c. 1997 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Anat Hoffman has a dangerous hobby _ praying at the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

Hoffman, a Jerusalem city councilwoman, is a member of Women of the Wall, a group of 110 Jewish women who gather on the first day of each month to pray at the remnant of the last supporting wall of the Temple Mount, site of the Second Temple that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

The practice, however, has met fierce resistance by some of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, who forbid women from publicly reading from the Torah and performing other rituals reserved for men.

When the women first started meeting, reading from the Torah and donning prayer shawls, they were hit by benches, chairs and punches that came flying from the ultra-Orthodox, who were offended by the digression from traditional practice.

Now, there is a move afoot to make the religious devotion of Hoffman and her colleagues a crime.

Under a bill that last month won initial approval in the the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, the Western Wall and surrounding plaza would be turned into an open-air Orthodox synagogue. Praying in a manner offensive to other worshipers _ for example, women reading from the Torah _ would incur a $3,000 fine or a prison term of up to six months.

All public gatherings at the Wall and the adjacent plaza _ the site of swearing-in ceremonies for Israeli paratroopers, huge festivals on major holidays and informal mixed-gender services of Reform and Conservative Jews _ would be subject to the approval of a rabbi appointed by the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.”We’d be like modern Marranos, able to look at the Wall but not able to get there,”said Hoffman, referring to Jews in the time of the Spanish Inquisition who were forced to practice their faith in secret.”This is a spotlight on how religious fundamentalism is creeping up and eating away at Israel’s democracy.” The proposed law comes as a result of Women of the Wall’s 8-year legal battle to pray as they please.

In 1994, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a panel of government bureaucrats to find a compromise that would allow the women to pray at the Western Wall during specified times. The panel dithered, and in March the court finally gave the government a 90-day deadline to offer a solution or explain its reasons for not doing so.

In response, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party filed the bill”to protect the holiness of the Western Wall.” While the legislator in charge of the committee analyzing the bill says he will do his best to squelch it, the fact that it is now pending may allow the government to further postpone its response.”They (the Orthodox) can’t take the Wall as their own property. It belongs to the whole Jewish people, not as a religious site but as a historical site,”said Anat Galili, spokeswoman for the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.

Indeed, as the last of the original supporting walls of the Temple Mount, the Western Wall has been a potent symbol for Jews worldwide. In 1967, when Israeli troops captured the area from the Jordanian army, even secular soldiers rushed to the Wall, weeping and praying.

The Wall issue is just one of the many controversies exposing the volatile religious fault line dividing Israeli society. Since last May, when the Orthodox parties won an unprecedented 23 Knesset seats _ nearly one-fifth of the parliament _ they have tried on several fronts to press their interpretations of halacha, or Jewish religious law, on a country where the majority of Jews are secular. For example,

_ The Knesset has given preliminary approval to a bill that would formalize the Orthodox monopoly on conversions to Judaism in the face of legal challenges from the country’s small Reform and Conservative movements.

_ Thousands of ultra-Orthodox have taken to the streets of Jerusalem repeatedly on the Sabbath in boisterous, often violent demonstrations against drivers who they feel desecrate the holy day.

_ The army has been forbidden to take Jewish soldiers on tours of mosques, churches, and Reform synagogues.

_ So-called”Sabbath police”_ squads of non-Jewish inspectors sent by the ultra-Orthodox Minister of Labor and Social Affairs _ fan out each weekend in Israeli cities and levy fines on businesses open illegally on the Sabbath.

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Another recent battlefield has been a mall in an upscale, secular suburb of Tel Aviv. The Orthodox owner of the development company has demanded the mall’s stores close on the Sabbath and its restaurants serve only kosher food. The local McDonald’s franchiser is portraying his desire to sell cheeseburgers almost as an expression of religious freedom.

Secular residents, led by Tel Aviv’s mayor, have threatened to boycott the mall and even to organize motorcades on the Sabbath through a nearby ultra-Orthodox suburb. Orthodox groups, in return, have threatened to boycott businesses run by the development company’s minority shareholders, who want to keep the mall open on the Sabbath.

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Even on an issue where both sides are religiously observant, such as the Western Wall bill, the differences are broad. The conflicts stem from two fundamentally different visions of what Israel should be: a pluralistic democracy open to various religious expressions or a religious state committed to one interpretation of Judaism.”We believe in a halachic state, and we hope we can achieve it,”said Deputy Health Minister Shlomo Ben-Izri, a Shas member.”So far we have only 23 Knesset members. But we will do it, slowly but surely.” Ben-Izri says the Wall bill will merely codify existing informal rules, though he admits it was filed primarily to freeze out the women’s group. Allowing women to read from the Torah publicly and sing loudly in the name of democracy is as inappropriate as riding a horse through a soccer match as an expression of his freedom, Ben-Izri said.”The manner in which they want to pray and their provocations, it bothers people who are sensitive,”he said.”In Judaism there’s only one way. Everyone who tried to change it, in the end they’re the losers. In the end, (the non-Orthodox Jews) do more damage to Judaism than the (Gentiles).” Unless a law is passed giving the entire area synagogue status, Ben-Izri said,”maybe Arabs will come to pray … and Christians will come to the Wall to say Mass.” Others say either of those are unlikely but if the law passes it will mean one group of Jews will have cemented its control over the most sensitive spot in all of Judaism.”The Wall is a historical place Jews have been aiming their wishes and prayers toward all throughout the ages,”said Galili of the Israel Religious Action Center.”It was something that united Jews all throughout the world because it symbolized the center of the Jewish people. By passing this legislation, they’re cutting off the majority of people who aimed at this place.”

MJP END ARNOLD