Egalitarian Prayer Group Assailed by Orthodox at Wall

Jews praying in an egalitarian minyan at the Western Wall in the early hours of Shavuot morning were verbally and physically attacked by fervently Orthodox men and boys, according to participants in the prayer group.

The group of about 50 men and women, some of whom were from the Conservative and Reform movement’s rabbinical seminaries in Jerusalem, had studied throughout the night, as is customary on Shavuot.

Before dawn last Friday, they, along with thousands of other Jews, walked from other parts of Jerusalem to the Wall. The pilgrimage is traditional on Shavuot, one of three holidays on which the Jews used to visit the Temple.

Members of the egalitarian minyan began praying shortly after 5 a.m. in the rear right-hand corner of the plaza that fronts the wall, near the flagpoles that stand at the back.

“A few guys in tallitot (prayer shawls) stood in the front so that others could not see the women in our minyan in tallitot and kipot and to prevent any possible problems,” David Lerner, a Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical student who spent this year in Jerusalem, wrote in an account he sent by electronic mail.

He has participated in many egalitarian prayer groups near the Wall in recent years, he said, and even on Yom Kippur, the worst thing that has occurred has been heckling.

As they finished the morning prayer on Shavuot, the minyan swelled to about 125 people, and as they continued by reading the Book of Ruth, most of the minyan sat down.

“Then others could see into our circle and that’s when the trouble began,” Lerner said.

A group of fervently Orthodox boys came up to them and began making noises, said Lerner, who engaged some of them in a discussion about the halachic sources he views as justifying women being counted in a prayer quorum.

Haredi men soon walked up and began to curse and shout at members of the egalitarian minyan, said Lerner, booing and yelling and calling members of the mixed group sinners.

“The haredim formed a wall and began pushing against us. I was pushed/punched back several times. One haredi even tried to infiltrate our circle to steal our Sefer Torah?” he said.

Lerner appealed to the border police who guard the entrance to the Wall. The police officers said it was not their jurisdiction. Lerner then went to the police station nearby, which sent out a junior officer, who called for backup.

“We continued the Torah reading under guard and continued shouts. It was pretty rough,” Lerner said.

Then Lerner saw the haredim charging the police.

“A wall of police and soldiers formed around us and we felt more protected, but the object of even more hate,” he said.

An Orthodox woman who had been part of a prayer group next to the egalitarian minyan approached the haredi men to ask them to be quiet, because they were disturbing other prayers besides those of the mixed group.

“The haredim spit all over this woman. They just spit on her,” Lerner said.

And as Lerner read the Haftarah in the egalitarian minyan, he was it by a rock thrown by one of the haredi men.

“The police were having trouble holding back the haredim and just wanted to get us out of there safely” so the minyan quickly concluded its prayers, he said.

“Many people in the group were understandably angry. I was not. I just felt sad for the Jewish people – we are so far away from redemption, unity and peace,” Lerner said.

A spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, an organization representing the interests of the fervently Orthodox community, had no comment on the matter.

Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, said of the incident, “The Wall, like the Land of Israel, belongs to all Jews, not just to one sect within Judaism.

“It is obvious to anyone of goodwill that the diversity of modern Judaism