38 | 
APRIL 2 • 2020

Kotel. But because women are 
still not allowed to use a Torah, 
they endure humiliating body 
searches by guards hired to pre-
vent them from bringing in the 
spiritual contraband.

THE INFLUENCE OF 
DIASPORA JEWS
While WoW conducts its 
monthly Rosh Hodesh prayer 
service, ultra-Orthodox aggres-
sors disturb their religious ser-
vices and shove participants. 
At a recent talk, Anat 
Hoffman, a founding member 
of WoW and an Israeli civil 
rights attorney, said the group 
owes a tremendous debt to 
diaspora Jews. This dates back 
to the movement’
s beginning 
in 1988, when the Orthodox 
Jewish American activist Rivka 
Haut led 70 participants in 
the International Congress of 
Jewish Feminists in prayer at 
the Western Wall. When they 
unrolled the Torah and began 
reading, they were met with 
screaming, cursing and pushing 
from the ultra-Orthodox. 
Haut’
s outsider perspective 
helped the women recognize 
what was at stake. “It would 

never have occurred to the 
Israeli women participants in 
a million years to go to the 
Kotel and pray,
” Hoffman said. 
“Trust me, it was bred out of us 
at birth. The idea came from 
this Orthodox woman from 
Flatbush. She felt that this was a 
good idea, and I’
m immensely 
grateful.
”
When I left Michigan, our 
family belonged to three differ-
ent synagogues — not because 
we were at all religious, but 
because each offered a special 
kind of community or service 
for us and our children. We 
decided to move to Israel after 
my mother died so my children 
could grow up near their Israeli 
grandparents, aunts, uncles 
and cousins. Living in Ramat 
Hasharon, I soon discovered 
that synagogue and ritual-based 
Judaism aren’
t part of Israeli sec-
ular lifestyle. 
Our extended family gath-
ers on Fridays for dinner, but 
the Shabbat candlesticks stay 
dusty on the shelf. My daugh-
ter became a bat mitzvah at a 
Reform synagogue in Ra’
anana 
that was vandalized by reli-
gious extremists weeks before 

her 2014 ceremony. At her bat 
mitzvah, many guests said they 
never thought to encourage 
their daughters to learn a Torah 
portion. None of my daughter’
s 
classmates had a bat mitzvah 
ceremony. Only one of my 
four nephews had a brit milah 
with a mohel. The cousins had 
b’
nai mitzvah parties but no 
synagogue services. I learned 
that many Israelis either marry 
overseas or cohabitate without a 
marriage contract because they 
have no interest in interacting 
with the Orthodox rabbinate. 
To my dismay, secular Israeli 
women are largely unbothered 
by the discrimination at the 
Western Wall because they have 
no interest in praying. What I 
see as government-authorized 
sexism, they see as religion.
Israeli leaders know the 
majority (71%) of American 
Jews are Reform and 
Conservative. While appeas-
ing Americans is always high 
on Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu’
s list of priorities, in 
2013, after three years of nego-
tiation with Israeli and diaspora 
leaders, Netanyahu favored his 
ultra-Orthodox cronies and 

reneged on the “Western Wall 
Plan” for a pluralistic prayer 
pavilion. 
The resulting American 
Jewish anger has electrified the 
subject as an important political 
issue. “Every Jew should be able 
to feel at home in Israel,
” Blue 
and White party leader Benny 
Gantz said to the AIPAC con-
ference crowd in Washington, 
D.C., in March. “Israel is the 
nation state of the Jewish people. 
When I’
ll be prime minister, 
everyone will have a place in the 
Western Wall.
” 
Hoffman maintains if you are 
Jewish, you have a voice in the 
Jewish values of the Jewish State. 
“You have a say in this,
” she 
said. “I don’
t think anyone has 
the right to push you away 
from the table. I invite you all to 
participate. Take an active part. 
When North American or dias-
pora Jews voice their concerns 
over issues of pluralism in Israel, 
things change here … Zionism 
is not a spectator sport. It’
s par-
ticipatory.
” 

Pamela Azaria is a native of Huntington 

Woods and U-M grad. 

ZIONISM continued from page 37

GAY BAR continued from page 37

a torn city comes together — a 
gay bar next to an Eritrean 
church, a community united. 
I moved to Jerusalem from 
Tel Aviv, a known liberal city, to 
study at the Hebrew University. 
I was alone and out of my par-
ents’
 home for the first time in 
my life. 
I will forever remember my 
year working at the Video. I 
could be myself as an employ-
ee (not always an easy feat for 
a queer person); I met new 
friends and new enemies, too. In 
the Video’
s tiny space — which 

consists of two small balconies, 
a shoebox-sized dance floor and 
the bar area — I gained an inde-
pendent life in this often-unwel-
coming city. The importance of 
gay establishments, as opposed 
to merely LGBT-friendly ones, 
became abundantly clear to me. 
There, I felt more at home than 
I did at any “friendly” space in 
liberal Tel Aviv. I could say that 
it is my space. 
This March, Israel began tak-
ing drastic measures in order to 
combat the spread of COVID-
19, including closing all bars 

and restaurants. I left the Video 
during April of last year after a 
full year working there, and now 
bartend at another establish-
ment. I was just notified that my 
workplace, as others like it, will 
be shut down for the foreseeable 
future, meaning I effectively 
have no job. 
There’
s a lot to fear, but my 
heart aches for one thing in 
particular. The Video, like many 
other pubs, posted on Facebook 
about its closure for who knows 
how long. Alongside it, all the 
queer spaces that were carefully 

and dutifully cultivated in the 
city, from the Open House to 
any party line, cannot operate 
right now. Their futures remain 
uncertain.
I’
ve never known a Video-less 
Jerusalem. My heart aches, not 
only for the business, but for the 
space, for all the spaces like it. 
The Video is part of a whole. 

Michael Elias is a young Jewish non-
binary poet and writer, currently study-
ing comparative literature and history at 
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 

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