“This is our wall”, “You are not real Jews” : dozens of men in black with curls and large hats scream and curse the women. Like one Friday a month, a group of women say “reformed” wanted to pray at the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, in Israel, the same way as men. But a famous ultra-Orthodox MP and former right-wing prime minister Netanyahu have called for blocking these women. At daybreak, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews came to scold the women.
Yokhi Rapoport is the director of the “Women of the Wall” movement. She and her friends want to pray like men: “We have been praying at the Wall every month for 33 years and we ask that women be able to pray freely with the prayer shawl, the leather straps around the arms and the Torah scrolls but we cannot bring them in the section reserved for women. women…”
“Men have 200 Torah here at the Wall, that’s absurd! So we are fighting, we are fighting for equality …”
Yokhi Rapoportto franceinfo
Live on all major Israeli media, an impressive police cordon tries to contain the angry crowd.
A few insults, throwing bottles and goblets and above all great confusion, but for Ephraim, an ultra-Orthodox in a full coat, the fault lies with the women: “I don’t see violence but people screaming from the bottom of their hearts, he assures. It hurts them, which some people want to do here … “
“These provocateurs come here and try to wreak havoc instead of letting people pray in peace … It should be an Orthodox place to pray …”
“Orthodoxy, continues Ephraim, this is Jewish life as it has been since we received the Bible on Mount Sinai: they have been trying to change the way our people have been praying for 5,000 years and it is absolutely bad … “ The security forces charge regularly, these two agents catch their breath. The women of the wall could not hold up their Torah scrolls: “It would have been uncontrollable”, confides a policeman. They will be back in a month.
Israel: women driven from the Western Wall – Report by Frédéric Métézeau
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