Your “listening to anyone” obviously means everybody should adopt your assumptions about the historicity of theology in rite and dogma, which doesn’t hold true. No matter how often you repeat an untruth doesn’t make it a truth.

Don’t forget your songbook on your way out.

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways…

Izabella, you still don’t seem to get that what you call a historical tradition is not one. When the Temple was still in existence, people didn’t pray at that very spot. (I think Middle mentioned this above.) Jews have officially only be able to access that area and conduct their prayers in the current fashion for a relatively short time in recent history. Even the clergy that was in charge during the Temple days was replaced by a newer system of Jewish clergy.
You base your analogies on parallels in Catholicism yet you appear to know little about the practices and even less about the strictly outlined regulations there. It has got nothing to do with intellectuality, but if you try challenging my ideas based on incorrect assumptions about theologies, the history of dogma and rite, flawed analogies and faulty logics and take poor attempts at acting condescending at that, don’t be surprised if I respond in a factual manner. Half-knowledge is the most dangerous kind of knowledge.
FYI, gender egalitarianism in Judaism is older than the Orthodox movement. It is one of the reasons the Orthodox movement came into being as a reactionary counter-movement to what they considered too progressive.

But please make no mistake, such decisions have the force of law. They are Law. You wrote “And since you know a thing or two about law, I’m confident that you know that a precedent is always only a model interpretation of the law and not the law as such and that there have been cases where precedents were overthrown by newer precedents…” Uhm, laws, as in legislative decrees, get repealed and modified all the time as well. That means absolutely nothing and does not in any way mitigate the legal force of judicial decisions.

Finally, despite the fact that the case involved one private party, namely the WOW, the conclusions are applicable to all given that it’s the Supreme Court. With all due respect to your amorphous Political Science Faculty, they’re either wrong or you misunderstood what they said.

Oh and you didn’t say at all whether you still loved me or not. I for one fearlessly declare my public devotion to you.

Izabella, in democracies, the state has got to abide by democratic rules. It was the state’s executive here the role of which was questioned. Also, in a democracy, certain rights granted in a democracy also apply to families. Another point you keep missing is that the Kotel is public property, therefore does not belong to any specific religious group and common law must be the premise upon which decisions regarding the Kotel must be taken. If I started blocking a public road claiming that is what my ancestors used to do, police would remove me regardless of whether my claim was right or wrong. If it’s up to a clergy to decide upon the normative treatment of public property, public conduct etc., then that’s called a theocracy.

Keep your alphabet song and your condescension to yourself. Your logics has shown to be so flawed that it’s not even amusing. Also, your initial assumption which you base your entire argument on is that the Temple was built by Orthodox Jews. This is definitely and non-arguably incorrect as the Orthodox movement has only been around for less than 300 years.
Besides, your assumptions regarding Canonic law (the law of the Roman Catholic Church as laid out in the Codex Iuris Canonici) and its execution are also pretty off base just as your analogies are. The police of a democratic state would not remove somebody from a service at a Catholic Church on grounds of that person singing charismatic songs or being dressed like a Roman Catholic priest. Cases of where the Church pressed charges against people who had disrupted a religious service have always been way more severe than that, and those were violent intruders into somebody else’s religious service and never groups among themselves and on their own performing a service not in conflict with Canonic law yet not part of common custom.
There is a world of a difference in that.

within a democracy you have families which do not function on democratic values…there are those who maybe have tried this experiment with this concept with varying success, but the results are debatable and for the most part we still refer to our parents as mum and dad and they still get the final say. Within democratic societies there are also religious groups and organisations which don’t necessarily function as democracies…within democratic societies there are still cultural norms and traditions which for the most part are upheld by the majority…

…the wall is what remains of the old and the customs of another era and as such it represents those customs, if the women of WOW are trying to abolish those customs or alter them, so be it, but what are they doing at a place which represents the very values they find so abbhorent? Do the people who want to uphold those customs not deserve the same respect as any other religion, such as Islam which currently has a monopoly of the Temple Mount (also within a democracy though maybe disputed) In fact some progressive and modern Jews celebrate the fact that it is no longer standing and i have even heard comments to the effect of “I hope the ugly thing never gets re-built”

It is up to the clerics and Rabbis to establish the norms of religious practice, just as it is up to a mother and father to establish rules within a home. If people wish to change those norms then they should work through these channels. Perhaps the WOW will be more effective and less contravertial if they stormed these meetings which i believe are held from time to time to discuss aspects of worship and Rabbinic Law. How is it helping anyone to stand there offending people who have been brought up to believe that for a woman to wear a tallit is a disgrace and perhaps even punishable by excommunication? (forgive me but i am not clear on matters of rabbinic law)

Of course there have been cases of children sueing or divorcing their parents, but generally these people are frowned upon by the wider community except in cases of gross negligence…

the other way is for the WOW to start their own synagogue with its new traditions and build a history of its own making and based on its own merits…perhaps they will usher in the Moshiah and be the founders of the Third temple..though i can’t imagine them agreeing to animal sacrifice…

anyway..thats about it from my limited perspective…i can always recite the Alphabet song for your pleasure in my next post if that will make you happy..

In the United States in Roe v. Wade, a Texas law forbidding the granting of assistance to women seeking abortions was overturned by the Supreme Court because it was considered in violation of the 14th Amendment which was interpreted as granting a right to privacy and thus a woman’s right to choose. As you can see, the decision was occasioned by a case where a woman got pregnant and sought an abortion in Texas where abortions, except in the case of rape or incest, were illegal. Norma L. McCorvey (aka “Jane Roe”) sued the State of Texas (represented by Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade). The case set a new precedent and thus applies across the United States.

This is just one case that took place in a Democratic country. So what do we learn? Courts in a Democracy can overturn legislation that is deemed unconstitutional. Decisions by a court in such matters are universally applicable to all until such time as another court overturns the decision or the legislature passes a law that overturns the decision and passes constitutional muster and/or Judicial review.

The Israeli Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Kotel does not apply merely to one or two individual groups who happened to be a party to the initial case. It applies to all. Furthermore, no matter how you feel about judicial activism, the Supreme Court’s role in making such a decision was well within the scope of Democratic behavior and not even remotely exceptional or unprecedented within a Democratic context.

Your declarations about the law in this case are extremely inaccurate, both in general and specifically how it applies in Israel. I would strongly urge you to at least read a basic text on the role of the judiciary in a Democracy before making such totally erroneous declarations in the future.

That having been said, even my comments are an extreme oversimplification of the issues relating to judicial review and the role of a Supreme Court. But you’re still very, very wrong.

I hope you still love me though… because I still love you!

Izabella, you don’t seem to get the difference between a democracy and a theocracy. The Vatican, FYI, is an electoral monarchy.

As for the women’s section, you should see the Kotel on Shabbat and Chagim… even with 70% of the area in front of the wall allotted to them, Men are regularly packed in there just like sardines. Now I have noticed that the mechitzah is not set in concrete. In other words it can be moved. In fact I’ve seen them move it. There should be no reason not to move it further into the men’s section at off peak times so that the women can be more comfortable.

Or maybe it just appeared that way because the women had 30% of the space the men had.

Do you have a link to the Israeli High Court ruling on this issue? I’d like to see it first-hand.

Furthermore, Judaism has not dispensed with either capital punishment or animal sacrifice. Capital punishment can still be dispensed by a duly constituted and recognized Sanhedrin – though it should be noted that even when we had such, capital punishment was rarely administered – and animal sacrifices will resume with the re-dedication of a third temple.

TM: The allocation of prayer spaces at the Kotel was determined by the Supreme Court. Not by dudes in the garb of 17th century Polish nobility. The vast majority of worship in Israel is done in places with a mechitzah and, I hate to say it but egalitarianism is not a religious Jewish value. I understand that for most Jews in America, more egalitarian forms of worship are the norm, but then again, most Jews in America rarely attend a Jewish religious ceremony in any kind of synagogue.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case of the Kotel attempted to strike a balance of interests between traditional and progressive Jews and it has stood unmolested for over 20 years. I appreciate the WOW’s desire to push envelopes but… I would have recommended a different approach. For instance, if what is sought is more space for women to pray in, all women need to do is descend upon the Touristy Kotel every day in such massive numbers that the civil authorities would have no choice but to expand the area allocated to them. If more egalitarian worship is indeed the norm, then all egalitarian minded people need to do is to physically take control of the Touristy Kotel. Don’t just worship there occasionally – worship there every day in massive numbers. Forty women worshiping in the Temple Plaza once a month are easy to dismiss – 400 three times a day however, not as easy to dismiss and 4000 on rosh chodesh, now that would be something. As is, the Supreme Court’s decision took into account the uh… facts on the ground, modes of usage and various interests involved and to date I see no reason to make more significant alterations (though they should really give the women more room). I look forward to the day when these facts are significantly altered.