Police are investigating threats against Israel's chief rabbis warning the two to allow a women's prayer group to have equal worship rights at the Western Wall. Letters were sent individually to Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. A television station showed one of the notes, which included a picture of a pistol in the lower right-hand corner. "If Women of the Wall are not allowed to pray at the Western Wall their own way and by their customs, we will fight for them by all possible means, and you will return home with a hundred haredi corpses. Your end is near. Dosim [ultra-Orthodox people] are putrid, disgusting parasites," the letter -- which was titled "This is your last warning" -- read. The Women of the Wall group, which has angered ultra-Orthodox Jews by wearing prayer shawls and reading from holy scriptures at the Western Wall, denied any involvement in the letters to the rabbi. It released a statement saying it was "saddened" by the remarks. The group said the author was "posing" as an activist on behalf of Women of the Wall, adding that "all those involved and educated on the subject know that there is no connection between the content and style of these letters and the spirit of nonviolence, tolerance and acceptance that drive Women of the Wall. Police said a criminal investigation may eventually be launched. Last month, threatening slogans were daubed on walls near the home of group member Peggy Cidor, one of which said, "Your time is up." The prayer issue is at the heart of a social struggle between Israel's non-Orthodox majority and an ultra-Orthodox minority in a country where most religious ritual and institutions that oversee marriage, divorce and burial are controlled by Orthodox authorities.
Below is a video of Israel Hayom editors discussing the issue:
In Orthodox Jewish tradition, such rituals are generally limited to men, and some more conservative rabbis have vowed to battle a plan devised by Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky to try to accommodate the women's more liberal approach to prayer.