Woman at the Western Wall
May 19, 2010
Wrapping a colorful shawl around her shoulders, Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, stood behind a Harris School podium and explained how the garment caused Israeli police to interrogate and fingerprint her more than year ago.
Hoffman heads the Women of the Wall, a group that since 1989 has been advocating for women to have the right to perform specific religious acts at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Traditionally reserved for men in Orthodox Judaism, such traditions include praying out loud, reading from the Torah, and wearing a prayer shawl called a Tallis. Under current Israeli law, women who violate these customs at the holy site are offensive to Orthodox worshipers and punishable by a fine of $2,500 or six months in prison.
In protest, Hoffman wears her garment to the Western Wall at the start of each new month in the Jewish calendar. It clearly resembles a Tallis, though not enough for the charges to stick—a loophole that has infuriated Israel’s Orthodox chief rabbinate, the official state religious governing body.
Tensions surrounding the issue have only escalated in recent months. In November 2009, the Women of the Wall faced more than shouts and curses (and one time plastic chairs) that typically bombard them from a throng of angry Orthodox men. For the first time in the group’s 21 years, police arrested and detained one of its members for wearing a traditional Tallis.
“The fact that [women] are stunted at the holiest place for Jews means that half the Jewish people are silenced,” Hoffman said at the April event. The woman’s incarceration garnered international attention, and sent Hoffman around the world to raise awareness about the growing unrest about women’s rights in Israel.
While in Chicago for an event sponsored by the Association of Reform Zionists of America, Hoffman was invited to the University of Chicago by first-year MPP student Nicole Vahlkamp, who recently launched the Jewish Public Policy Association at the Harris School with intentions of connecting Jewish public policy students with each other and the rest of the University. The group has already partnered with other Jewish student organizations at the Booth School and Law School for Shabbat dinners, networking events, and academic lectures—including Hebrew University Professor Ruth Gavison, who came to the Law School in May.
The organization aims to explore the unique perspective that comes from being Jewish and working in public policy, Vahlkamp says. “In Judaism you have a concept of Tikkun Olam, to make the world a better place, and I think that’s the reason a lot people go into public policy,” she explains. “We want to explore that interaction.”
As their first guest lecturer, Hoffman showed optimism as she described the changes she hopes to see in Israel. She cited, for instance, a recent ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court that put pressure on the Ministry of Transportation to reform sex-segregated bus policies throughout the country.
That’s a slow step in the right direction, Hoffman said. “A lot of it depends on you,” she added, urging students to spread the word and get involved with advocacy campaigns. “I am only one troublemaker,” she said, smiling. “And one person can make a lot of trouble.”
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