Women of the Wall (Hebrew: נשות הכותל, Neshot HaKotel) is a multi-denominational Jewish feminist organization based in Israel whose goal is to secure the rights of women to pray at the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, in a fashion that includes singing, reading aloud from the Torah and wearing religious garments (tallit, tefillin and kippah). Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high" restrictions on religion, and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. One of those restrictions is that the Rabbi of the Western Wall has enforced gender segregation and limitations on religious garb worn by women. When the "Women of the Wall" hold monthly prayer services for women on Rosh Hodesh, they observe gender segregation so that Orthodox members may fully participate. But their use of religious garb, singing and reading from a Torah have upset many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, sparking protests and arrests. In May 2013 a judge ruled that a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling prohibiting women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls had been misinterpreted and that Women of the Wall prayer gatherings at the wall should not be deemed illegal.
In January 2016, the Israeli Cabinet approved a plan to designate a new space at the Kotel that would be available for egalitarian prayer and which would not be controlled by the Rabbinate. Women of the Wall welcomed the decision, but the plan faced opposition from other factions, including some ultra-Orthodox members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, who threatened to withdraw over the government's plan to create non-Orthodox prayer space at the Western Wall in deference to the Women of the Wall.
In January 2017, the Israeli High Court ruled that if the government of Israel could not find "good cause" to prohibit women reading from the Torah in prayer services at the Kotel within 30 days, women could do so; they also ruled that the Israeli government could no longer argue that the Robinson's Arch area of the plaza is access to the Kotel. The petition for women to read from the Torah at the Kotel had been brought by a group that split off from the Women of the Wall, calling itself the "Original Women of the Wall".
In June 2017, it was announced that the plan approved in January 2016 had been suspended.
According to Ronit Kampf, the group's struggle has been "the most covered women's issue in the history of the Israeli media."
Summary
From the start, Women of the Wall included Orthodox members and opted to claim their service was run according to "Orthodox standards". This was despite the fact that according to orthodox standards, women do not wear tzitzit, tefillin, or read from the Torah. Most Orthodox individuals were offended, including some who call themselves Orthodox feminists. Women of the Wall is a multi-denominational group, including Reform, Conservative and modern- orthodox members.
Since 1988, the group has faced a legal battle for recognition of their right to pray at the Western Wall. Their presence is deemed offensive by Orthodox worshippers at the site and there have been numerous court proceedings to settle the issue. On the Fast of Esther 1989, Orthodox men, outraged by the women's singing, hurled chairs and verbal insults at the women, which resulted in the deployment of tear gas to quell the violence. In 2010, police arrested two Haredi men at the Western Wall Plaza on suspicion that they threw chairs at a Women of the Wall group that was praying aloud at the site. In 2009, the first woman was arrested for praying with a tallit. The struggle by the Women of the Wall is seen by the Israeli Orthodox religious establishment as an attempt to undermine their influence in an effort to introduce religious pluralism.
Opposition from the Orthodox stems from Halachic concerns; this manifests publicly as a general disdain for non-traditional ritual in an area they claim serves as an Orthodox synagogue. Orthodoxy does not permit women to constitute a minyan (prayer quorum) and while the women have not considered themselves as doing so, this has not calmed Orthodox sensibilities. Initially, the group did not receive support from Israel's primarily Orthodox religious authorities. Supporters highlighted the fact that only in Israel are Jewish women prohibited from praying according to their custom in a public location and a 2003 High Court ruling which prevented them from conducting prayer services at the wall was overturned in 2013.