Women given green light to kindle Western Wall menorah

The Attorney General’s office instructed the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall in Jerusalem to include women in the official Hanukkah menorah lighting at the holy site and demanded a list of those expected to take part in the ceremony.

Deputy-Attorney General Dina Zilber wrote to Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Shmuel Rabinovitch explaining that the exclusion of women would be “unacceptable discrimination,” the Hebrew-language Ynet reported on Tuesday.

“We ask to make sure of the obvious that you are working for the inclusion and participation of women in the official candle lighting ceremony,” she wrote. “Preventing the participation of women in state ceremonies, such as the ceremony in our case, just because they are women — is unacceptable discrimination.”

“The sooner we can get a list of all the participants expected to take part in the these ceremonies, as soon as the list is available, it will be a great help,” she added.

Each year dignitaries are invited to light the flames of a large eight-branched menorah opposite the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Lighting ceremonies are held on each of the eight nights of the Hanukkah festival, which this year begins on Sunday night.

The recent push to include women in the annual ceremony began when MK Ksenia Svetlova of the Zionist Union and MKs Tamar Zandberg and Michal Rozin of the Meretz party approached Rabinowitz asking him to grant both genders the honor of lighting the menorah.

An evasive response from the rabbi motivated the Women of the Wall lobby group and the Center for Women’s Justice to launch a public and legal campaign including appealing to the attorney general, the report said.

Zilber rejected Rabinowitz’s argument that the inclusion of women is an “extreme demand” that would “light a fire” [of protest], the Ynet news site reported. Zilber pointed out that the rabbi’s claims didn’t align with the principles of the law, with a report by the inter-ministerial group to prevent public discrimination against women, and with a government decision from 2014.

“There is no reason to assume that preventing women from participating in these ceremonies may instigate and provoke strife,” she countered.

Zilber pointed out that MKs Miri Regev and Tzipi Livni have both lit menorahs at the Western Wall in the past during ceremonies other than the official state event, showing, she said, that there is no religious reason to object to women performing the ceremony.

Anat Hoffman, leader of the Women of the Wall group which campaigns for the right to hold female prayer services at the wall, welcomed the decision which, she said, was thanks to her organization’s efforts.

“It is so symbolic that the Women of the Wall should be the match that lights the flame of the first candle that a women lights at the national Hanukkah ceremony at the Western Wall,” she said. “It doesn’t matter which woman is chosen for this great honor. She will stand on the shoulders of the Women of the Wall who have been campaigning for 27 years to achieve freedom and equality for women at the Western Wall.

“It is clear to me that one candle can dispel a lot of darkness but no amount of darkness can extinguish at candle.”

The Western Wall, the remains of a retaining wall of the Second Temple, is both a holy site and symbol of national identity for Jews all over the world.