The Women of the Wall prayer service at the Western Wall on Monday morning passed off relatively quietly despite a promise by hard-line religious-Zionist activists to protest against the group.
The group faced jeers and other mild forms of harassment by other women praying in the women’s section, as well as similar activity by small groups of Orthodox children harassing a group of men praying in solidarity with the Women of the Wall.
Some Orthodox Shhhshhhers protesting against the Women of the Wall pic.twitter.com/rOE9qf3FPe
— Jeremy Sharon (@jeremysharon) August 9, 2021
A group of 10 year olds? protesting the Women of the Wall service. pic.twitter.com/ezaSUfv5jf
— Jeremy Sharon (@jeremysharon) August 9, 2021
Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev (Labor) promised in June to ensure that the Women of the Wall would not face such harassment again.
During the course of the Women of the Wall prayer service on Monday, women and young girls in the women’s section continually shouted at the group, especially when they sang.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation deployed a loudspeaker system for use in the male prayer service in the men’s section when the Women of the Wall service began, apparently in an effort to drown out their singing.
A small group of boys, both haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and from the hard-line religious-Zionist community, booed, jeered and insulted the small group of men praying behind the women’s section at the site in solidarity with the group.
תפילת ראש חודש אלול לצדן של נשות הכותל. אחרי קריעת הסידורים בר"ח תמוז וההתנהלות האלימה בתשעה באב, ישנה כאן הערכות מתאימה של המשטרה והסדרנים להגנה על המתפללות. באופן "מפתיע" בדיוק כשהתחילה תפילת נשות הכותל הודלקה מערכת ההגברה בעזרת הגברים בעוצמה מחרישת אזניים. חודש טוב. pic.twitter.com/gIoliQA7bV
— גלעד קריב (@KarivGilad) August 9, 2021
Among the men who attended were Labor MK Gilad Kariv, who is a Reform rabbi, and Yizhar Hess, deputy chairman of the World Zionist Organization and former director of the Masorti Movement (Conservative) in Israel.
“Thousands of worshipers” would go to the holy site on Monday to “protect the holiness of the Western Wall,” accompanied by Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a group calling itself the Joint Committee for the Preservation of the Holiness of the Western Wall said Sunday. Ultimately, there were only small numbers of protesters opposing the Women of the Wall.
The prayer arrangements and security provisions for the Women of the Wall and the men’s service that accompanied them were better and more orderly than had been the case in previous months, Kariv said.
“If the [public security] minister and the police want it, then everything is under control and everything is quiet,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
Kariv had earlier tweeted: “After the ripping of siddurim [prayer books] on Rosh Hodesh Tamuz and the violent behavior seen on Tisha Be’av, this time the security and police forces were well prepared to protect the worshipers.”
Unlike many Rosh Hodesh prayer services that are marred by severe protest, Monday’s was “almost uplifting,” Hess said, adding that the voices of the Women of the Wall group singing could be heard from afar.
“There are, however, those who try to crassly bother them in the women’s section, but much less than in other months, and the public plaza where we [men] prayed was much quieter,” he said.