A Woman?s Place

Moreover, there is a sense in Israel that the ultra-Orthodox are somehow the most authentic of Jews and therefore the proper keepers of religious traditions. When I first moved to Israel 15 years ago, I immediately became active in Women of the Wall, a group of women who have been praying aloud at the Western Wall, where there are separate sections for men and women. On the men's side, there is loud singing, group prayer, and reading from the Torah scroll, while on the women's side there is only silent individual prayer. For raising our voices in prayer, we have been harassed and even physically attacked by ultra-Orthodox men and women alike. The fact that I, a tax-paying Israeli citizen, could not pray as I wished at a public religious space, seemed to me an unthinkable violation. But most of Israeli society, including both the modern religious and the secular, was not nearly so outraged.

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