c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Judith Plaskow is professor of religious studies at Manhattan College and a Jewish feminist theologian.)

UNDATED _ New Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has put together his coalition amid eager speculation about the kinds of peace initiatives his government will undertake.

However, one ongoing issue _ a women’s issue _ probably won’t be resolved any time soon.

Women of the Wall has been waiting 10 years to be granted the right to pray aloud as a group at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. With two Orthodox political parties dividing control of the Ministry of Religion in the new government, the women are likely to continue waiting for the foreseeable future.

Women of the Wall formed as a group in 1988, when 25 women present in Israel for an international women’s conference went together to the remnant of the retaining wall of the Temple in Jerusalem to pray and read from the Torah.

While there are always women at this holy spot, they usually pray alone, quietly, as near to the Wall as possible. Or, since women by themselves cannot constitute a quorum for prayer, they stand along the partition that separates them from the men’s section, in order to catch the services going on on the men’s side.

The presence of a group of women, praying together as a congregation, especially with a Torah scroll, was unprecedented, and it precipitated a physical attack by ultra-Orthodox women and men. The attacks were repeated on other occasions as feminists continued to gather.

In 1989, Women at the Wall petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to use the power of the state to protect their right to pray at the Wall. Although the case has yet to be legally resolved, by coming together every month in celebration of Rosh Hodesh _ the new moon, a half-holiday long associated with women _ the group is creating”facts on the ground”that challenge both ultra-Orthodox control of the Wall as a particular holy site, and the more pervasive silencing of women in traditional Judaism.

I became acutely aware of the power of this challenge when I joined Women of the Wall for their June prayer service.

The group gathered, as always, at the rear of the plaza in front of the Wall, as far from the men’s section as possible. We began chanting the morning service without incident. As our voices rose with the singing of Hallel, the psalms of praise recited on Rosh Hodesh, however, a roar went up from a cluster of ultra-Orthodox men in the men’s section, and for the first time in many months, large pieces of wood came flying over the partition in our direction.

I have long been aware of the exclusion of women as authors, teachers, and interpreters in the Jewish and Christian traditions. What I received that morning in Jerusalem, however, was a physical demonstration of both the perceived threat of a women’s voices and the active process of silencing them.

I saw male power not quietly ensconced behind the accepted forms of tradition, but deliberately asserting itself _ undisguised, even to the point of overt violence.

The experience clarified for me the stakes involved in women’s seeking religious autonomy, engagement, and knowledge. On the one side, for those who have religious power they believe to be divinely sanctioned, no compromise is possible with other religious perspectives. After all, the men who did not want to hear us pray could have moved to the far side of their part of the Wall plaza, as we had on ours. But, in fact, they drew closer to the partition. They pressed their ears against it. They were clearly waiting and desiring to be offended, in order to have the pleasure of girding themselves for battle against what they perceived as the forces of chaos.

Their passionate reaction revealed, however, on the other side, the incredible potency of women’s voices. In praying together as a group of women in public space, women at the wall dare to name themselves heirs to and participants in a living religious tradition. They assert their right to interpret Torah, to become part of a 2,500-year conversation through which Judaism is passed on through the generations.

The resistance they meet is a measure of the power of the assumptions they dislodge, and the new possibilities they open.

Ehud Barak’s decision to include religious parties in his coalition may ensure that Women of the Wall, and others who desire religious pluralism in Israel, continue to face an uphill battle. But it will not keep feminists from creating”facts on the ground”as they continue to raise their voices on behalf of a Judaism in which all Jews can participate fully.

DEA END PLASKOW