Sivan Rahav meir
Sivan Rahav meirצילום: ללא קרדיט

The picture taken during the British Mandate of men and women standing together at the Western Wall once again surfaced in recent days. Journalists and politicians were quick to share it to prove that "once upon a time there was tolerance here and now, only extremism."

This annoyed a young history student, who sent me the following: "First of all, there is no prohibition for men and women to stand together. Segregation is only required during a prayer service at the Western Wall or when people are dancing and singing. Nevertheless, a brief history lesson will not harm all the populists."

He sent me many historical testimonies concerning a fascinating struggle about gender segregation at the Western Wall, which began during the Ottoman rule over Jerusalem. The Arab enemy claimed that the Jews did not have any rights to the Western Wall, and certainly did not have permission to pray there in accordance with their customs.

One of the edicts issued by the Ottomans forbade placing a partition at the Western Wall, which caused a wave of protest among the Jews. Hebrew newspapers from 1911 reported that Arab rioters physically assaulted Jews during Rosh Hashana prayers, forcing the Jews to remove the partition.

Later on, the infamous 1929 riots broke out because of a partition that was set up to separate men and women during Yom Kippur prayers. Hundreds of Jews decided to ignore the rulings of the governing body and set up a partition, infuriating the Muslims. At 6:30 am on Yom Kippur morning, British policemen arrived to destroy the partition.

The Jewish world in Israel and the Diaspora was up in arms. This is no exaggeration. Jews from countries all over the world protested to the League of Nations about the event. The angry headline of the Doar HaYom newspaper, headed by the revivor of the Hebrew language Eliezer Ben Yehuda, screamed out: "Scandal at the Western Wall. Holiness of Yom Kippur in Jerusalem profaned by the Police." (Note, this did not appear in the haredi Hamodia newspaper). The newspaper article reports that Dr. Magnus and Yitzhak Ben Zvi lodged a formal complaint with the British Governor. The Jewish Agency (Note, not the Chief Rabbinate) issued a strongly-worded protest and called for the prayers to be held in accordance with Jewish tradition.

The protest said that the worrying incident "has made a terrible impact on the entire Jewish world." In his memoirs, Douglas Duff, the British officer responsible for removing the partition, recalled: "It was my bad luck to be the one in charge of the soldiers who removed a temporary prayer partition separating the men and women."

"The Jewish population in Jerusalem considered me to be a thorn in their side. Wherever I went I was met with extreme hostility."

Professor David Yellin gathered material for the special international committee set up to deal with the issue. He wrote that the sources proved that segregation between men and women at this holy site had been in practice for two thousand years. However, the British Mandate tended to favor the Arabs and ruled that no bench, chair, stool or partition would be permitted in the Western Wall prayer section.

So the Jewish community instituted a new tradition.

Rabbi Yitzhak Orenstein, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, became a human partition. He stood in one spot for hours on end, studying from a book. People who came to pray knew that men would stand to his right and women to his left. When the British soldiers offered him a chair to sit, he said: "According to your orders, my Jewish brethren may not sit on a chair here. So I too refuse to sit."

These are facts, presented without expressing any interpretation or opinion. We may argue, but let us not distort history.