Equal rights for women at the Western Wall (Women of the Wall)

Dear Ambassador Miriam Ziv
(Israeli Ambassador in Canada)

We, as Jewish women of Canada and others who support pluralism within the practice of Judaism in Israel, are shocked and appalled that Anat Hoffman, a founding member of the Women of the Wall, past member of the Jerusalem City Council and participant in many efforts to improve civil and consumers' rights in Israel, was detained by the Jerusalem police, interrogated, fingerprinted, and threatened with prosecution for felony for her leadership role in the Women of the Wall on 5 January 2010.

This comes so close on the heels of the equally shocking and appalling arrest of Nofrat Frankel on the 18th of November 2009 for publicly wearing a tallit (prayer shawl). It is a disgrace that the only place in the world where such an action could be taken without the denunciation and intervention of the State of Israel is Israel itself.

This is not just a religious debate around Halachah (Jewish Law). At stake is Israel's very character as a democratic state that should respect human rights, including freedom of expression and worship, and reject discrimination on the basis of gender, as is declared in the founding Declaration of Independence.

In these cases the State and the Municipality of Jerusalem have proceeded down a very ominous, regrettable path. If this escalation of action against Women of the Wall is allowed to proceed, it will do terrible damage to the foundation of Israeli democracy and to its reputation abroad.

The Women of the Wall are an independent group of religious women from all
walks of Jewish life who seek the opportunity for women to take part in group prayer at the Western Wall, with tallit and sefer torah. These goals do not constitute a felony. It marks a capitulation to religious fundamentalism, intimidation, and coercion when the law of the Jewish State actually criminalizes Jews praying in prayer garments and reading from the Torah and does nothing about those that physically and verbally abuse the Women of the Wall as they peacefully pray.

We respectfully ask you to convey to the Government of Israel our strongest protest against these actions as well as our profound disappointment that such a policy could be tolerated. We expect that a remedy will be forthcoming immediately so that this sacred site will be a place of mutual respect for the plurality of Jewish prayer customs, from which intolerance, fanaticism, misogyny and coercion, not women at prayer, will be banished.