What a fun thread.
The "Women of the Wall", which is a small fringe minority of women who go to the wall, first belonged to the groups which wanted an egalitarian prayer area.
Meaning a prayer area where men and women pray next to each other.
This they ultimately got.
An egalitarian praying area and a traditional praying area.
So that's it? Victory! Habemus Papam!
No.
The "Women of the Wall" then changed their goal. Suddenly it was about allowing non-traditional prayers at the traditional praying area.
Unsurprisingly this doesn't go over too well within Israel. Which is why their only support comes from US Reform and Conservative groups.
So let's take a look at Israeli Jews.
Hilonim: Essentially secular Jews and the majority of the country. At the same time they have no stake in the matter as they do not care about the Western Wall.
And then there are three other groups.
Haredim: "Ultra-Orthodox" Jews
Datim: Generally Orthodox Jews
Masortim: Traditional Jews
All of these three groups use the main area.
So wait for whom is the egalitarian area?
There exists a very small Reform/Conservative Jewish population in Israel.
It caters to them and Jewish US tourists.
That's it.
Due to this the egalitarian area is also far less used.
WotW likes to present itself as the voice of Israeli Jewish women, well they aren't.
There are numerous videos of Israeli women praying in their section of the praying area. No problems whatsoever.
I don't know what the sham is. I disagree with your notion of freedom of worshiping God however one wishes. Moreover, if there's any group whose worship is a sham, it seems to be this group of women. Did you see what they have written on their site? It's utterly meaningless in Jewish terms. "We don't want a Temple, we don't care about a Temple, but hey, this remnant here, which historically has only been important because it was thought to be the last remnant and a symbol of the Jewish expectations of the Temple, this we'll turn into some kind of shrine". Seriously, what am I missing here?
This is true for all the Reform/Conservative activism in Israel.
It makes no sense.
One of the points of Reform was to do away with the importance of Israel.
Which is why their synagogues are often called "Temple".
But suddenly they care about the Temple again? Oh wait not the Temple but this retaining wall of the western side... okay?
It also can't be any area of the western wall of the plateau. It has to be the one where the main praying area is.
Right.
Why not the southern wall? Okay that's right next to the Al-Aqsa mosque. So perhaps the eastern wall? Or the northern?
All of that still exists and is just a retaining wall of the plateau as the western.
Yet they don't want that.
To quote my SIL: They want our ****.
Added to that Reform/Conservative Judaism make no sense in a Jewish majority country.
Back to the Hamburg Temple disputes it was about being less Jewish, do away with Jewish rules and become more and more assimilated. There's a reason why lot's of German Jews murdered in Shoah had names like "Wilhelm", "Frieda" etc. while the Eastern Jews didn't.
You don't have to do that in a Jewish majority country.
