An Inspiration to All Who Struggle for
Religious and Gender Equality
“Our souls yearn to pray, in peace,
in the sacred place, to read from our holy Torah, together with
other Jewish women.”
—from the Introduction
In Israel today, the historic Western
Wall, known as the Kotel, a holy site for Jewish people, is
under the religious authority of the Orthodox rabbinate. Women
have only limited rights to practice Jewish ritual in its
precincts.
This passionate book documents the
legendary grassroots and legal struggle of a determined group
of Jewish women from Israel, the United States, and other parts
of the world—known as the Women of the Wall—to win
the right to pray out loud together as a group, according to
Jewish law; wear ritual objects; and read from Torah scrolls at
the Western Wall.
Eyewitness accounts of physical violence
and intimidation, inspiring personal stories, and
interpretations of legal and classical Jewish (halakhic) texts
bring to life the historic and ongoing struggle that the Women
of the Wall face in their everyday fight for religious and
gender equality.
“Years from now, when women’s
prayer service at the Kotel will have become an
‘ordinary’ privilege, this volume will help us
remember how much faith, determination, wisdom, perseverance,
passion, political savvy, and spiritual energy a small band of
pluralist women invested to make it happen.”
—Blu
Greenberg, founding president of
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
“A riveting set of personal
testimonies. The reader is inspired by the women’s
single-minded pursuit of their goal and at the same time
infuriated by their opponents’ machinations.”
—Judith
Hauptman, the E. Billi Ivry
Professor of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture
at The Jewish
Theological Seminary
“A remarkable, rich, comprehensive,
and well-documented account of many of the major issues on the
Jewish and Israeli agenda.”
—Rabbi
Uri Regev, executive director,
World Union for Progressive Judaism
“A very significant contribution to
the growing literature of religious feminism. A must reading
for all those engaged in struggles for the change and
transformation of their religious heritage. I highly recommend
it.”
—Dr.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Krister
Stendahl Professor,
Harvard University Divinity School
Phyllis Chesler, a founder and board member of the International
Committee for Women of the Wall, has been fighting for Jewish
women’s religious and human rights for more than thirty
years. She is a psychologist and the author of eleven books,
including Women and Madness and Woman’s
Inhumanity to Woman. She
cofounded the Association for Women in Psychology and the
National Women’s Health Network.
Rivka Haut is
also a founder of the International Committee for Women of the
Wall, and a codirector. She is the coeditor of Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. She is the director of the Jewish Orthodox
Feminist Alliance’s Agunah Advocacy Project.
