Ambitions of Women: Praying in Jerusalem, Driving in Riyadh, Clubbing in Tehran?………
“Once a month a group of Jewish women risk arrest and brave a crowd of angry ultra-Orthodox men calling them Nazis, to pray at the Western Wall. In this Israeli-occupied Palestinian Holy City, where the focus of differing opinions is more often on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these religious Jews say they face discrimination just because of their gender. Their adversaries, including the rabbi of the Wall, say the women have no business wearing such religious garments as yarmulkes and prayer shawls, or carrying the Torah, the Jewish holy book. Such things, the ultra-Orthodox Jews say, are reserved for men. Worse yet, the women have also come under fire for singing, with some rabbis complaining this could provoke feelings of lust among the men praying on the other side of the partition. On a recent Friday, about 200 members of the Women at the Wall (WoW) showed up to pray at the main Jewish pilgrimage site despite pouring rain and insults hurled from across the partition that separates the men's section from the far smaller one reserved for women. Men sporting the black coats and wheel-shaped fur hats that identify ultra-Orthodox Jews yelled out at the women, calling them "Nazis," and telling them to "go to church". The scene is similar just about every first day of the month on the Jewish lunar calendar. It is then that the WoW women pray at the Wall -- also known as the Wailing Wall or by its Hebrew name Kotel. In November, WoW member Nofrat Frankel, a Conservative Jew, was briefly detained by police for wearing a talit -- prayer shawl -- and carrying a Torah. The offence can carry a maximum sentence of six months jail and a fine of about 3,000 dollars. Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich called the women's behaviour "an unbearable provocation". WoW leader Anat Hoffman, meanwhile, insists the Jewish holy books do not support the kind of discrimination she says women are subjected to. "There is nothing in Judaism about this. This is fundamentalism; it is a desecration of this place,"………”
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