JERUSALEM — A crowd of Orthodox men disrupted a Conservative prayer service on Tisha b’Av, a Jewish day of mourning, at the Western Wall — shouting down worshippers, attempting to block the entrance and setting up a makeshift divider meant to separate between men and women.
Jewish men pray at the Western Wall on the eve of Tisha b’Av, July 17, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The disturbance happened on July 17 at the non-Orthodox section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, where the Jewish Holy Temples once stood.
The Western Wall’s main plaza allows Orthodox prayer, which is gender-segregated.
Non-Orthodox groups gather to the south of the main plaza, at a section of the wall where people of all genders are allowed to pray together.
When a group of Conservative Jewish worshippers came to the non-Orthodox section on Saturday night, July 17, they were met by a crowd of Orthodox men who attempted to occupy the site, block the entrance and prevent the Conservative service.
The Orthodox men set up a mechitzah, meant to divide between men and women, and shouted and sang as the worshippers read Eicha, or Lamentations, chanted on Tisha b’Av to mourn the destruction of the two Holy Temples.
Non-Orthodox condemnation
Israeli non-Orthodox leaders drew a link between the incident and the string of Jewish tragedies commemorated on Tisha b’Av, including the destruction of the two Temples.
Rakefet Ginsberg, executive director of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement in Israel, wrote on Facebook that the incident drives home the danger of “baseless hatred” between Jews, an idea Jewish sages have historically associated with the Temples’ destruction.
Conservative leaders in the US condemned the disruption.
Gilad Kariv, the first Reform rabbi elected to Israel’s parliament, wrote on Facebook:
“If there’s one lesson to Tisha b’Av, it’s that the fire of extremism and hate won’t stop here and will continue to threaten more and more parts of Israeli society.”
Kariv called on the government to implement an agreement approved in 2016 that would have expanded the egalitarian section and formalized its status in Israeli law.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrapped the agreement in 2017. Current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has signaled that he is open to implementing it.
Orthodox condemnation
The Rabbinical Council of America, the leading membership organization of Orthodox rabbis in North America, said that expressions of disagreement, especially in matters of religious principle, should be voiced with respect and dignity, and regreted the uncivil disruption by Orthodox Jews on Tisha b’Av at the Western Wall.
Rabbi Binyamin Blau, president of the RCA, said:
“If our prayers of restoring the fabric of Jewish society are to be realized, we must fulfill the vision of the prophet Zechariah who foresaw that the fast and destruction of Tisha b’Av will be transformed into ‘joy and gladness and cheerful feasts’ only when we conduct ourselves with the principles of both truth and peace.”
Rabbi Zvi Engel, vice president, said: “On Tisha b’Av we mourn the loss of the Temples and we must recommit ourselves to reestablishing the holiness of the place where they once stood. Holiness can only be manifest when rooted in the principles of respect, dignity, and peace.”
