The initiative is for people, during the Nine Days, to daven and learn in the area near the Kotel called Ezrat Yisrael - the area that was designated for egalitarian prayer with no mechitza.
Yeshivat Hakotel supports them or is involved with them, I guess, as they put out a flyer for this saying they will be having shiurim and davening there during the Nine Days, in an attempt to strengthen the hold on the Kotel when the deceptive government is selling out to the Reform movement.
The purpose of this is to prevent the Reform and others from using it for mixed gender services.
The Women of the Wall, WoW, have called this a provocation, blah blah blah.
1. In general it is always nice to have additional fighting during the Nine Days. This was so unnecessary to start with as Ezrat Yisrael is hardly even used anyway, so this was done just to pick a fight.
2. I don't know why WoW cares. They don't even want to use Ezrat Yisrael and continue to try to hold their services at the regular women's section of the Kotel. Because they were not given the administrative authority they were promised over the Ezrat Yisrael area, they have refused to use it. it does not sit empty but it supposedly is not all that busy, and especially with tourism down it has not been all that busy. So I don't know why this upsets that.
3. The common refrain when the WoW women show up for Rosh Chodesh services at the Kotel that they have their own area over there, so they are continuing just to use the Kotel to be provocative, etc. That argument goes away when the Orthodox groups then take over, control, and push out others from WoW.
4. WoW should be using this as an excuse, or justification, to use the Kotel, not as something to get upset over, as, like I mentioned above, they dont use it anyway..
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Even in the best of times the place is almost always empty except for Orthodox families who find it a more intimate space (e.g., the women don't have to balance on precarious chairs to look over an ever-higher mechitza) for smachot. I've been to some events there myself- you set up some chairs as a mechitza and you're good to go.
ReplyDeleteAs to your last two points...if the WoW haven't used it for all these years, any argument they can make up is invalid.
Whoever still doesn't understand who and what the whackos at WOW are about, are clueless.
ReplyDeleteThis is a political movement and has nothing to do with the stupid, fake reform Judaism. It is about 'erasing' Torah Judaism and is a real political movement. Their intentions are purely evil.