BICOM

A Jerusalem magistrate’s court ruled on Thursday that five women arrested earlier in the day whilst worshipping at the Western Wall were not breaching public order, as the police alleged, and ordered the women be freed.

The women were arrested after conducting a prayer service whilst wearing the tallit prayer shawl traditionally worn only by men in Orthodox Jewish communities, sparking an angry reaction from some ultra-Orthodox worshippers at the site. The incident follows a series of similar arrests of women challenging the status quo at the site, in which women and men have separate prayer areas, and are expected to dress and worship in line with Orthodox traditions.

Earlier this week Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, proposed a long term solution to the problem, by developing another area of the wall for use by Jews who wish to pray in a more egalitarian manner. Sharansky was asked to look into the problem by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the situation angering Jews from progressive streams, which are dominant particularly in the United States.

Sharansky’s proposals have received a positive reaction from progressive Jewish groups, and the Orthodox rabbi who oversees worship at the Wall has said for the sake of avoiding tensions he will not oppose them. However, any new development at the site is bound to cause tensions with Islamic authorities there, who have persistently spread unfounded rumours that Israel wants to undermine the Al Aqsa Mosque, which sits above the Western Wall.

The Wall itself is the remains of a retaining wall of an artificial mountain on which the Jewish Temple stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in the first century. It is the most revered place in the world for Jews.