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Jewish boycott of the Western Wall

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki


File:MispedChodosh'67.jpg
A booklet entitled A New Eulogy lamenting the conquest of the Old City of Jerusalem by Israel. "In Captivity!" appears under the sketch of the Western Wall. (Jerusalem ,1967)

The Jewish boycott of the Western Wall refers to Jews who avoid visiting or praying at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz felt that the site should not be used for prayer to avoid the Wall itself becoming an object of veneration.[1] Some religious Jews refuse to even visit the site based on their ideological opposition to Zionism.[2] Many have been inspired by the writings of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum of New York who strictly forbade his followers from visiting the site to protest against Israel's capture and subsequent control of the area during the 1967 Six Day War.[3] The Wall has been referred to by such people as being "in captivity" due the fact that their ideological or religious beliefs preclude them from visiting the site.[4]

Background[edit]

The Western Wall is considered a sacred location for Jews as it forms the only surviving section of the retaining wall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. For hundreds of years, Jews have visited the site to offer prayers and mourn the destruction of the Jewish temple.[5] When Zionist nationalists began arriving in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century, Jewish presence at the site became contentious as Muslims feared that Jewish actions at the Wall were aimed at altering its political status and would infringe on Muslim rights in Jerusalem.[6] After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the Old City was administered by Jordan and Jews could not generally access the site.[7] While many Jews reacted euphorically to Israel's capture of the Western Wall during the Six Day War[8] and hundreds of thousands of Jews flocked to the site,[9] many anti-Zionist religious Jews were distressed that the holy site had been "liberated" by secular Zionists. Despite the significance of the wall in Judaism, they resolved not to visit the site to negate providing tacit support for Israel's claim to the area. However, the majority of religious Jews are not concerned about praying by the Wall,[citation needed] including other communities affiliated to the anti-Zionist Edah HaChareidis.[10]

Rational[edit]

Theological opposition to Zionism[edit]

Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum was opposed to Israel's control of the Old City of Jerusalem based his view on his theological opposition to Zionism. He published his views in the 1968 pamphlet A'l ha-Ge'ulah v-A'l ha-Tmurah and forbade praying at the Wall or other holy sites in the West Bank, as doing so would implicitly grant legitimacy to Israel's rule over them.[11][12] He felt that Israel's possession of the holy site was an "unmitigated disaster" and complained that the Zionist's had allowed frivolous and immodest gatherings to take place at the site.[13] He claimed that if God had wanted Jews to go to the Western Wall he would have arranged it in such a way that it would have been permissible to do so and not allowed accessibity to be granted through the agencies of "evildoers, heretics and through the violation of severe sins."[14] His successor Aharon Teitelbaum also avoids the site and "mourns the destruction of the Temple" from atop Mount Scopus overlooking the Temple Mount.[15] Rabbi Isamar Rosenbaum of Nadvorna rejected Teitelbaum's view claiming that "if he lived in Israel, he would visit the Wall."[16]

Other prominent anti-Zionist rabbis who refrain from approaching the Wall include Rabbi Shmuel Wosner[17] and Rabbi Leibish Leiser of Antwerp. The custom of the Jerusalem based Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok community is also to avoid visiting the site.[18]

The boycott is also observed by the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta community. Rabbis Amram Blau[19][20] and Moshe Hirsch[21] refused to pray at the Wall[22][23] and claim to have abstained from doing so before Teitelbaum issued his ban.[24] For Blau, the Wall had become of symbol of "Zionist conquest." For Hirsch, the Wall had been "converted into a Zionist idol," an instrument being used to lure people to believe in the "Golden Calf of Zionism."[25] Some members will allow themselves to visit only if they receive special permission to do so from either the Jordanian government[25] or the PLO.[26] In 1985, after a spate of attacks on Jews on their way to the Western Wall, Neturei Karta further cautioned that Jewish visits to the Western Wall antagonised the Arab residents of the area.[10]

Misplaced veneration[edit]

"Ever since the wicked King Menashe Ben Hizkiyahu placed statues and idols in the temple, and made his son pass through fire in the valley below the temple, and ever since the day a 'detestable abomination' was placed in the Temple by the Syrian-Greek King Antioch Epiphanes and his hellenized Jewish servants, there has been no desecration to compare with the pilgrimage to the Western Wall by 200,000 Jews in 20,000 cars this Pentecost, and the fact that the Israeli police assigned special car-parks near the temple for those who visited it on the Sabbath."

"The Wailing Wall Discotheque", by Yeshayahu Leibowitz in Ha’aretz, 21 July, 1967.[27]

Israeli Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz strongly condemned prayer at the site based on his disproval of the alleged excessive veneration given to the Wall which he felt was foreign to Judaism.[28][1] Alarmed at how the Wall itself was becoming an object of worship,[29][30] he referred to religious and secular fixation with the site as a "dreadful cult,"[31] dubbed the wall a "Divine Discotheque,"[27] called for its demolition[32] and seeing it as a source of "conflict between us and six hundred million Muslims,"[33] would gladly return it to the Arabs.[34]

Conversion in to a national symbol[edit]

Rabbi Samuel David Munk of Haifa wrote that it would be wrong for a Jew to visit the site since it is the intention of the Israeli government is to diminish the Wall's religious significance and emphasise its historical importance and to transform it in to a national symbol.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Adam Keller (1987). Terrible Days: Social Divisions and Political Paradoxes in Israel. Cypres. p. 160. ISBN 978-90-71261-02-2. Being a religious man, Leibowitz strongly condemned worship at the Wailing Wall and other holy places in the occupied territories. He regarded this as a new form of paganism, contrary to true Judaism. Search this book on
  2. ↑ ʾIggrot HaʾAri - The Lions Letters. Columbia University Student Journal of Jewish Scholarship. 1 (3 ed.). Columbia University. 1999. p. 31. The Neturei Karta and Satmar Rebbe conclude upon several radical guidelines of action that emanate from their anti-Zionist ideology. Because "The possession of the [Western] Wall by the evil, corrupt, and unclean Zionists is an unmitigated disaster," visiting the Wall is prohibited. Search this book on
  3. ↑ David Landau (1 January 1993). Piety and Power: The World of Jewish Fundamentalism. Secker & Warburg. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-436-24156-7. There are certainly many hundreds of families in Mea Shearim who boycott the Western Wall, vestige of the Second Temple and holiest shrine in Judaism, on the grounds that it is 'occupied by the Zionists'. Search this book on
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "ההליכה לכותל השבוי" [Going to the Captive Wall] (PDF). The Wall in Captivity (in Hebrew). Jerusalem. June 2011. Retrieved January 25, 2016.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
  5. ↑ Z Elpeleg; Shmuel Himelstein (12 November 2012). The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin Al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement. Routledge. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-136-29273-6. Disputes regarding the right of Jews to the Wall had been continuing for hundreds of years, during which time Jews would visit the site in order to pray. Search this book on
  6. ↑ Joseph R. Rudolph Jr. (7 December 2015). Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts, 2nd Edition [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 421. ISBN 978-1-61069-553-4. The status of the Western Wall was deeply emotive. Jewish leaders argued that because the Jewish people were building their national home in Palestine by right, it was inappropriate that they should require anyone's permission to pray there. Jews challenged the religious status quo by trying to unilaterally introduce, in the teeth of Muslim opposition, symbolic changes to the prayer space in front of the Western Wall. Muslims regarded these measures as an attack on their religious and political prerogatives, not only as it related to the Western Wall but as it pertained to Palestine as a whole. The Western Wall became a flashpoint of communal demonstrations. Search this book on
  7. ↑ Rivka Gonen (2003). Contested Holiness: Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Perspectives on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-88125-798-4. Search this book on
  8. ↑ Fred Skolnik; Michael Berenbaum (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica: Ja-Kas. Macmillan Reference USA in association with the Keter Pub. House. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-02-865939-8. The Jewish population felt a sharp sense of release from the burden of fear that existed during the prewar period and euphoria over the unification of the city and the liberation of the Western Wall and the other holy places. Search this book on
  9. ↑ Philipp Misselwitz; Tim Rieniets (2 June 2006). City of Collision: Jerusalem and the Principles of Conflict Urbanism. Birkhäuser. p. 332. ISBN 978-3-7643-7868-4. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews streamed to the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City within the first few days... Search this book on
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Zevuloni, Noah (November 12, 1985). "נטורי קרתא מחרימים את הכותל המערבי". Davar. p. 3. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  11. ↑ Jerome R. Mintz (1 June 1995). Legends of the Hasidim: An Introduction to Hasidic Culture and Oral Tradition in the New World. Jason Aronson. pp. 36–40. ISBN 978-1-56821-530-3. Search this book on
  12. ↑ Aviezer Ravitzky (1 September 1996). Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. University of Chicago Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-226-70578-1. Search this book on
  13. ↑ Norman Lamm (March 2002). Seventy Faces: Articles of Faith. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-88125-769-4. Search this book on
  14. ↑ A'l ha-Ge'ulah v-A'l ha-Tmurah, pg. 162.
  15. ↑ Ettinger, Yair (August 17, 2007). "Satmar Rebbe Mourns Temple, Flaunts Power Over Zionists". Haaretz. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  16. ↑ Tzvi Rabinowicz (2000). "Hasidism in Israel". Hasidism in Israel: A History of the Hasidic Movement and Its Masters in the Holy Land. Jason Aronson. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-7657-6068-5. He found it incomprehensible that the Rebbe of Satmar forbade his followers to visit the Western Wall. "If he lived in Israel," said R. Itamar, "he would visit the Wall. Only in heaven is it known who is a genuine rabbi." Search this book on
  17. ↑ Cohen, Yisrael (April 11, 2007). האדמו"ר מסאטמר ספד לפוסק הדור: "מעולם לא הלך לכותל המערבי", kikar.co.il. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  18. ↑ Weisberg, Moshe (March 30, 2015). "Why was the Rebbe of Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok at the Western Wall?". Behadrey Haredim. Retrieved January 22, 2016. The Rebbe's visit to the Western Wall plaza is considered rare, since the Rebbe is one of the circles of radicals who do not go to the Western Wall, and his father the Rebbe zt"l even prohibited to those who asked to go to the Kosel...
  19. ↑ David J. Schnall (1979). Radical dissent in contemporary Israeli politics: cracks in the wall. Praeger. p. 136. Rabbi Blau prohibited visiting any of the sites that had been taken by Zionist military conquest. These included some of Judaism's holiest places: the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem, and the Western Wall in East Jerusalem… Search this book on
  20. ↑ The Jewish Week and the American Examiner. Jewish Week and the American Examiner, Incorporated. 12 January 1974. p. 70. The 76-year-old rabbi..., who refuses to pray at the western wall because it is occupied by the rebellious force of the Zionists... Search this book on
  21. ↑ Mati Alon (2010). Not a Vanishing Breed. Trafford Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-4269-2176-6. Rabbi Moshe Hirsch has lived in Meah Shearim since 1955 but has never visited the Kotel, the Western Wall. Search this book on
  22. ↑ Rohee Dasgupta (26 March 2009). Cultural Practices, Political Possibilities. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-4438-0712-8. Jews who support Neturei Karta do not even approach the Western Wall because they believe it has been polluted by secularism and the influence of Zionism. Search this book on
  23. ↑ Jews, Not Zionists. Friends of Jerusalem (American Neturei Karta). 1978. The members of the Neturei Karta (and their friends abroad) have been forbidden by their spiritual leaders to visit the holiest Jewish site, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, because of the circumstances under which it was conquered by the Israeli armed forces… Search this book on
  24. ↑ "Reb Amrom's Last Demonstration" (PDF). The Guardians. Brooklyn, NY: Neturei Karta of USA. July 30, 1974. p. 7. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Roger Friedland; Richard Hecht (2000). "Zion Against Zionism". To Rule Jerusalem. University of California Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-0-520-22092-8. When the Old City was recaptured in 1967, Hirsch refused to worship at the Western Wall because it was in "occupied" territory. Hirsch was unwilling to do anything that might be construed as legitimating Zionist property rights to the Holy of Holies. Only after receiving approval from King Hussein via the former Jordanian mayor of Jerusalem would he visit the revered ramparts of the ancient Temple. Search this book on
  26. ↑ Daniel Boyarin (14 October 1994). A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. University of California Press. p. 258. ISBN 978-0-520-92036-1. The Neturei Karta, to this day, refuse to visit the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism, without PLO "visas" because it was taken by violence. Search this book on
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Akiva Orr (1983). The unJewish state: the politics of Jewish identity in Israel. Ithaca Press. pp. 196–197. ISBN 978-0-903729-85-7. There is only one Jewish religious intellectual in Israel who made a similar critique from a religious position, Professor Y. Leibowitz, who published the following statement six weeks after the conquest of the wall. Search this book on
  28. ↑ Yakov M. Rabkin (14 May 2006). A threat from within: a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism. Fernwood Pub. p. 122. In the aftermath of the capture of East Jerusalem by Israeli troops, Leibowitz proposed that worship at the Wailing Wall be forbidden, lest the wall be converted into an object of worship. At the same time, Satmar and Neturei Karta leaders also forbade their followers from praying at the wall, but for different reasons: no spiritual benefit can be obtained from a victory of the impious. Search this book on
  29. ↑ Yossi Melman (1992). The New Israelis: An Intimate View of a Changing People. Carol Publishing Group. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-55972-129-5. When Leibovitz witnessed the rush on the Wailing Wall soon after the '67 war, he did not hesitate to call it pagan idolatry: a phenomenon that flagrantly contradicted Jewish spirituality and its ethos. Search this book on
  30. ↑ Jewish Spectator. 60. 1995. p. 55. He urged his fellow-Orthodox to go beyond being observant into depth of thinking, and not be tempted by the idol-worship of national symbols, particularly the Kotel, the Western Wall. Search this book on
  31. ↑ David Ohana (16 October 2009). Political Theologies in the Holy Land: Israeli Messianism and its Critics. Routledge. p. 146. ISBN 978-1-135-21134-9. Search this book on
  32. ↑ Marc B. Shapiro (2004). The limits of Orthodox theology: Maimonides' Thirteen principles reappraised. Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. p. 32. This attitude enabled Leibowitz to call for the demolition of the Western Wall, which he considered to be an idol of stone. Search this book on
  33. ↑ Lawrence Meyer (1982). Israel now: portrait of a troubled land. Delacorte Press. p. 370. ISBN 978-0-440-04179-5. Search this book on
  34. ↑ Michael Prior (1 May 1997). The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique. A&C Black. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-85075-815-0. He denounced the Western Wall as a disco and said he would gladly return it to the Arabs. Search this book on


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