=63270902&cat=1
the women (except for a few individual ones) arent the ones complaining...
Deletethat article from Lipman last year is a completely different issue.
DeleteBTW, on that note, and maybe I should have included it above, Rav Rabinovitch spoke at the session as well. in his "speech" he announced that possible solutions have been weighed and examined with experts and within a month a solution will be decided on (or maybe he said already put in place, I dont remember) to a) deal with the size of the womens side of the kotel and b) deal with the problematic mechitza