May 28, 2014
In honor of Jerusalem Day, Women of the Wall to Prime Minister Netanyahu: Let My Torah Go!
On Jerusalem Day Israel commemorates the liberation of the Western Wall and the unification of Jerusalem. It is on this day that Women of the Wall have initiated a new campaign calling on their supporters and the public to sign a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu sending a clear message: “Women are half the kingdom. Women are half the Jewish world. It is time women have access to Torah at the Kotel. Let my Torah go.”
PM Netanyahu oversees the administration of the Western Wall and as such has the ability to ensure that women are allowed to read from a Torah scroll at the holy, public site. Women’s Torah reading is permissible according to Jewish law and reading at the Kotel is permissible according to the 2013 District Court Sobel decision.
Anat Hoffman, Women of the Wall Chair, “One year ago several of the Israeli paratroopers who liberated Jerusalem and the Western Wall in 1967 at the end of the Six Day War joined Women of the Wall’s struggle. They did so because they believe that the Kotel belongs to all Jews and that all Jews should be allowed to pray freely at the Kotel according their own belief.”
She continues, ”It is sad that in the State of Israel in 2014, the week before we celebrate the Jewish people- men and women alike- receiving the ten commandments at Mount Sinai, women are refused the right to read from a Torah scroll at the Western Wall.”
Women of the Wall remain dedicated to the negotiations with the government over the creation of an equal third prayer section at the Kotel; however, such a section has yet to built and women’s rights must be upheld at the Kotel.
Please join Women of the Wall at the Western Wall on Friday May 30, 2014 for Rosh Hodesh Sivan at 7AM.
For over twenty-five years Women of the Wall has struggled for religious freedom and women’s rights at the Western Wall. As Women of the Wall, our central mission is 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.
Press Contact: Shira Pruce, Director of Public Relations +972 (0)546898351media@womenofthewall.org.il