I had the opportunity to watch the Knesset committee session regarding Women of the Wall yesterday, and there were so many potential QOTDs from the various MKs and civil servants who were participating that it was hard to make a choice. And then there are the normal daily statements on the variety of other issues and topics happening... so here are a few choice selections:
1.
There are not enough arguments? You want to set everything on fire? If not for us, the haredi public, there would not even be a Kotel. There were people who said that these are just plain stones... When I see a woman donning tefillin at the Kotel, it tears up my heart. Hundreds of thousands of men and women see this desecration of holiness. I request with a plea - come to pray and not make provocations. Do that in your shuls and not in the place that has so many people.
-- MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ)
2.
I sat in the session next to MK Gafni and I heard him say that it hurts his heart to see women at the Kotel wrapping themselves in a tallit and donning tefillin. As a haredi, I must say I am surprised. I do not understand why the eyes of the men [davening at the Kotel] are looking in the womens section..
-- MK Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid)
3.
The police were right for arresting the women [wearing tallitot]. Just as the police arrest somebody who counterfeits money, these people are counterfeiting Judaism and should be arrested..
-- MK Menachem Eliezer Mozes
4.
Most women around the world who daven, do so wearing a tallit.
-- Yizhar Hess, head of Conservative Movement in Israel
I must add, I have no idea what world he is living in to be able to say that with a straight face. Even though Orthodox Jews are in the minority around the world, their women pray far more than the women of any other movement, and probably even more than the men of every other movement as well.
5.
We must stop arresting women for attempting to pray. I have no problem with women praying at the Kotel even in tallitot. There is no debate that halacha allows women to pray in tallit and tefillin. The Kotel is not a shul and not even a holy place. The Kotel is the wrapper around the candy that is Har Habayit itself... The Kotel is nothing more than a heritage site..
-- MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud)
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