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Prepping for Shabbat at the Kotel with the perfect song
If we were in New York, we’d be getting ready to head into work. Instead, we’re preparing for Shabbat services at the Kotel. Akiva Gottlieb, whose earliest dreams of a transcendent Kabbalat Shabbat at...
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In the Wake of Anat Hoffman's Arrest at the Western Wall, a Global Response
This past spring, when a group of people spontaneously broke out in a synchronized dance number on the promenade near my street in Brooklyn, my 84-year-old landlord called me up to ask me what was...
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Hundreds of Million Dollar Checks Found at the Kotel
Some worshipers leave prayers and notes in the tiny cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Others, apparently, leave million dollar checks. According to the Israel News Network, a good citizen turned...
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Daybreak
• In what’s being viewed in some circles as pre-election political maneuvering, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly asked the Jewish Agency to look into finding a way for...
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The Fight Over Women of the Wall Is a Battle With Ancient Roots
For the Women of the Wall, a group that has gathered each month for the past 23 years to pray at the Western Wall, things have never been easy: They’ve been heckled, arrested for “hurting the feelings...
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Natan Sharansky Defends Women's Prayer at Kotel
Following an uproar about Jerusalem police commissioner’s threat to arrest women who recite Kaddish at the Western Wall earlier today, Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky has weighed in. Sharansky, who...
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An Egalitarian Section at the Western Wall?
After months of increasingly newsworthy happenings, the thorny issue of gender equality and prayer at the Western Wall has reached a new plateau. Just days after Jerusalem’s police commissioner warned...
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Court Ruling Makes Natan Sharansky's Western Wall Plan Moot
As we noted last week, a Jerusalem district court decision, which ruled that the five female worshippers arrested during a Rosh Hodesh service at the Western Wall earlier this month should not have...
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'Women of the Wall' Ruling in Limbo
Last week, a Jerusalem district court ruling seemingly granted the Women of the Wall and others equal protection for prayer at the Western Wall by deciding that the arrests of female worshipers last...
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The Tables Turn at the Western Wall
As we noted in Daybreak (and Sundown yesterday), this month’s Rosh Hodesh service at the Western Wall was slated to be something of a turning point in the struggle between the religious groups that...
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Joshua Prager Finds the Man Who Broke His Neck
Joshua Prager is a reporter best known for tracking down elusive characters whose lives were altered in an instant—people like Tehran-based photographer Jahangir Razmi, the only anonymous winner of a...
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An American Jew on Why She’s Going To Pray at the Wall
My brother smiles shyly in the photo. He glances downward, just to the right of a velvet-wrapped Torah on a table. It is a moment of benediction. The rabbi’s hand rests on my father’s forearm. My...
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The View From the Western Wall's New Egalitarian Plaza
The opening of a new egalitarian plaza next to the Kotel has created the possibility of compromise over how to accommodate all forms of prayer at the Western Wall. Although the plaza is only temporary,...
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For Transgender Jews, a Visit to the Western Wall Holds Unique Symbolism
Transgender activist Surat Knan, who is currently transitioning from a female to male identity, visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall last November to pray on the men’s side. “I was very nervous, but...
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Outsourcing Our Jewish Obligations: Hiring Others to Live the Jewish Lives We...
By now, you’ve probably heard about the Brooklyn-based Hasidic group—or maybe it’s just one hateful, nutty dude—that, eager to shield yeshiva bochers from the abominations on display throughout...
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Why Israel's Decision to Create an Egalitarian Prayer Space at the Kotel Is...
Newspapers in Israel and around the world have been hailing the deal between the Israeli government, the Reform and Conservative movements, and the The Women of Robinson’s Arch (formerly Women of the...
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Women of the Wall Leader Lesley Sachs Is Detained For Taking Torah Scroll...
Lesley Sachs, the director of the Women of the Wall, was detained for questioning on Tuesday after she was caught with a Torah scroll inside the prayer plaza at the Western Wall, “in defiance of...
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Natan Sharansky on the Kotel Compromise
Every few years, a controversy erupts in Israel that strikes at the heart of what it means to be a Jew. These debates, between the Israeli Orthodox establishment on one side and those seeking greater...
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Amid a Larger Fracas, Protesters Scream 'Nazi' at Women of the Wall as They...
It was billed as an “unprecedented act of civil disobedience” in protest of the Israeli government’s failure to implement its own decision to build an egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall. On...
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How to Finally Get Egalitarian Prayer at the Western Wall
It hasn’t been an easy month for American Jews, more than two-thirds of whom voted for Hillary Clinton and many of whom are terrified by the election of Donald Trump. To the already growing list of...
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