IPFS News Link • Police State
Israel police arrest 5 feminists for praying at Western Wall
• The RawStory.comFive Jewish feminists who on Thursday wore prayer shawls and prayed out loud at Jerusalem’s Western Wall in defiance of a court order have been detained for questioning, a police spokeswoman said.
Some 200 women gathered at the Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City to stage what has become a monthly protest by activists seeking to overturn a legal ban on them performing certain religious rituals at the sacred site, an AFP correspondent said.
Media reports this week said Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky was trying to find a compromise so the women could pray as they wish without offending more traditional worshippers.
“Five (women) who were wearing a tallit, which is barred by the Supreme Court, were taken for questioning,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
An ultra-Orthodox man who tried to set fire to a prayer pamphlet being held by one of the women was also taken for questioning, Samri said.