Joshua Mitnick, in his article covering the May 10 prayers and protest at the Kotel (“Tensions Seen Mounting on Prayer At Wall, May 17”), reported that “the protests on Friday brought out only a small fraction of the ultra-Orthodox constituency.”
Ten thousand women wake up at the crack of dawn in order to be at the Kotel by 6:30 a.m. and yet he disregards the crowds as only a “small fraction.” You know who the small fraction was? The only 100 or so Women of the Wall [holding a service where women read from the Torah and wear prayer shawls].
Mitnick wrote that rocks and bottles were thrown “from within an angry crowd of several thousand ultra-Orthodox protesters.”
Which one is it, Mr. Mitnick: a “small fraction” or “several thousand angry protesters”?
Rocks and bottles were unfortunately thrown from within a crowd by maybe 25-50 angry protesters. And that indeed is only a small fraction of the ultra-Orthodox constituency. The several thousand present were not protesters, but simply devout people who came to pray at the Kotel in the manner in which Jews have been coming to pray there for centuries — even when doing so involved risk of life. They represent the overwhelming majority of Jews who value Jewish unity, peace and the distinguished and unique role that only women can fulfill in Judaism.
