RJ Blog

Still not clear on the details of the ongoing dispute regarding women’s prayer at the Western Wall in Israel? Been following along so closely that you want to know even more about it? Last week, Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, was interviewed by Timothy Michael Law, founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of The Marginalia Review of Books. The Women’s Rabbinic Network is the international support and advocacy organization for women in the Reform rabbinate. Just before Rabbi Ellenson’s scheduled appearance with Marginalia, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that recent detention of members of Women of the Wall members [...]

Leaders of the Reform Movement issued a statement today about a recent ruling from the Jerusalem District Court that determined that recent detention of Women of the Wall members for their activities at the Western Wall was unjustified and for denying local police requests for restraining orders against the group. Haaretz has more on the ruling and its implications. URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs said of the ruling, We were especially pleased to hear the judge state that the Law of Holy Places, which gives visitors to the Kotel the opportunity to pray according to ‘local custom,’ does not mandate [...]

Today I am ending a three-week trip to the United States, and tomorrow I will return home to Israel (assuming the El Al strike is over). This has been a particularly emotional trip as I was in Boston the day of Marathon. I saw firsthand how resilient the people of Boston are in a crisis. We all send our thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families. I spoke at nearly a dozen synagogues and universities during my three weeks in the United States. This trip was an opportunity for me to start explaining in person to our supporters [...]

Two weeks ago, I was at the Knesset, Israel’s legislative parliament, wearing Noar Telem’s uniform, and I couldn’t feel any prouder that we are making our voice abundantly clear in front of our elected representatives.

Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) leaders today joined Knesset and Women of the Wall (WOW) members to pray at the Jewish holy site, the Western Wall, to celebrate the start of the new Jewish month and to promote religious freedom in Israel. This monthly service, which today commemorated the month when Jews celebrate their freedom from slavery in Egypt, is held to advocate change to Orthodox rulings in Israel barring women from praying out loud at the Western Wall. According to media, today was the first time that police did not detain any participants.

Imagine making aliyah – leaving your work, family and friends behind. Making a bold journey – only to be rejected by the Israeli authorities. In the past couple of weeks we lived an intense drama with one of our brave olim (new immigrants), who was arrested and almost deported. We managed to stop the deportation just as he was boarding the plane. Kirk Maxfield, who had a Reform conversion in 1993, was arrested at his home in Haifa for overstaying his tourist visa. Mr. Maxfield had applied for citizenship, but was not permitted to stay in the country while his [...]

by Lindsey Morgan Youth Advisor A asks, “Are you going to the URJ’s Youth Engagement Conference?” Youth Advisor B answers, “Well, I’m not entirely sure yet. I haven’t talked to my temple, board and it hasn’t been approved. To be perfectly honest, I also have no idea what ‘youth engagement’ really means and whether there’s a comprehensive enough understanding of what it is to meaningfully present a program I’ll get something out of.” Confession, full-disclosure: I was Youth Advisor B.

A unique gathering happened this morning at the Western Wall. During Women of the Wall’s usual Rosh Chodesh prayer service in the women’s section of the Kotel, we were fortunate to be supported by some very special visitors. Veterans from the IDF’s famed Paratrooper Battalion 66, the men who liberated the Western Wall in 1967, were with our supporters in the men’s section. These men are living legends and among Israel’s modern heroes. It was only after the prayer service was over and the paratroopers had left that the police detained ten women, including myself, for committing the crime of [...]

UPDATE: Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency, to review restrictions on women’s prayer at the Western Wall and suggest ways to make the site more accommodating to all Jews! Keep following RACblog for more updates throughout the week!

Policeman: Open your coat. Is this a shawl you are wearing? Woman: Are shawls a problem? Policeman: Shawls are allowed. I am looking for a tallit. Woman: Why? Policeman: As of this morning the Rabbi of the Wall is forbidding tallitot at the Kotel. Woman: But wait, over there is a man carrying a tallit? Policeman: The decree applies only to women. Open your bag please. I need to search for a tallit. 

When we stepped into the election booths on Tuesday (or mailed in our ballots anti-climactically two weeks ago), we were finally alone—there was blissful silence from the seemingly never-ending campaign commercials, a lack of fliers and posters and bumper stickers, no friends telling us which way to vote, and no camera phones posting our opinions to Facebook. But we did bring in one thing: our values. Let’s look at some ways in which religion and religious values played an appropriate role in this election cycle. Houses of worship have emphasized the importance of voting, regardless of the candidate. 52% of [...]

by Menachem Z. Rosensaft Israel’s Declaration of Independence provides that “The State of Israel…will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex” and “will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture.” Last week, officials of the Jerusalem police violated Anat Hoffman’s most basic civil and human rights by subjecting her to crude misogynistic and demeaning mistreatment that crossed all boundaries of decency. Hoffman is the executive director of the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center. On Tuesday evening, October 16, she was arrested for leading a group of [...]

Last Tuesday I was arrested when I took a group of over two hundred women to the Western Wall to pray together in the women’s section. I was arrested for disturbing the peace and endangering the public good by wearing my tallit and saying the Shema out loud. It was a traumatic experience. I was pulled along the ground by my wrists, strip-searched, shackled by the hands and feet and left to sleep on the floor of a jail cell with nothing to keep me warm but my tallit. The treatment I received was designed to make women scared of [...]

Add your name to a petition urging the Israeli government to ensure that oversight of the Kotel includes a range of Jewish views and voices and protects gender equality. The Western Wall in Jerusalem, in the words and Yiddish accent of Issac Bashevis Singer, is “like any other Veilin Vall (wailing wall).” It is the only distinct and concrete holy place for the Jewish people. The site of the Western Wall is run by an ultra-Orthodox group of bureaucrats and rabbis who are dictating the life choices of all who enter. Pope Benedict XVI was lucky in 2009, to be allowed [...]