Linda Siegel-Richman , a teacher, was banned from the Kotel when she went, after a day of teaching at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, to the Kotel with a kippa on her head.
According to Ynet, Siegel-Richman had gone to the Kotel to daven and to put in notes from her students back home in Denver, Colorado. She says she was by the Kotel and nobody said anything to her or stopped her. She went out to the area of the Cardo to get herself a drink and when she went back to the Kotel she was stopped by ushers who did not let her in.
After describing what happened, Siegel-Richman said that she is able to go anywhere she wants in the United States with a kippa on her head, but only in Israel she cannot do so freely.
Today, Ynet reports, Rav Shmuel Rabinovitch, rav of the Kotel, apologized and said that while he does not know the details of the incident and has received no report of it even from the police, if it happened it was a mistake by the ushers to prevent her from entering the Kotel area. He also invited Siegel-Richman to come back to the Kotel for a visit.
Rabinovitch blamed the response of the ushers, if it even happened, on the Women of the Wall, who have created an atmosphere of suspicion as a result of their vocal conflict. They have created an atmosphere in which worshipers suffer, including Linda. Rav Rabinovitch said that the Kotel is open to every man and woman, and also to a woman with a kippa.
I think had she been wearing a black kippa, rather than a knitted kippa, maybe this entire incident would not have happened... :-)
It is sad that we have these fights. It is funny that Rabbi Rabinovitch has to say something like this.
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