Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev (Labor) made a commitment on Monday to deal with the violence against the Women of the Wall from now on.
Answering a question from The Jerusalem Post at a meeting of the Labor faction at the Knesset, Bar Lev said that regardless of what the policies of his predecessors were, he would take action to ensure the police would protect the Women of the Wall (WoW) when they pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“From now on, I’ll deal with it,” he said.
Bar Lev became Internal Security Minister on June 13, two days after the last WoW prayer service on June 11 that was marred by protesters who were violent to them.
In a meeting with MKs at the Knesset earlier Monday organized by Labor MK and Reform rabbi Gilad Kariv, Anat Hoffman, WoW chairwoman, presented her coffee-stained prayer shawl and ripped prayer books vandalized by haredi (ultra-Orthodox) protesters.
The Women of the Wall hold a prayer service in the women's section of the Western Wall on the first day of every Hebrew month. The group has faced insults and violence from members of the ultra-Orthodox community.
On the first day of Adar, Hoffman said some boys threw cups of hot coffee at her. On the first day of Tammuz, a group of ultra-Orthodox men snatched a suitcase of prayer books, threw them on the ground and ripped them.
"This was a lack of understanding of how to behave in a religious place," Hoffman said. "Any other religious group wouldn't get away with this."
The police were nowhere to be found, according to those who attended these prayer services. They claimed that the police were under pressure from the ultra-Orthodox to back away from the tensions.
"The police are absolving themselves of their responsibility," Orly Erez-Likhovski, director of the Israel Religious Action Center said. She also accused Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, of supporting the violence.
But the police will get involved moving forward, according to Bar Lev. He promised that the police will ensure that the Women can pray as they wish at their next service, which will take place on the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul (August 9). The first day of the upcoming month of Av is on the Sabbath, so there will be no service.
Police protection comes in accordance with the Supreme Court of Israel’s 2013 ruling that the Women can pray according to their customs at the Western Wall.
As such, Blue and White MK Alon Tal wanted the perpetrators of the violence to be held accountable.
"I grew up in North Carolina," he said. "Even though the Jewish community was small in size, we were always confident that the government would protect our right to pray according to our conscience. If local hoodlums would’ve ever tried to violently interfere with our religious life, as we saw at the Western Wall last week, they would’ve ended up in jail."
Much of the meeting consisted of statements in support of the Women of the Wall, but few proposals for permanent solutions. That's partly because the group recognized that it would take time for the government to come to a formal solution.
“It will take time, but we will be vigilant,” Meretz MK Michal Rozin said. “That’s why we have agreed to such a government to try to steer the ship in a different direction, especially in the areas of racism and bigotry."
Kariv reaffirmed his and the Knesset’s total support for the Women of the Wall. "All of the Women of the Wall are heard in this [body]," he said.
Kariv stressed that six of the eight factions in the Knesset fully support egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall. Minister of Religious Services Matan Kahana (Yamina) promised that the Western Wall arrangement will be enacted in the new government.
The agreement calls for an egalitarian prayer section at the southern end of the Western Wall out of Rabbi Rabinowitz’s control. However, he said that Yamina and New Hope need to be more supportive.
"In the coming weeks, we will be required to conduct an internal government initiative around the renewal of the Western Wall agreement,” Kariv said. “The government will have to come to terms with Yamina and with New Hope.”
Kariv noted that Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze’ev Elkin (New Hope) voted against the formation of an egalitarian prayer space in January 2016.
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.