Yaakov Menken

Matzav.com is running an article entitled “EXPOSED: Women of the Wall Linked To Rabidly Anti-Israel Groups,” which it reprinted from Jerusalem Online. But if you go looking for the original article, you won’t find it. It has been taken down. In a comment posted to Matzav, the reporter, Rachel Avraham, doubles down on her accusations against Women of the Wall:

Women of the Wall threatened Jerusalem Online News with legal action, hence why it was removed. This is a routine scare tactic of radical leftists, since they only can tolerate having their own views published and are opposed to dissent. However, all of the facts in the article are documented and have been checked numerous times before publication. I am a serious investigative journalist and would not have published it otherwise. I want to thank Matzav.com for reprinting the article, so the article will be public at this moment. Women of the Wall had the article taken down because they threaten news organizations that don’t publish what they like. Since I proved beyond a doubt to my editor that Women of the Wall representatives lied to him about the accuracy of the article so he would be pressured into taking it down, we are discussing how to proceed. However, they can’t threaten journalists and then use the fact it was taken down as proof that the article is wrong.

Her assertions, if true, are a very strong indictment against key members of Women of the Wall, specifically board member Batya Kallus and chairwoman Anat Hoffman. Kallus is accused of helping funding for numerous anti-Israel organizations that called upon the United States to threaten cutting diplomatic ties, refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, and that were favorites in the infamous Goldstone Report.

Hoffman, the article reports, is the chairwoman of the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem, which in turn is part of the Grassroots al-Quds Network (using the Arabic name for Jerusalem). Grassroots al-Quds considers Jerusalem, the “Capital of the Palestinian People,” to be illegally occupied and refer to “the violent presence of illegal Israeli Settlements.” Among other services, it offers “a workspace and meeting point” “that provides activists with the tools and resources they need to organize, create and resist.”

Hoffman is not identified as the Chair of the Domari Society on its website, though she is identified in news articles as “working with the Domari,” helped establish the organization, and plays an active role. So I’m not sure which documents provided this information. But even if true, I’m not sure it’s quite the big deal that Avraham makes it out to be. The Domari Society seems to be a very small organization, essentially a one-woman show, that Hoffman might support because it’s a woman, and one who doesn’t get a lot of acknowledgment from Palestinian Arabs, either. She might simply benefit from the meeting spaces and support provided by Grassroots Al-Quds without being involved in its civil disobedience.

Either way, it’s not really a big surprise, and I’m not sure why Women of the Wall apparently threatened legal action. In a different comment, Women of the Wall Spokeswoman Shira Pruce says that “our participants and supporters come from all walks of life, political opinions, and Jewish denominations and we would never want to divide that by taking a political stand that does not directly effect free prayer at the Kotel.” If so, why would Women of the Wall demand an article about the other political positions of their “participants” be taken down?

Pruce says that “the ‘article’ has since been removed by the editor,” neither confirming nor denying that Women of the Wall played a role. That’s an interesting stance, given that newspapers usually don’t retract published articles without a really good reason. In addition, why did she put the word “article” in quotes? Whether or not it contained in accurate data, it was unquestionably a news article, and there is something jarring about the tenor of her dismissal of its contents.

And again, what’s the big surprise? Prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords that made support for terrorist organizations official Israeli policy, Hoffman was the chair of Women in Black, a “peace” group that advocated giving the Palestinians (aka, the PLO) all the “occupied territories,” including East Jerusalem — including, of course, the Kotel itself. By comparison, her involvement with the Domari Society seems like a minor detail.

Hoffman claims to just want civil rights, and in her interview on BBC called the Orthodox “a minority that I respect deeply.” I happen to remember being in Israel when she ran for her seat on the Jerusalem City Council with the Meretz party. Her advertising included an orange map of Jerusalem, with black splotches and dots showing Orthodox settlement in the city. It is clear that she believed that the Orthodox were more of a threat to her voters than were the Palestinians — during the middle of the Intifada. I think it was the Jewish Observer that published a copy of this piece of campaign literature, juxtaposed with an earlier map with dials turned to the percentage of Jews in various cities — in Germany. That earlier map was published by the Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer. So the idea that Hoffman might be speaking out of both sides of her mouth with regards to Israel and the Kotel isn’t, again, any big surprise.

But even more than that, Women of the Wall portrays itself as a “women’s rights” organization and claim that women currently don’t have rights in Israel, and say they are helping to “architect” a new Kotel section “for Jewish [sic] and Israelis to pray free from persecution and religious coercion.” This certainly bolsters the impression of Israel as a repressive country where the rights of minorities are not respected.

So it’s not a question as to whether Women of the Wall is actively harming Israel’s image and reputation, internationally. The only question is whether that is simply collateral damage in their war on Jewish tradition — or a desirable if secondary goal.

For months, as the Women For the Wall fought for the right of women to pray at the Wall undisturbed, we have heard from many, even within the Orthodox community, that really W4W should just have ignored the Women Of the Wall. Or as one pulpit Rabbi put it, “The WOW were not proselytizing anyone, they were not trying to win converts, they were not trying to make a revolution.”

Oops. Actually, they were.

These rabbis, from Shlomo Riskin on down, are now left to contemplate their naivete concerning WOW. Since they ignored WOW founders Rivka Haut and Susan Aranoff, who wrote (many months ago) in the Times of Israel that the reason WOW must remain at the Kosel is because, in reference to religious women (esp. charedim), they will “change their worldview,” now they must deal with the reality of Anat Hoffman admitting that this poorly-hidden agenda was, in fact, their continuous goal. WOW’s leading cheerleader in the press, Judy Maltz of HaAretz, reported the following after Hoffman’s conference call with WOW supporters, in which she defended their recent decision to move (with a ridiculous collection of conditions, but that’s for another article) to Robinson’s Arch:

Among the factors that brought about the change of heart within the organization, she said, was the realization that changing the mindset of Orthodox Jews was not possible. “Women of the Wall is the right group for bringing about change in Israel but not the right group for bringing about change in the Orthodox world,” she said. “I’m not sure that a group which has members from all the different streams of Judaism is the right one for doing something like this.”

In other words, WOW’s mission statement, claiming that they only want “to achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall,” was never more than a facade for WOW’s true mission, to “bring about change in the Orthodox world.” Having concluded that WOW is not “the right one for doing something like this,” Hoffman has decided to pack out for the greener pastures of Robinson’s Arch, where, of course, they will be able to wear prayer shawls, read from the Torah, and do whatever else they please.

Hoffman also went much further, conceding that a plaza equipped with a mechitzah, 100 Sifrei Torah, hundreds of prayer books and its own Rabbinic authority might, after all, be considered a traditionally Jewish religious space, and that those who use this space regularly have rights, as well:

Our Haredi sisters also have rights, and we saw last Rosh Chodesh that they really don’t want – maybe not all of them, but many of them – do not want to see a woman in a tallit and tefillin, and they also have rights. I think it’s absolutely fine that the state gives the Kotel rabbi absolute authority over the Haredi space.

This quite astounding achievement could not have been brought about without Women For the Wall. They basically saved the possibility of a place for traditional prayer at the Kotel for all of us (on Channel 2, Hoffman once contemplated an era where people would be shocked to learn that there had once been a mechitzah at the plaza)… and along the way, taught a few Rabbis what it means to trust a politician, like the former Meretz Jerusalem City Council member turned religious activist!

It is a pleasure to note that two active members of the Women Of the Wall, Susan Silverman and Dahlia Lithwick, have attempted to address several arguments which, they claim, have been made by writers who oppose them, especially the founders of the Women For the Wall (The Kotel is for Us, Too: The Forward, June 14, 2013, also published as Dispelling nine myths about Women of the Wall: HaAretz, June 11, 2013). Dialogue is something which the leaders of W4W, Ronit Peskin and Leah Aharoni, have consistently invited, yet until now they have been rebuffed. Nonetheless, I think it would be premature to call this truly a dialogue between the two groups — and, perhaps predictably, neither HaAretz nor The Forward was interested in publishing a response to the challenges laid down.

If there is one thing upon which secular and Jewish scholars agree, it is the importance of referring back to primary sources. Whether it comes from Shakespeare, Einstein or Maimonides, that I may quote an idea accurately does not make it mine. If we look again at Silverman and Lithwick’s examples of arguments against them, we find that most of them are well sourced in statements by the founders and leaders of Women of the Wall. Though they quoted Ronit Peskin, Leah Aharoni, Jonathan Rosenblum, Avi Shafran and myself, the simple fact is that the Women of the Wall are arguing with themselves.

For example, Silverman and Lithwick insist that “we have no objection to Haredi women, or men, praying as they choose, and no desire to evangelize or inspire them.” Their beef should not be with W4W, but with Susan Aranoff and Rivka Haut, two founders of WOW, for saying the opposite:

WOW models to all Jewish women who pray at the Kotel that women can take control over their own religious lives… This represents a revolution in haredi lives… Their women will be influenced, strengthened, perhaps even demand change… And that is why WOW must win the struggle to remain at the Kotel. Our cause transcends women praying, women wearing tallitot. It goes directly to the heart of Jewish women’s lives in all spheres.

To “live and let live,” Silverman and Lithwick will have to join a group that shares that philosophy. It is wrong for them to imply that W4W have no grounds to object, much less to imply that they do so violently. Both video and reports from Shmuel Rosner (hardly a W4W supporter) show that W4W have tried to get troublemakers to simmer down and/or leave. Unless Women of the Wall wish to take direct responsibility for the death threats against the Chief Rabbis, the Rabbi of the Kotel, and assorted Knesset members, they cannot impugn W4W, an organization of women only, based upon the misbehavior of the 50 young men who have assisted WOW with PR and fundraising since long before W4W was formed.

The writers, of course, deny that WOW wants media awareness — but you can’t run a public campaign to launch “a revolution in Haredi lives” without it, and once again they find themselves arguing with the rest of their own group. One of WOW’s only two staff people is their PR Director, and WOW has hired an external media consultant as well. Anat Hoffman said that she joined WOW not to pray, but to demonstrate: “I had a folding table and they asked me to join them. You know, for demonstrations you always need a folding table and a megaphone, and I have both.” Hoffman now Chairs their Board. After their most recent event, member Lior Nevo told the press: “at least they notice us now.” If they were coming to the Wall to pray to G-d, then where would being noticed by other human beings come into the picture?

The writers concede that WOW has a much broader agenda than prayer. Hoffman has both proposed that “for six hours a day the Wall will be a national monument, open to others but not to Orthodox men,” and stated (while wearing her Tallis on the BBC) that the Western Wall is merely a stepping stone: “when you change the holiest site for the Jewish people, you’re actually asking ‘why not?’ about a variety of other life choices dictated to Israelis.”

Thus the argument against WOW has nothing at all to do with typical non-Orthodox women. It is whether the women who are regular denizens of the Western Wall should object to being told that they have “secondary status,” worship an “archaic, alien and repulsive” Judaism, and are “forced to obey ultra-misogynist views of what women are allowed to do at a public holy site” — while they are trying to pray.

Is disturbing the prayers of others the right time and place to pursue change? One who answers “yes” evidences that he or she doesn’t have the faintest comprehension of what prayer is. Indeed, one of their recent attendees wrote that “I don’t know how to pray anyway,” and stated that her first activity, upon arrival, was to “choose a potential victim to argue with.”

While Hoffman, Aranoff, Haut and Reform Rabbi Elianna Yolkut clearly think this type of activity is appropriate, the paltry showing of the Women of the Wall each month indicates that most Israelis — those who pray regularly, and those who don’t — at least understand that prayer must be respected. When Likud MK Miri Regev saw for herself what WOW was doing, she said that they should have gone to the Robinson’s Arch section of the Kotel. The few exceptions, as the writers again concede, are primarily Americans.

While seven of its ten Board and Staff are American-born, the problem isn’t that WOW is filled with American immigrants, so much as American tourists. Lithwick herself is “living in Jerusalem for the year.” Project OTZMA and Hebrew Union College’s Year in Israel programs claim to be opportunities to learn from Israelis — yet WOW draws much of its numbers from those programs. Nor does it end there; Elianna Yolkut lectured Leah Aharoni (of Kochav Yaakov) about Judaism in Israel from her loft in New York. The land founded by refugees seeking religious liberty has become a leading exporter of religious colonialism.

As a teenager, a cousin’s Reform Bat Mitzvah was enough to give me a strong impression that what goes on in a Reform Temple is performance, not prayer — and the fact that WOW draws so much of its strength from American Reform Rabbinical candidates does precious little to change my mind. It takes a non-Rabbi to doubt the righteousness of their path; in a moment of honest self-reflection, Rachel Frank considered that she probably shouldn’t be telling Israelis how to do Judaism during her few remaining months in Israel.

So, should we then conclude that Americans don’t understand prayer or its importance? That would be an inaccurate generalization. Even most American visitors and students, when they see WOW’s activities, leave it a wide berth — thus after 25 years, their most aggressive publicity and busing campaign yet garnered only 250 people.

WOW has vastly more support among those in the United States who have never seen any of this for themselves, but learn of events only through the careful filter of the dominant Jewish media. From Silverman and Lithwick’s valient attempts to cover for the statements of WOW’s own leadership, it appears they understand that WOW’s support depends upon American Jewry continuing to believe that the WOW wants nothing more than to pray. The words of their own leaders, however, tell a very different story.

If you’ve followed the news in Israel at all, you probably remember the shooting rampage at an “LGBT Youth Center” in Tel Aviv. [If you don’t know the acronym, good for you, and please let me not be the one to inspire you to look it up.] With absolutely no evidence whatsoever, it was immediately assumed that the shooter was charedi, and that it was a hate crime:

“This hate crime needs to be a turning point and to give strength,” [MK Tzipi] Livni told hundreds of Israelis who rallied in Tel Aviv to protest the attack, in which 15 people were also wounded.

Mike Hamel, the head of the Aguda, Israel’s LGBT organization, said such an attack was unprecedented in Israel.

“We have joined the list of ‘civilized’ countries in which hatred is the standard,” he said. “I don’t know whether the incident was directed at youth, but it appears that it was directed at the community. This is baseless hatred that cost us dearly – this is what needs to be understood.”

Hamel said that “elements represented by [Shas leaders] Eli Yishai and Benizri that are fostering hatred are still stronger than the increasingly favorable attitude toward [deviance].”

This led to a global campaign of anti-Haredi incitement. A headline from a Dallas LGBT news source even acknowledged (after 50,000 people rallied in Tel Aviv in support of the “LGBT community” after the shooting) that maybe, possibly, the narrative that everyone was taking for granted was wrong: “Tel Aviv shooting update: Killer may not have been ultra-Orthodox extremist.” Really? Ya think?

Well, last week’s headline that “[that] community reels over arrests in youth center shooting” could hardly be more accurate. It turns out that one of those arrested is the Director of the Center… not because he was part of the shooting, but for the same reason the center he led was targeted.

Even now, of course, you’ll still find someone calling it a hate crime — in a desperate attempt to cover the fact that the director of the center is now accused of an assault upon one of the youth at the center, the younger brother of two of the shooters. Never mind, he says, that this was obviously a revenge killing — that the shooters came looking for the director, and then launched a rampage when they couldn’t find him. Since the two drop-outs involved “used to be” charedi, therefore “the hatred of [deviance] inherent in Jewish Orthodoxy rubbed off on them,” and therefore the Book of Leviticus is responsible after all. I kid you not.

It’s true that hatred and bigotry still flourish in society; obviously some people will never give theirs up, no matter how the facts prove them wrong.

When a “movement” has more media appearances than members, do we notice something amiss? When a group claiming to favor prayer calls for dismantling a place of worship, do we smell smoke? And when leaders of an organization demand “Ahavat Yisrael” and then express outright revulsion for all who oppose their agenda, do we finally penetrate the veneer?

This is the tragic saga of the “Women of the Wall,” which portrays itself worldwide as advocating for “women’s rights,” but in Israel is known primarily for dishonoring a Holy Site with political circus – and sowing offense and discord.

They claim to speak for women, but disparage their spirituality. Chair Anat Hoffman referred to traditional prayers at the Wall as “men-only,” discarding those of millions of women annually. Founding member Phyllis Chesler asserted that recognition of their group will “acknowledge women as spiritual and religious beings, capable of non-coerced autonomous, independent, and halachic prayer.” She imagines that traditional women, “forced to obey ultra-misogynist views,” are lacking in all of the above.

But founding and current member Prof. Shulamit Magnus takes the crown. She claims that only women ignorant of Judaism oppose them, and having invented this fact, then declares that it “speaks volumes about the subjugated place of women in [traditional] society, and about the male structures that construct and control that society with an iron hand.” She describes traditional Judaism as “archaic, alien and repulsive.”

With the exception of their own monthly pilgrimages, the leadership doesn’t seem to find praying at the Wall all that momentous, either. As a leader of the Reform movement in Israel, Hoffman recently proposed dismantling the place of worship in favor of a “national monument” on a daily basis. Reform Rabbis in Israel declared in 1999 that “one should not consider the Western Wall as possessing any sanctity.” Why, then, the brouhaha?

Last week, Anat Hoffman confronted a Knesset Committee wearing a Tallit, and a Likud MK had a moment of comprehension. “This is not an Halachic argument,” he said. “It is about hegemony. They are trying to take over.” Hoffman made this explicit in an interview with the BBC: she wants to fragment Judaism in the Jewish state, and is using a place of worship for political theater.

In “secular” Tel Aviv there are over 550 traditional (what Americans might call “Orthodox”) synagogues with daily prayers, and one Reform Temple open only on Shabbat. The movement has scant footing in Israel, and Hoffman hopes to use this as a wedge issue to shore up support. Sadly, she seems to care little for the alienation she causes among Jews who needlessly fear their rights might be ignored in the Jewish state.

After all of the tumult and press coverage, and despite a board and staff of ten, only around 50 people go to the Wall itself on a monthly basis. Most women respect the sanctity and tradition practiced at the Wall for millennia, and are not interested in offending others in a place of worship.

Recently some of the heretofore silent majority launched a new group, striving to preserve the Kotel as the one place on earth where Jews of all persuasions pray peacefully, side by side. They are the Women For the Wall, and it is they who deserve our support and admiration.

The Talmud in Eruvin [47b-48a] discusses the unusual case of a lake situated between two villages, such that each end of the lake is within the Sabbath limits of one or the other village. Because the water mixes, and thus someone who goes out and draws water might be removing water from the Sabbath limits of the other village, Rebbe Chiyah says you can’t draw water without an iron wall dividing the lake. The Talmud continues that Rebbe Yosse bar Rebbe Chanina disagrees — and laughs at Rebbe Chiyah.

The Talmud asks… why? Without focusing upon the rest of the story, and the actual reason behind the laughter, it’s interesting to note what the Talmud discounts. “Because his logic goes with a lenient view, he laughs at someone who teaches a more stringent opinion?!” The Talmud finds that inconceivable!

So you might think, as I did, that obviously the rabbis of the Talmud did not understand the blogger mindset. You know, the type of person who will make fun of anything that his shallow mind doesn’t understand? Perhaps the rabbis didn’t know such people!

But then I realized, no, of course not. The Talmud isn’t talking about your average ignoramus, but on the contrary, about one of the holy Amoraim, Rebbe Yosse bar Rebbe Chanina. Of course there are loads of people who would make fun of scholars who follow stricter opinions; the Talmud only said that that is inconceivable for a person of knowledge and intelligence.

The proof to this is Rebbe Akiva, who said about himself [Pesachim 48b] that before he went to study, if he would have encountered a Torah scholar he would have bit him “like a donkey.” His students asked, why say like a donkey, and not like a dog? He answered that a dog doesn’t break bones, meaning that the donkey’s bite is more violent.

There is another answer, though… when someone mocks scholars for their strict opinions, it’s not merely true that he shows himself to be lacking in both knowledge and intelligence. He’s also acting, like, well, a donkey…

Just saying.

The Women of the Wall must be one of the most offensively misnamed groups in history. They don’t represent the Wall, they don’t represent the vast majority of the women who pray there, and they don’t represent sincere prayer.

As she was led off by police, their director, Lesley Sachs, was caught on video shouting out: “to all women from all denominations, there is more than one way to be a Jew!” Her actions were never about joining the others in prayer, but about disrupting them.

MK Michal Rozin said it best: “It’s not a religious issue, it’s a political issue.” Of course, it’s a religious site, and thus the first question should have been whether or not it is appropriate to stage a political protest in a place where others are accustomed to praying in peace.

This is why the proposal from Natan Sharansky, much as it is being celebrated in the press, is actually drawing a more positive reaction from Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz than from the group. According to the Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Rabinowitz said that he will not oppose the plan “for the sake of unity and out of a desire to distance the Western Wall from all argument and dispute” — but meanwhile, the Women of the Wall group has announced “that it would find any solution in which the group be forced to pray separately from the main plaza unacceptable.” One side is interested in letting Orthodox Jews pray in peace. The other … wants the very opposite.

In reality, there is nothing new or revolutionary about the proposal, from Natan Sharansky, to expand the Robinson’s Arch area. That revolution, if it could ever have been called that, came a decade ago, when the Israel Supreme Court acknowledged both the right of the overwhelming majority to pray according to Orthodox norms, as well as the right of others to do as they wish — and required that a space be provided for them at Robinson’s Arch — and the Conservative movement said yes. You wouldn’t know it reading the articles today, which talk about how liberal movements are taking the bold step of accepting this amazing compromise, but there’s nothing new about it. The conservatives accepted it 10 years ago, and were complaining about fees for access three years later (and I said, at the time, that justice was with them in that complaint).

The reason why the so-called “Women of the Wall” found that solution unacceptable is because they are not trying to observe their own practices, but change Orthodox ones. Let’s be honest, their chairwoman, Anat Hoffman, has never expressed interest in any form of prayer, except when it’s interfering with those of others. While she was still a member of the Knesset (with the rabidly anti-religious Meretz party) in the early 1990’s, she stated quite clearly that “if it weren’t for the media, I would find no reason to be here.” As the executive director of IRAC, she continues to fritter away Reform Jewish dollars for causes having nothing to do with Reform Judaism. As I wrote about their “news” section a few years back, “Articles about Reform, even adding a collection of one-sided portrayals of the ‘Women of the Wall,’ are vastly outnumbered by articles about their opposition to voluntary gender separation on buses, demonstrations against Orthodox Rabbis, interference with Charedi education and unsavory comparisons between Rabbis and Imams.”

But for the record, I do see a bright side. If the Sharansky plan is actually implemented, this tremendous waste of money will provide ongoing, daily evidence of the unpopularity of liberal Jewish streams in Israel. That section of the Kotel Plaza will be used by the IDF for induction ceremonies, on Friday nights by mixed groups on tours of Israel, for Conservative Jews who can’t even fill the small current space, the occasional mixed Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah, and the Women of the Wall. And in total it will see roughly 2% of the traffic of those streaming to pray at the site of S’rid Beis Kodsheynu, l’hispallel sheyibaneh bimheyrah b’yameinu.