Vandals spray painted the Jerusalem home of a long-time board member of the Women of the Wall (WOW) with vicious graffiti, the first time opponents to WOW have resorted to vengeance.

Some of the graffiti sprayed on the door and stairwell of Peggy Cidor’s apartment read in Hebrew: “Women of the Wall are wicked,” “Peggy, your time is up,” “Peggy, we know where you live,” and “Jerusalem is holy,” according to the Women of the Wall.

The words “Torah tag” also were spray painted on the door of the apartment, calling to mind the phrase “price tag” used by extremist settlers and their supporters to describe retribution in the form of vandalism for settlement freezes and demolitions or Palestinian Authority Arab attacks on Jews.

It is the first time that such an incident has happened to Cidor, who has served on the board of Women of the Wall for the last 15 years. Police are investigating the incident.

The Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, condemned the graffiti in a statement released to the media and called on “all fanatic groups to remove their hands from this holy place.”

“I have warned against the conflagration and gratuitous hatred. I pray and hope we can check the escalation and that a solution will be found that allows the Western Wall to remain not as a disputed area but as holy grounds that unites and unifies,” he said

The Women of the Wall in a statement called on Haredi Orthodox rabbis to condemn the attack.

“This was likely the actions of bored youth, acting in response to the incitement of their leaders. The real problem facing Israeli society is not what they did but what the leadership of the Haredi public will do now. The writing is on the wall. We call on the rabbis to staunchly condemn the vandalism and to end all incitement against Women of the Wall, without regard to the legitimate public discourse,” the group said.

The Women of the Wall’s May 10th prayer service for the Hebrew month of Iyar was mobbed by Haredi Orthodox women and men. The women required police protection, but were still attacked by men throwing chairs, stink bombs and garbage. It was the first time the women held their monthly service following the ruling of a Jerusalem District Court judge that said the group’s services do not violate the law and merit police protection rather than arrests.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Religious Affairs Minister Yair Lapid, who doubles as Finance Minister, are arguing via Facebook over the issue of a women’s minyan at the Western Wall.

Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky has proposed that a Women of the Wall demand for the minyan be allowed at the southern part of the Kotel, called Robinson’s Arch.

Lapid said he is working to approve new regulations but charged Livni with grandstanding. She wrote a letter to Bennett’s office on Shavuot.

Her beef does not concern her views, which are similar to Sharansky, but that no change in the law can be made without her approval.

“I’ll admit that I pray in an Orthodox synagogue…, but I believe that the time is ripe…to apply a pluralistic and tolerant approach at the Western Wall, allowing women to pray according to their customs, mostly because they do so in an area that is intended for women only,” she wrote.

Lapid took to Facebook after the holiday and wrote, “Tzipi Livni, come on.” He chastised Livni for a “provocative spin” and “media trick” by informing Israeli media that she had sent him a letter to his office on the Shavuot holiday, when he could not respond since he was not in his office.

Bennett wrote he has meet with women wanting to pray at the Western Wall with prayer shawls and tefillin that are worn by orthodox men but not women. The meeting was “the first time a religious services minister held talks with the Women of the Wall. And then came Tzipi Livni,” according to Lapid.

Livni wrote back on her Facebook page, “Naftali Bennett, come on. Minister Bennett is upset. He claims that I didn’t consult him before writing him a letter clarifying my stance on women’s prayer at the wall.”

“Since the Women of the Wall controversy broke out, Minister Bennett hasn’t called me a single time to update me on the compromise attempts that he claims he’s trying to reach on the matter, even though the law requires us both to sign the regulations, so he has no one but himself to blame.”

A short while ago I wrote a post lamenting the fact that there are actually people in Israel who refuse to wear a kipa at their own wedding. They refuse to in any way identify with observant Jewry. After last Friday, I can’t really say I blame him. If I were a secular Jew seeing what took place last Friday at the Kotel, the last thing I would ever want to do is identify with observant Jewry.

This event is being published in all media including the New York Times. This morning when I skimmed through the pages of the Chicago Tribune a picture of the event hit me in the face along with an article describing it. The Jewish Press says it all:

Haredi men are cursing the praying women, and occasionally throw water bottles and garbage at them.

I wasn’t going to react to this in a post. It would seem like I was gloating after I had written a post just prior to the event predicting that this might happen. I had hoped it wouldn’t. I had hoped that there would be a major kiddush HaShem with thousands of young women showing up and praying at the Kotel with tremendous sincerity perhaps praying in some way for the welfare of family; or friends; or the entirety of Jewish people. But in my heart I knew it would not end well. And unfortunately I was right. I am not gloating. I am sad that this happened. Sad… and angry! When I saw that Tribune article it hit a raw nerve.

This event goes way beyond any contentiousness about the rights of the women of the wall. I am not one of their supporters. One can debate whether they have a right to do what they do there. But no matter how opposed one is to them, to create a hilul HaShem in that cause not only undermines their goal, it projects an image to the world that the most religious Jews among us… those who claim to be the most authentic representatives of the Chosen People are primitive savages!

As I said in last Thursday’s post, these kinds of protests attract trouble makers. It doesn’t take that many… 5 or 6 people can do things that will make us all look bad. And when I say all.. I mean all of Jewry, Haredim, Modern Orthdodox, and even secular Jews.

I’m sure that there are some people out there who read these articles and said this is how Jews act. And even those who didn’t are certainly saying the this is what Ultra-Orthodox Judaism is all about. If one wears a kipa the world looking at him will increasingly think of images like the one above.

I have to ask. With all the good intention of Israel’s rabbinic leaders, how could they not see that this was going to happen? It isn’t as though protests in the past never had things like this happen. The fact is that this almost always happens.

How many times were reporters spat upon by extremists in Meah Shearim protesting hilul Shabbos? How many dumpsters have been set on fire in protests like these? How many windshields have been broken by rocks being thrown at them during one of these protests in Meah Shearim? Meah Shearim is pretty close to the Kotel… literally a stone’s throw! This is not the first time that rabbis have called for a peaceful protest and violence broke out.

How can they know the potential of violence is real and yet still think that a simple instruction to not be violent will work? “Eizehu hacham? Haroeh es hanolad”—Who is the wise man? The one who foresees the consequences of their actions.

Where is the wisdom?

We have many learned Rabbis who are looked to for guidance by observant Jews. Many of them asked seminaries to empty out and go to the Kotel to protest the Women of the Wall. That is exactly what they did. And look what happened.

Visit Emes Ve-Emunah.

Tomorrow, Friday, is Rosh Chodesh Sivan (six more shopping days until Shavuos), and as they have done every Rosh Chodesh, the Women of the Wall have announced that they’ll meet y’all at the women’s section of the Kotel. Except this time around they’re doing it with judicial sanction, following two decisions—one of them after a dead-in-the-water appeal by police—of Jerusalem courts that the ladies’ prayer, with tallit and tefillin, does not constitute a violation of the public order.

Which means they won’t be arrested, as has been the case for some 25 years. And if anyone dare yell at them, or spit, or tell them they’re going to hell in a decorative tallis bag – they, the WOW opponents would likely be cuffed and detained by the men and women in black.

Yes, they’ve won a battle, a long one at that—but the war is far from over.

On Tuesday, as Kikar Hashabbat reported, United Torah Judaism MKs held a special meeting with the deans and principals of the major Orthodox women’s seminaries in Israel, and it was decided to initiate a central prayer service at the Kotel, with, possibly, thousands of seminary students, as they put it: in response to the provocation by the Women of the Wall.

A senior UTJ source told Kikar Hashabbat that they’re not looking to create a counter provocation, only to prove to all the people of Israel that kosher Jewish women are the true women of the Wall, who pray and supplicate by the Kotel year-round, not just on Rosh Chodesh, and not to start riots.

There’s probably a secret place in a dungeon under some Casbah, where all the press officers for all the different organizations in the world can meet late at night and critique each other’s self righteous lies. This one probably wins a big, free drink next meeting…

Just in case, during the Knesset debate of the WOW V. WOW extravaganza, a representative the Police Department said that—in keeping with the recent Magistrate Court order, the police would protect the Women of the Wall from harm.

Take that, other Women of the Wall!

On Thursday, the day before Rosh Chodesh, it turns out that several Haredi leaders, including, most prominently, Maran Aharon Leib Shteinman, widely regarded as the Gadol Hador for Lithuanians, have determined that thousands of seminary students may leave home early Friday morning for a heartfelt prayer at the plaza by the “remnant of our Temple, the Western Wall.”

Meanwhile, a contingency of Orthodox “Women for the Wall” announced that they, too, are coming at 6:30 AM—best way to get a good spot at this point—to pray and recite Psalms “for the sake of Israel and against the greatest threats to the Torah and Judaism born by the Women of the Wall.”

Their initiative has won the support of two prominent National Religious religious Zionist rabbis: Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu—provided they agree to abstain from violence.

Anyone who uses the words “cat” and “fight” in the comments below this report gets a stern warning for sure…

“We just want to pray quietly and with kavanah (deliberately),” Ronit Peskin, director of “Women for Wall,” told Srugim. “Women need to pray and demonstrate that they could set an example, without reacting to their screaming and provocative behavior.”

She stressed that every woman must come with full intention of sanctifying God in every part of her manner and prayers.

Shira Pruce, Director of Public Relations for then original Women of the Wall told The Jewish Press that she was honored and delighted for having inspired so many thousands of women to come and pray at the Kotel on Rosh Chodesh.

“If women of the Wall has inspired thousands of women to come to the Kotel, Amen V’amen,” she said.

Which was the quote I was hoping for, naturally.

In fact, in the spirit of peace and mutual respect, the WOW leadership has acquiesced this one time only to obey the police instructions and not bring out a Torah scroll to their event. Apparently, according to the cops’ psak, it’s fine for women to wear tallit and teffilin, but it violates something terrible if they dare hold up a Torah.

Natan Sharansky recently put forth a proposal to renovate and extend the Western Wall plaza to include Robinsons Arch, thereby creating an egalitarian prayer space alongside the ones currently designated for men and women. As an Orthodox woman I am not egalitarian, nevertheless, I think creating space to include all the denominations comfortably at the Kotel is a positive thing, nobody should feel excluded from Jerusalem’s holiest site. Despite that, I am very disappointed with what this proposal might mean for Orthodox women.

Though Kotel access and inclusion for the progressive denominations is an important issue, Sharansky was specifically charged with coming up with a solution in response to the escalating conflict surrounding the Women of the Wall. Though some people may conflate those two issues they are in fact separate and distinct and in this case it looks like the issue of denominational access has won out over women’s rights. And what is even worse is that it is the women’s hard work which enabled this victory and yet is coming at their own expense.

As an active Orthodox feminist I have invested years of my life to advancing women’s rights within the framework of Halachah, studying at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education instead of seeking ordination from one of the liberal movements, working at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, serving as an intern at Congregation Ramath Orah on Manhattans’ Upper West Side, founding and leading various women’s tefillah groups where women could be represented and share their voices without having to abandon their communities to do so.

I was also a huge proponent of Women of the Wall (WOW) for many years. I saw WOW as my sisters in Israel struggling for women’s Halachic rights at the Kotel, the same way I was struggling for them here in America. Not a violation of Halachha, but a fight against patriarchal social norms that prevent me, and millions of other women, from actualizing our Halachically permitted potential. Anat Hoffman, in an opinion piece she wrote in the Forward in 2010 states

Simply put, our goal is to obtain the freedom to pray and to do everything that is Halachically permitted for women on the women’s side of the mechitzah (the barrier between men and women). This includes reciting prayers together that do not require a minyan, and, yes, most of all, it includes reading from the Torah. At a minimum, we want to be allowed to pray at the Wall for one hour each month, free of injury and fear. This should not be a provocative request. If I wanted to mount a provocation at the Wall, I certainly wouldn’t do so by inviting a group of modestly dressed women — most of them devoted Orthodox Jews — to show up early in the morning to pray in a manner entirely consistent with Halacha. That some are provoked does not make us provocative. We have been waking up early to pray every Rosh Hodesh for the past 21 years — this is no fad, no political act. It is done for the sake of prayer. Over the past week a number of people have questioned the premise that an egalitarian section at the Kotel does not address the needs of progressive Orthodox women. In response I would say firstly that I should not have to leave a space or community that I am an active part of in order to assert the rights afforded to me by Halachah, as an Orthodox women in a de facto Orthodox space shouldn’t my actions be a valid part of the greater whole that determines the status quo by which we set our norms? Secondly, davening in an egalitarian space is probably not seen as a Halachically viable option for most Orthodox women for whom an allegiance to Halachah is paramount to their other needs.

Thirdly, the proposed space is not a free for all space, even if a group of women wanted to get together within that proposed space and hold a women’s tefillah group, not a minyan, I question whether they would be able to. I have enough liberal friends and have been exposed to the progressive denominations sufficiently to see that they too have a bias and I question if such a group would be welcome.

The Jerusalem District Court handed down its decision on Thursday in The State of Israel, Israel Police vs. Lesley Sachs, Bonnie Riva Ras, Sylvie Rozenbaum, Rabbi Valerie Stessin, and Sharona Kramer, the five women who were arrested on April 11, 2013 while praying at the Western Wall.

Judge Moshe Sobell decided against the police appeal, confirming the Magistrate Court decision by Judge Sharon Larry-Bavly, which stated that there was no cause for arrest and that the women did not disturb the public order. The women were released with no conditions and police request for a restraining order against their entering the Kotel site was rejected.

Judge Sobell also declared that the Supreme Court decision of 2003 was never intended to serve as an injunction that would make the women’s prayers while clad in tallitot a criminal violation. The judge added that there is no reasonable suspicion that the women are violating the Supreme Court decision. As to the High Court recommendation that the women pray in the Robinson’s Arch, Sobell declared that this does not necessarily mean that the women are prohibited from praying at the Western Wall’s women’s section.

The judge also declared that the women are not violating the restriction in the law governing sacred sites, which says that visitors at the Western Wall are to pray and hold religious celebrations according to the “local custom.” In the judge’s view, the “local custom” should to be interpreted with national and pluralistic implications, and not necessarily the Orthodox Jewish customs of the city of Jerusalem.

As to the charge of endangering or disturbing the public peace, the Judge ruled that even if the women had behaved in a way that disturbed the public order, they never posed a danger to the public peace. The women were in no way suspect of violent or verbally unruly behaviors that would endanger the public.

Judge Sobell ruled that there are to be no limitations imposed on the accused women.

Anat Hoffman, Chairperson of Women of the Wal, said, “Today Women of the Wall Liberated the Western Wall for all Jewish People. We did it for the eight year old girl who can now dream of having her Bat Mitzvah at the Wall, and for the grandmother who cannot climb on a chair in order to see her son’s Bar Mitzvah. We did it for the great diversity of Jews in the world, all of whom deserve to pray according to their belief and custom at the Western Wall.”

It is not yet known whether the police is considering appealing today’s ruling at the Supreme Court.

Natan Sharansky has come up with a plan that he feels is a workable compromise between Charedim and heterodox movements. It will enable people to attend egalitarian prayer services (where men and women have equal stature in all ritual aspects of a Minyan) at the Kotel (the Western Wall), Israel’s holiest accessible site. I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu supports it.

There has been a lot of controversy at the Kotel in recent times where some women have tried to buck traditional practices at the Kotel by holding unusual services there. The Women of the Wall (WoW) have tried to have a monthly women’s prayer service there that includes such traditional male modalities as wearing a talit, and reading the Torah.

This has disturbed the Haredi world since it is such a wide departure from tradition – which has always dictated practices at the Kotel. They complained to the government. The government responded with new rules about a woman wearing a talit that has resulted in multiple arrests every Rosh Hodesh (new month of the Jewish calendar) when WOW tires to hold its services at the main plaza. It happened again a few days ago.

I have in the past argued against this group because I felt that they were more about demanding women’s religious rights than they were about serving God in ways they choose to do so. There was no rule against their having any type of service they choose at a different location along the Kotel called “Robinson’s Arch.” But they have chosen to do their service at the main Kotel Plaza and thereby upset the traditional worshipers there who feel that at best they are a distraction.

That these women are sincere in their devotion to God is somewhat undermined by their insistence that they use an area used by traditionalists who have always done their prayer services quietly and individually without drawing any attention to themselves.

The argument by WoW and their supporters is that people should have the right to pray anywhere they choose along the main Kotel Plaza and they insist on doing so to make a point of that.

I have come around to the view that these women should be left alone. As long as they are not disruptive – who cares if they are wearing a talit… or reading from the Torah?! At the same time if conflict can be avoided – it should be. If WoW could be given a place that is both free and similar in size to the main Kotel Plaza, I think they should take it and avoid any future conflict.

Sharansky’s proposal addresses another women’s issue – egalitarian minyan. This is not WoW. There are no men in their group. Technically I suppose there are no Halachic issues with WoW – other than breaking traditional non-Halachic taboos.

But feminism has given rise to egalitarianism in heterodox movements. In order to preserve the peace and accommodate both Haredim and those who seek egalitarian minyanim – he has proposed that Robinson’s Arch (which is out of view from the main Kotel plaza) be expanded so that its space equal that of the main Kotel Plaza… and that there be free access to it in the future. This would in essence be the actual realization of separate but equal rights for heterodox movements.

Just to be clear about mixed setting for prayer at the Kotel… I don’t think this is an issue. The only place where there is a requirement to separate the sexes via a mechitza (partition) is where there is Kedushat Beit HaKnesset. That means that only in a synagogue does a woman’s presence interfere with the minyan. Outside of a synagogue, women may be present… as is the case at weddings or banquets in hotels where there are ad hoc minyanim for Mincha and Maariv all the time. Women are present and in view of the men. They are not separated by any partition.

The question about whether the Kotel serves as a Shul has been answered by history. Archival photos show that in pre-state days going back to the 19th century – men and women were not separated when they came to pray at the Kotel. I do not therefore believe that the Kotel area can be classified as having Kedushat Beit HaKnesset.

Following the arrest of five Women of the Wall on Thursday, during the Rosh Chodesh prayer, the women were taken to Magistrate Court, where police accused them of disturbing public order and asked the judge to ban them from the Western Wall for three months.

After examining the evidence, Judge Sharon Larry Bavly stated that there was no cause for arresting the women, WOW Director of Public Relations Shira Pruce reported.

In a groundbreaking decision, the judge declared that Women of the Wall are not disturbing the public order with their prayers. She said that the disturbance is created by those publicly opposing the women’s prayer, and Women of the Wall should not be blamed for the behavior of others. The women were released immediately, with no conditions.

MKs Tamara Zandberg and Michal Rozin of the left wing Meretz party accompanied the women, to bear witness. Rozin said, “I think this place should be equal for everybody, every Jew, women and men.” Zandberg stated, “We are here to show our identification and solidarity with Women of the Wall. They have been praying here for years now… and we will continue to come here every month, until this place is free.”

“The judge said today what we have been saying for many years: women’s prayer, with talit and even with Torah, is not a disturbance,” said WOW director Lesley Sachs. She added, “We hope that the police will think twice before arresting women mid-prayer at the Western Wall again.”