Some 100 members of the Women of the Wall movement gathered at the Western Wall Plaza for Rosh Hodesh (beginning of the month) prayers on Friday. They were accompanied by heavy security. According to a Walla news report, several ultra-Orthodox men clashed with the group after they concluded their prayer service. The men were removed from the Western Wall Plaza by policemen at the scene. One haredi youth was arrested for spitting at the women and throwing objects at them. No injuries were reported from the incident. The Women of the Wall refused to pray in a newly contracted egalitarian area near Robinson's Arch, just south of the Mughrabi Gate, saying that the space -- which the government is promoting as a solution to the controversy stirred by their presence at the plaza -- is not big enough. Friday's service took place in the women's section of the Western Wall Plaza. Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz was quoted by Walla as saying that he regretted the Women of the Wall's refusal to heed the police request to cancel their service due to the sensitive security situation in the area, and expressed his hopes that the governmental committee Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed on the matter would resolve the issue soon. Meanwhile, thousands of haredi men and women gathered at the Western Wall Friday to pray for the health of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Haredi sources were quoted by Walla as saying that the praying public was instructed to ignore the service held by Women of the Wall, which one of them referred to as "the monthly provocation." The Women of the Wall have been holding a monthly prayer service at the Western Wall for 24 years. They perform religious rituals typically reserved for men under Orthodox Judaism, and some don tallitot, traditional Jewish prayer shawls. The practice has often resulted in arrests of the women and altercations with ultra-Orthodox men and women praying at the site. Ultra-Orthodox leaders, including Rabinowitz, have repeatedly claimed that the Women of the Wall are "disrupting the custom of the place," but in late April, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the group's prayer services were not illegal.
