Earlier this week, the Israeli Supreme Court made a firm ruling on the ongoing turmoil of women wanting equal access to the Kotel, the Western Wall. The situation has recently reached a boiling point, including a failed plan to compromise last year. This court decision is firmly on the side of organizations like Women of the Wall, that argue that current policies discriminate against liberal or egalitarian religious practices.

In case you missed it, the ruling essentially says:

• Access to Robinson’s Arch (around the corner from the main part of the Wall) does not count as access to the Western Wall.
• It is illegal to search women’s bodies for “contraband,” as in Jewish ritual objects.
• Women may wear tallitot and tefillin at the Kotel. Most of all, they may read from the Torah (yes, out loud,) there.

But it’s not over, yet! The government has thirty days (less now) to present “good cause” to protest this ruling.

Wow, that seems like a toughie. We feel bad for the government and Western Wall administrators (particularly one Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz), who have to come up with something in only a month. And so, we here at Jewcy have decided to lend a helping hand, and help them brainstorm.

Feel free to use any of these as ways to articulate why the court’s decision was wrong:

• The women’s side of the Wall is simply too small to handle that level of activity. It’s a shame that no one can expand the section of the wall that is about 20% of the space for 50% of the population.
• In fact, because of manspreading, men need at least 90% of the Wall.
• Women have cooties. Praying out loud makes them spread faster. Have you seen World War Z? It’ll be like the scene where the zombies pour over their mechitza.
• Allowing women to read from the Torah at the Kotel violates the way worship originally occurred at the Temple of which the Wall was once a part. Only animal sacrifices should be permitted. And most people should really only go there three times a year.
• If women can bring religious artifacts into the religious site, what’s next? Bringing copies of The Red Tent? Birth control? There’d be no space in their purses to keep extra garments to cover up their bodies, in accordance with Kotel dress codes.
• Letting liberal Jewish groups have religious autonomy is a zero sum game, and the slightest change weakens the ultra-Orthodox stranglehold on standards of religious life in Israel.
• Furthermore, some men will feel Sad and Scared if they can hear women pray in a way they don’t like. And if men feel a way, you should let them make rules about it.

You’re welcome! See you at the Kotel!

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

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After a lot of recent excitement about the new arrangement for the Western Wall, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that no, never mind, what, who said anything about a deal, quick look over there Iran looks suspicious!

What Bibi actually said was that “several difficulties arose” in establishing an “egalitarian” area at the wall, many of those difficulties taking the form of right-wing officials, including Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz who had originally acquiesced to the deal, and Minister of Religious Affairs David Azoulay refusing to accept it in the first place in a way that smacks of Kim Davis. For them, apparently the idea of legitimizing women reading Torah and laying tefillin anywhere in the vicinity would be an abomination (seriously, Azoulay made comparisons to not committing murder).

Netanyahu asserted that he’s not giving up, and appointed his bureau chief David Sharan to try to work out a solution over the next couple of months, but obviously progressive Jewish groups are discouraged, if not infuriated.

I’m on record as disliking the deal anyway; it was too little for the women who want the right to pray in a way that they find meaningful in the main women’s section of the Wall (a section that is also too small and oppressive, while we’re on the subject).

But the fact that Netanyahu couldn’t even accomplish that is pretty telling.  Once again, he acts powerless in the face of pressure from the religious right, like when he reneged on action that would make Haredi Jews more beholden to Israel’s mandatory military draft.

The odds that Sharan is going to come back with a better deal than the previous one are smaller than the constrained women’s section at the Kotel (which would be 20%, by the way. The women’s section of the Western Wall is one-fourth the size of the men’s section).

See you 60 days to explore further disappointment!

Photo credit: Wikipedia

The post Bibi Chickens Out— The Kotel Deal is a Bust appeared first on Jewcy.

Breaking: Justin Timberlake is BRINGING SEXY BACK to the Western Wall! (Oh, go on, roll your eyes, but it had to be said.)

JT is set to perform at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park on Wednesday night to a crowd of 44,000. He visited the kotel on Tuesday to pray, and took the opportunity to post a super-meaningful pic to his Instagram account in an appropriately antique-y filter. (Because #JerusalemofGold, amirite?)

“The Holy Land… What an experience. I will never forget this day,” he wrote. Hashtag: Israel.

The photo has received about 200,000 likes so far, and almost 7,000 comments.

Also performing in Israel this summer: Lady Gaga, Backstreet Boys, and The Rolling Stones. We’re hoping for a slew of pics to add to our Celebrity Kotel album.

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