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Tefillah at the Kotel

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Returning to the Kotel

This past Friday was my first time coming back to Jerusalem to join my sisters at the Kotel for our monthly Rosh Hodesh service. I have been active in Women of the Wall for over fifteen years, praying at 7 am each month, rain or shine, with these women at the Kotel.

Then, this past summer, I moved from Jerusalem to Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee, a two-hours drive away. Kibbutz Hannaton is a religious Kibbutz, but it is religious in the same unacceptable-to-the-Israeli-religious-powers-that-be way as Women of the Wall. We have a synagogue that is the center of our communal life, but it has no mechitzah and women participate fully in the services. We have a mikveh that is in frequent use, but we have an open-door policy that allows anyone who wants to us the mikveh do so—no questions asked. Needless to say, because of our egalitarian religious approach, we receive no funding from our regional religious governmental office (the Moaza Hadatit).

Although I had not made it to the Kotel for the previous Rosh Hodesh services since our move, I decided to make a special effort to come this Rosh Hodesh Tevet. I wanted to support my ideological sister Nofrat Frenkel after her arrest last month for wearing a tallit at the Kotel and to join the group in showing our relentless intention to pray as a group of women at the Kotel in the way we are accustomed (as a group, in full voice, and in tallitot).

The truth is that we have made many compromises over the years and do not actually pray at the Kotel as we would prefer to do, which is for us to read from a Torah scroll, wear tallit, and for some of us to wear tefillin. For our Torah reading we go to the space we were exiled to by the Supreme Court, Robinson’s Arch.

So last Thursday I drove into Jerusalem in an electrical storm to pray with my sisters. In many ways it felt like coming home to rejoin the group. Aside from a few female worshippers under umbrellas up at the Wall, we were the only women who showed up that stormy morning. Yet, I heard loud protests coming from the men’s section. It seems a group of ultra-Orthodox men had shown up that morning not to pray, but to protest our service. They were yelling “Gevalt! Gevalt!” over and over again. And when we left the Kotel plaza to head to Robinson’s Arch to read the Torah portions for Rosh Hodesh and Hanukkah—singing “Not by weapon and not by might but by spirit!”–they followed alongside us on a raised platform and spat on us and threw plastic bags filled with water on us from above.

Later that morning, I went to swim laps in the Jerusalem Swimming Pool, where I had swum laps every day when I lived in Jerusalem. There was a mournful atmosphere at the pool that morning, as it is slated to close down at the end of the calendar year. It seems it is not profitable enough as a business for the owners to continue running it, and so far the municipality has not jumped in to save it.

Two magical memories from Jerusalem were being threatened, and both, in my opinion, out of a lack of concern for the rights and quality of life of people who pay taxes and love Jerusalem. Jerusalem can often feel like a place unto itself, cut off from the rest of Israel. I love Jerusalem. I did not leave as a formof protest, but to experience living in a different part of the country, and to be part of building a liberal-minded, egalitarian religious community.

I admit, though, that part of me wanted to get away from the growing ultra-Orthodox character that seems to dominate Jerusalem more and more these days. Fifteen years of trying to sing Hallel at the Kotel without being at best verbally abused and at worst physically attacked can start to wear on you—especially when you are not sure whether to be more afraid of the men in black or the men in police uniforms!

As I was ending my swim, I looked up and saw another regular at the pool. “What brings you back to Jerusalem?” he asked me. “Have you decided to come back to stay?”

“Well, let me put it this way,” I anwered. “Earlier this morning I was spat on by a haredi man as I tried to pray at the Kotel, and now I am swimming what may very well be my last swim in our beloved Jerusalem pool. I don’t see myself moving back here very quickly at this rate.”