Israeli police arrests Jewish women for praying

In many countries, there is inequality of, and violence against, women.

Discrimination of women in the “new” Libya: here.

In Israel, there is inequality, eg, in public transport; and violence by unofficial gangs of ultra-religious fanatics.

Today, it turns out that taxpayers in Israel pay money for police to arrest peaceful women.

This video from Israel says about itself:

Women Of the Wall: Anat Hoffman arrest July 2010

This is a clip of Women Of the Wall’s Rosh Hodesh service in which WOW chairwoman Anat Hoffman is arrested. Women Of the Wall’s central mission is to achieve the social and legal recognition of our right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall. Currently in the state of Israel this is illegal.

From the site of Women of the Wall in Israel:

A Record 4 Members of Women of the Wall Arrested

August 19, 2012 / by molly

On August 19, 2012, police arrested and detained four participants of Women of the Wall during the monthly service at the Western Wall (Kotel). The women are being accused of two offenses, “behavior that endangers the public peace” and “wearing a prayer shawl (Tallit).” The women will be forbidden from entering the Western Wall for 50 days.

On the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr and the Jewish new month of Elul while Jerusalem’s Old City and its holy sites were busy and chaotic, Israeli Police chose to become “fashion police”, by arresting four women who wore tradition Jewish prayer shawls (white with black or blue stripes, commonly and traditionally associated as male). The Women of the Wall were arrested mid-prayer and stood amongst dozens of women who wore colorful prayer shawls and were left alone by police.

This morning’s arrests serve as an escalation and continuation of the wave of women’s exclusion with in the public sphere, a struggle which started at the Western Wall and has spread all over Israel. Anat Hoffman, Women of the Wall Chairwoman said, “The time has come to reclaim and liberate the Kotel from the grasp of a handful of Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) extremists who, with the cooperation of the Israeli authorities, exclude the majority of Israelis and Jews from the Western Wall.”

From daily Haaretz in Israel, about one of many earlier arrests:

Police arrest woman for wearing prayer shawl at Western Wall

Police: Woman arrested for violating High Court ruling obligating visitors to abide by dress code.

By Nir Hasson and Liel Kyzer

Nov.18, 2009 | 10:26 AM

Police on Wednesday arrested a woman who was praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, due to the fact that she was wrapped in a prayer shawl (tallit).

The woman was visiting the site with the religious women’s group “Women of the Wall” to take part in the monthly Rosh Hodesh prayer.

Police were called to the area after the group asked to read aloud from a Torah scroll.

Police said they arrested the women in the wake of a High Court ruling, which states that the public visiting the Western Wall is obligated to dress in accordance with the site’s dress code.

…

Chairman of the women’s group, Anat Hoffman, said that this is the first time in the history of Israel that a woman has been arrested because she wrapped herself in a tallit and read from the Torah.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, associate director of Israel’s reform movement, said that all over the world women are entitled to wear the tallit, and only in the land of the Jews are they excluded from the social custom and even arrested for praying.

“Israeli police should be ashamed of themselves,” Kariv said.

Last week Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Shas party’s spiritual leader, said during his weekly sermon that the women in the feminist movement are “stupid” and act the way they do out of a selfish desire for equality, not “for heavens’ sake.”

Rabbi Ovadia also said about the groups’ custom to pray at the Western Wall that “there are stupid women who come to the Western Wall, put on a tallit (prayer shawl), and pray,” and added that they should be condemned.

Jerusalem police arrested the leader of a Jewish women’s group fighting for the right to read from the Torah at the Western Wall on Tuesday evening, with members of the Women of the Wall group claiming that she was detained for singing at the holy site: here.

Israeli Vice PM Ya’alon: Settler attacks against Arabs in West Bank, Jerusalem are ‘terrorist acts’: here.