Holding on to the Kotel

Anat Hoffman and I disagree about the interpretation of Israeli law (“Norma, I love you, but you’re wrong,” Nov. 13). Yet there is no disagreement on the fact that Robinson’s Arch does not have any of the kedushah (holiness) of the Kotel (the Western Wall). To pray in the women’s section of the Kotel is to claim our inheritance of prayer and of place. Those old stones are witness to our communal continuity, as well as to the thousands of prayers that were uttered in that space. No other location can make that claim. 

Let us be clear: women too stood there and prayed for generations. We, the original Women of the Wall, have been struggling to maintain that connection both legally and practically on the ground. Anat Hoffman helped to make that presence a reality. 

Nonetheless, we do not recognize anyone’s right to negotiate away the place of women at the Kotel itself. Signing on to the new plaza of the Robinson’s Arch is not a compromise but an agreement to end all women’s presence – in a group – at the Kotel. If others wish to pray at Robinson’s Arch, a famous archeological site, that is their right. We wish them well. However, we will not participate in or recognize this deal. We will not give away the Kotel to a haredi establishment that will use it for its own ends. 

The Supreme Court decision of 2003 stated that the government had 12 months to fix up an appropriate location for women to pray in. Absent that condition, we are granted permission to pray at the Kotel as a group with Torah and tallit.  

The Sobel decision of 2013 further clarifies that our prayer does not violate the “local custom of the place.” How these decisions are applied is politics. But the law is clear. Hence, we have won our place at the Kotel and will not abandon it.  

Norma Baumel Joseph
Montreal

Remembering women vets

I enjoyed the Remembrance Day features about the Jewish war veterans. But, where were the women? 

My mother, Eve Daniels, served during World War II in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps until the war ended. As Cpl. Eve Keller, she was near the front lines doing record-keeping for the troops. 

Being in that position meant the risk of danger to her and her colleagues. There were times that the Nazis broke through and the women had to evacuate quickly so as not to get left behind by the Canadian troops. 

My mother also told me about the time that the Jewish soldiers were celebrating Chanukah. A Nazi soldier had been captured and was brought to where they were. He didn’t believe them when they said they were Jewish because he claimed Hitler said he got rid of all the Jews. They showed him how wrong Hitler was.

Leslie Kinrys
Toronto

Taube gets history wrong

Michael Taube (“The First Jewish Liberal-Conservative,” Nov. 6) not only demeans the 60 per cent of Canadians who didn’t vote for the Conservative party in 2011, referring to them as a “brood” with “tiresome left-wing fulminations,” but he also exhibits a profound ignorance of elemental Canadian history. 

His hero, Henry Nathan, the first Jewish MP, did not switch parties. The ruling party from 1867 to 1874, led by John A. Macdonald, was a coalition of Liberal-Conservatives (its pre-Confederation name) and Conservatives. The opposition party was the Liberals.

A key figure in British Columbia’s admission to Canada, Nathan was a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was acclaimed (not appointed) in 1871 as a Liberal (not a Liberal-Conservative) and elected a year later. 

When the CPR was discovered to have illegally contributed money to the Tories (the “Pacific Scandal”), Nathan naturally sided with Macdonald, did not contest his seat in 1874, and returned to his native Britain several years later. 

The readers of The CJN would be better served if Taube would curb his rhetoric, get his facts straight and desist from creating illogical speculations about Jewish voting patterns.

Franklin Bialystok
Centre for Canadian Studies, University College, University of Toronto