The subject of women praying at the Kotel became an issue only after the Six-Day War of 1967 (“Guilty Of Praying,” Editorial, Dec. 11).
Looking at the early 19th-century work of the famous Charles Wilson, we see sketches depicting men praying alongside women at the Western Wall. In 1959, when I was able to visit the Kotel at the sufferance of the Jordanians, there was no distinction made between men and women praying there.
After the 1967 victory the narrow space near the Kotel was enlarged and cleared to make a plaza for security considerations; later in the year I was amongst the men and women who flocked to the wall. In 1968, rabbis gained control of the Kotel and instituted rules to make women second-class Jews in their reverence for our Wall of Tears.
Rabbi Rabinowitz should search his soul before defaming Nofrat Frankel, if what The Jewish Week reported is what he actually said.
Manhattan
