Arrests at the Kotel Hamaaravi

[lethargic_man]

I got an email from the Israel Religious Action Center the other week (it's taken me a little while to get around to doing anything about it), trying to solicit further signatures to a petition I've already signed; it began:

Yesterday four women were detained at the Western Wall, each for wearing a tallit. The authorities say they were disturbing the public peace according to regulation 201 A4 of the Israeli legal code. The punishment for this crime is six months in prison. They also broke regulation 287A by performing a religious act that “offends the feelings of others.” The punishment for this crime is up to two years in prison.

This is obscene. The Western Wall should be open to all expressions of Judaism, not just the ultra-Orthodox as it is increasingly becoming. Please understand I'm not saying the Orthodox should be forced to confront sights that are unacceptable to them—for me, it would be acceptable as a solution to permanently open up the "Kotel Masorti" (by Robinson's Arch) as an egalitarian prayer area and leave the existing plaza to the Orthodox—but the current situation, in which women can be imprisoned for practising something which even the left hand edge of Orthodoxy (not to mention the likes of R. Moshe Feinstein) accepts as halachic—is unacceptable, and should not be permitted to continue. If you feel likewise, do please sign the petition.