Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich of the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem and other holy sites criticized 200 members of the group "Women of the Wall" who came to the Western Wall Friday morning to say prayers for the new month of Tevet and protest last month's detention of one of their members for wearing a prayer shawl at the site. Police were called to separate the sides after hareidi-religious Jews came close and called the women names.
Noting that one of their aims was to turn the area into a "dispute area", Rabbi Rabinovich asked, "What value is there to prayer when it hurts the feelings of many and is done in an environment of argument and disagreement?" He added, "It's not for nothing that the rain raged at that time, because the heavens are crying over women who try to harm the Western Wall and the feelings of those [other women] who pray there," and said they should seek what is common and unifying.