Women of the Wall head slams PM response to Western Wall protest

The head of the Women of the Wall, a group campaigning for pluralistic prayer services at the Western Wall on Jerusalem, hits back at Netanyahu for his criticism of this morning’s protest over the government failure to construct a permanent mixed worship platform at the holy site.

Anat Hoffman says that the prime minister’s statement “alluding to dialogue and to compromise makes a mockery of our three years of negotiations with a government that has failed to enact an agreement signed almost a year ago.”

Netanyahu said earlier today that the protest “does not help advance a solution for prayer arrangements” at the Wall. Scuffles broke out between the marchers and some ultra-Orthodox onlookers and Western Wall officials who lunged for the Torah scrolls carried by the protesters and attempted to physically bar them from entering the the women’s section of the Wall.

“For the very first time — this morning — we were able to pray with not one, not two, but fourteen (14!) Torah scrolls in the women’s section of the Western Wall. The first day of the new month of Heshvan was transformed into Simhat Torah,” Hoffman says.

“It felt like a miracle, but this should be our reality every day,” she says. “We hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu heard us loud and clear.”