Woman detained for wearing prayer shawl at Western Wall

The woman being detained at the Western Wall Thursday. (photo credit: Courtesy Women of the Wall via Facebook)

Police detained a woman at the Western Wall plaza after she donned a prayer shawl, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

The woman, from the Women of the Wall organization which campaigns for equal rights at Judaism’s holiest site, was brought in for acting against regulations governing the Westen Wall.

The plaza is administered by the Chief Rabbinate, which prohibits women there from wearing prayer shawls or phylacteries, and reading aloud from the Torah, as a contravention of traditional Jewish norms.

A few dozen members of Women of the Wall began an impromptu prayer and song protest outside the police station where the woman was being held until officers declared the assembly an unlicensed gathering and ordered them to disperse.

The Women of the Wall declared in a statement that the Western Wall is not an ultra-Orthodox synagogue and the Jewish people have “70 ways” — not only one — to express their Judaism at the religion’s holiest place.

Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch slammed the incident as damaging to the “holy character” of the site.