The Women of the Wall activist group announced on Thursday that the Jerusalem District Police had instructed the group earlier this month that women would no longer be allowed to recite the Kaddish mourner’s prayer at the Western Wall.
The announcement led to significant political opposition to the move however, and following consultations between MK Aliza Lavie, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, Rabbi of the Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Jerusalem police and the Women of the Wall on Thursday, it was agreed that the prohibition on women saying Kaddish would not be enforced.
A spokesman for the Jerusalem District Police could not confirm the agreement, telling The Jerusalem Post that the matter was in the hands of Rabinowitz and that if he had agreed to a compromise deal with the concerned parties, the agreement would be conveyed to the Ministry of Justice and subsequently back to the police.
Rabbi Rabinowitz confirmed to the Post that an agreement had indeed been reached, according to which women will not be arrested for saying Kaddish at the Western Wall plaza.
The law forbids performing religious ceremonies “not according to local custom” or which “may hurt the feelings of the worshipers” at holy sites, including the Western Wall, which is interpreted by the police as meaning anything deviating from Orthodox practice.
Until now however, restrictions on specific prayers had not been enforced although they were specified in a directive issued by the Ministry of Justice in 2005, expounding on a Supreme Court ruling of 2003.
Asked why the decision was made at this time to implement the regulations on the Kaddish and Kedusha prayers, Rabinowitz said that the police directive had been intended to clearly set out what is and is not permitted, so that anyone arrested would not be able to claim they were not aware of the law. He added however that since the police cannot know what prayers are being said it was not a regulation that was realistically enforceable and had been ignored until now.
As Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel, a position appointed by the Prime Minister's Office, Rabinowitz is authorized to determine what the customs of the holy sites entail.
The police originally transmitted the updated restrictions in a letter to WoW Chairwoman Anat Hoffman dated March 14, to inform the group of the new measures ahead of its monthly prayer service at the Western Wall celebrating the new Jewish month which will take place on April 11.
Kaddish is an important part of Jewish prayer services, recited by someone who has been bereaved of a close family member in the year following that person’s death and on the annual anniversary of that date and in the presence of a quorum, ten Jewish men in Orthodox Judaism.
Non-Orthodox Jewish streams include women in a quorum, or minyan in Hebrew.
After the ban was rescinded late on Thursday, Hofman paid tribute to public pressure and that of “Jewish organization that led Rabinowitz to back down.”
“I salute the public pressure and I invite the Israeli public to sing the Hatikva at the Western Wall with WoW at this month’s prayer service,” she said.
“From here on, we will sing Hatikva at the end of every prayer service because it is time to liberate the Kotel.”
The restrictions on the Kaddish and Kedusha prayers were originally detailed in a letter from the Ministry of Justice to the Jerusalem police force in September 2005, stating that customs of the group including wearing prayer shawls, tallitot in Hebrew, and saying the Kaddish and kedusha prayers in a quorum of ten women were prohibited in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling of 2003 on the matter.
Although the restrictions on wearing tallitot have been enforced, especially in recent months, WoW Chairwoman Anat Hoffman says that the ban on reciting the Kaddish and Kedusha prayers was never implemented until now.
The police directive sent to WoW last month followed a letter sent by the Attorney-General’s Office to the police on March 11, noting that the restrictions from 2005 were still applicable.
WoW’s monthly prayer service at the Western Wall has become a flashpoint over the past 18 months, with women regularly detained at the site for wearing “male-style” tallitot.
WoW has been conducting an intensive campaign of late to bring attention to what the organization describes as “an unjust law.”
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, who has been designated by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to form a compromise on the matter, issued a statement to the press on Thursday “expressing his shock” at the recent directive from the police banning women from saying Kaddish.
According to the statement, Sharansky met with Rabinowitz on Thursday, who assured him that “contrary to the letter, no woman would be arrested for reciting Kaddish at the Western Wall.”
MK Aliza Lavie of Yesh Atid was also involved in reaching an agreement with Rabinowitz that the ban on women saying the prayers would not be enforced and that no-one will be arrested for doing so.
“This is a specific solution for a complex problem which needs to be resolved as soon as possible,” said Lavie, adding that she has been working on the issue since being elected to the Knesset in the January elections.
She emphasized that a solution can only be reached with mutual understanding and dialogue” and said that the Western Wall must not turn into a permanent source of conflict.
Hoffman blamed Rabinowitz for the prohibition on women saying Kaddish, saying it was “brought on solely by the hegemony and short-sightedness of Rabbi Rabinowitz.”
Rabinowitz was mentioned by the Ministry of Justice in its original letter of 2005 to the Jerusalem Police as having spoken directly with the ministry on the issue of the Kaddish and Kedusha prayers.
MK Meir Porush of the haredi United Torah Judaism party was also mentioned as having spoken with the Ministry of Justice on the matter at the time.
Rabinowitz called on all parties not to radicalize the Western Wall, saying that the site was holy and that all forms of protest should be conducted away from the site.
“The destruction of the Second Temple was caused by baseless hatred, we must not let similar destruction happen again,” the rabbi said.
“We have to guard the Western Wall from becoming a place of argument between extremist factions.”