Published: 8 July 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
International Jewish leaders demand Israel controls extremism, after attack on egalitarian bar and bat mitzvah services at the Western Wall
Jewish world leaders have called on Prime Minister Yair Lapid to take immediate action to “ensure the safety, security and well-being” of all worshippers at the Western Wall, following an incident last week in which dozens of ultra-Orthodox boys attacked a group of Conservative families celebrating their children’s bar and bat mitzvahs.
Ultra-Orthodox extremists, most of them children or teenagers, disrupted three bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies at the egalitarian plaza of the Western Wall, shouting, calling the worshipers “Nazis,” “Christians” and “animals,” blowing whistles and ripping up prayer books.
US special envoy on antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt said that she was “deeply disturbed” by an incident at the Western Wall last week in which ultra-Orthodox extremists interrupted bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies at the site’s egalitarian plaza.
“Deeply disturbed by the troubling actions of a group of extremists last week at the Kotel,” tweeted Lipstadt, who is visiting Israel this week. “Let us make no mistake, had such a hateful incident — such incitement — happened in any other country, there’d be little hesitation in labelling it antisemitism.”
One of the bar mitzvah families was American, prompting American and international Jewish leaders to write to the Prime Minister demanding he control extremists.
“The government of Israel should accept responsibility to stop the completely unacceptable behaviour that has been exhibited recently,” leaders of the Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Agency, Keren Hayesod and the World Zionist Organization wrote in a letter to Lapid.
