The Women of the Wall proved today that it’s not about the prayer, but about the politics.
While they were praying, they were also busy sending out tweets from the official Women of the Wall account (I guess they have some Kavana issues).
a horrible feeling. what a shanda to encage women at the kotel
what a frustrating, painful feeling. women in a cage at the Kotel.
When I heard, “women in a cage,” I rushed to check out the photos.
With a turn of phrase like that, I knew what I was expecting to see. Needless to say, I was disappointed, when it turned out to be nothing even close…
Let’s see what’s really going on.
Here they are at the main Kotel itself, being allowed to pray according to nearly any alternative lifestyle demands they have been promoting — with direct access to the wall at the plaza, so they can also touch the same section of the wall as everyone else can while they pray, and all the tourists can watch them.
Yet they are using SENSATIONALIST, exaggerated terminology, tweeting to the world that they were put in cages.
Put in cages!
At first I thought it was just them being whiny, but, you know what? It’s just straight out lying.
As you can see from their own photo, that it is not the case at all.
The women’s section has been divided by a standard police divider, so that part of the women’s section is designated for those women who want to pray in the traditional Jewish manner as they have been doing at the Kotel every day, and the other part dedicated to those who want to pray in their alternative fashion, wearing male accouterments, as they do once a month.
And since the Women of the Wall have been demanding to be allowed to pray at the main Kotel plaza in their non-traditional manner – and they were allowed to do so, this argument should pretty much be over.
But that obviously is not what the Women of the Wall want (that the argument should be over).
It’s not enough that they have forced their alternative method of prayer into the Kotel.
Here’s the truth of it, based on their own tweets.
They want to force their method of prayer onto to the other women at the Kotel too, including onto those who don’t want to pray that way – whether those women want it or not.
As part of their performance politics, the Women of the Wall are demanding that everyone else be subject to their methods of prayer, while they simultaneously prove that they won’t tolerate the way the other women (or men) at the Kotel want to hold their traditional prayers.
It’s a one way street for the Women of the Wall.
I am sure that within a month or two, they’ll get their way, too, and Orthodox (and non-Orthodox) women who want to pray undisturbed in the Jewish traditional manner will be made to feel very uncomfortable in their place of prayer.
And it won’t end there.
Because, as their tweets prove, this obviously isn’t about their wish to pray at the Kotel in a manner that deviates from tradition — after all, they’ve already won 95% of that (and I’m 100% convinced they’ll get permission to read from the Torah next month).
Next we’ll see petitions to the Supreme Court to completely remove the Mechitza, and allow egalitarian (mixed prayer) prayer groups.
How long until some IRAC-connected Reform rabbi demands to be allowed to play guitar on the Sabbath at the Kotel as he or she “traditionally” does in his or her Reform Temple?
This isn’t a battle about some women wanting to dress up as men like Yentyl and pray at the Kotel.
There’s no question that many of the backers of the Women of the Wall see the obliteration of Torah Judaism in public places in Israel as their ultimate goal.
The Kotel is just one of their battlefields, and the more SENSATIONAL they can make the battle sound, and the longer they can keep it going, the better it is for their camp.