Woman strips down to swimsuit in Western Wall protest

A proposed bill to criminalise egalitarian prayer and immodest dress at the Western Wall was shelved after outcry.

A proposed Israeli law that would sharply curtail the rights of women and non-Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall sparked alarm last week, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pledge that regulations at the holy site would “remain exactly the same” as they are now. 

The bill was submitted by a lawmaker from Shas, the Sephardi haredi Orthodox party that is a member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition. It would have criminalised mixed-gender prayer at the site, as well as immodest dress and the playing of musical instruments. Women would also be forbidden from reading from a Torah scroll or blowing a shofar at the site. Women would also not be allowed to don prayer shawls or tefillin, the leather boxes and straps traditionally worn by Jews during morning prayers, and historically worn only by men.

The bill’s provisions would have also applied to the Wall’s non-Orthodox section, adjacent to the main plaza. Offenders would have faced a fine of approximately $US3000, or six months in prison. 

The legislation is the latest salvo in a decades-long battle over policy at Judaism’s holiest prayer site and who gets to determine it. Non-Orthodox groups, and American Jewish organisations, have long advocated for egalitarian and women-led prayer to be allowed at the wall. Orthodox groups have pushed for worship at the site to remain exclusively under their purview. 

The most dramatic protest occurred on Sunday morning when a woman stripped down to a bathing suit at the Western Wall in an apparent protest of a contentious bill that would criminalise immodest dress at the holy site.

The woman was detained by police and taken to a nearby station for questioning. She could face charges of “insult to religion,” which carry a possible sentence of up to three years in prison.