f The Western Wall Controversy

Abstract

Since 1988 a group of Jewish women in Israel, who later organized as the “Women of the Wall,” have been battling to realize what they see as their right to hold a public prayer service, while wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries and reading from a Torah scroll, in the women’s section of the Western Wall Plaza. Some of the Orthodox are fiercely opposed to the WoW and its project. This issue has reached the Israeli courts several times and has repeatedly engaged the political system. This article examines whether one of the two positions can draw on constitutional arguments that would justify a ruling in its favor.