Ruth and I met up with her friend Steven and his roommate and the four of us walked about 45 minutes to the Old City. Once at the wall, we parted from the guys to go to our respective sides. Though the service was conducted on the women's side, there were many men there to support the group and they came up to the mechitza (barrier between the sides) to participate in our service. I put on my tallit (prayer shawl) that I brought with me to Israel but had not yet used here as most of the synagogues I'd been going to were on the Orthodox end of the spectrum of Judaism where women do not wear tallit. Overall the service was uneventful (as in no one got arrested). There were plenty of security guards and many photographers. The only disruption came from a man who was standing on a chair, yelling. I could not understand what he was saying but I had a feeling it involved unpleasantries and was directed towards us. I later found out I was correct.
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| the group of women standing in front of me |
After the Shacharit service we paraded, while singing, to another section of the Western Wall where Torah reading is allowed. This section does not have separate sections for men and women and it is where many congregations go for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.
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| Getting the Torah ready for the reading |
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| Hagbah- lifting the Torah |
Something else interesting from their website:
"In Hebrew, the word for women is nashim. Since – im is generally a masculine plural ending and -ot is generally the feminine plural ending, nashim is an exception to the linguistic rule. We chose to use nashot, similar to the way some American feminist have chosen to use womyn (for woman) and wimmin (for women). It is a pro-female assertion that seeks to remove the linguistic dependency of the word woman or women on the word man or men, since unfortunately these female words have largely and historically been characterized as a “derivative” of the male, a statement which has social implications."
I'm looking forward to joining the Women of the Wall again this month!
"In Hebrew, the word for women is nashim. Since – im is generally a masculine plural ending and -ot is generally the feminine plural ending, nashim is an exception to the linguistic rule. We chose to use nashot, similar to the way some American feminist have chosen to use womyn (for woman) and wimmin (for women). It is a pro-female assertion that seeks to remove the linguistic dependency of the word woman or women on the word man or men, since unfortunately these female words have largely and historically been characterized as a “derivative” of the male, a statement which has social implications."
I'm looking forward to joining the Women of the Wall again this month!
While I understand the position of the Women of the Wall, I feel like that last bit (about replacing the word "nashim" with the invented "nashot") is a bit silly. First of all gender in languages doesn't necessarily have ANYTHING to do with sex in people. More relevant to this bit, the plural form of words is not some patriarchal imposition. There are plenty of female words that use the male plural form (isha - nashim is just one of them), and plenty of male words that use the female plural form (chalon - chalonot, for instance). While the case can be made for writing women as "wimmin," this would seem to indicate more a misunderstanding of Hebrew than a feminist statement, and by doing so, I think they're weakening, not strengthening their case.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful write-up of such a wonderful morning. I'm the woman holding the Torah for hagbah in the picture you posted. It was an incredible honor, and my first hagbah ever! What a surprise when Betsy asked me to do it. I was visiting Israel and made the trip around Rosh Chodesh in order to be with Women of the Wall. I'm a rabbi now in western Massachusetts, and have been involved with WOW since my junior year of college when I was in Israel in 1988-89. WOW has had a profound effect on my Jewish and feminist identity and development. Thank you!
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