The shrines of Jerusalem’s Old City have been known throughout centuries as, among other things, tinderboxes of inter-religious bickering, violence, and bloodshed. On Friday at the Western Wall, several hundred female Jewish worshipers known as “Women of the Wall’’ were targeted by rock and bottle throwing from a crowd of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators outraged by their use of prayer shawls and phylacteries traditionally restricted to men.The worst thing is that you know there is a very good chance that most of the women who were so determined to "worship" there are atheists, or at the most, pagans who don't even believe in the Jewish God.
The image at the Western Wall evoked scenes of civil rights struggles form the 1960s. Some 500 Israeli police officers on hand formed a human barrier between the women worshipers and the surging crush of demonstrators, who taunted the women and blew whistles to drown out the worship.
Police said that about 2,000 ultra-Orthdox women initially arrived at the prayer site at the urging of rabbis in order to block the Women of the Wall group from reaching the massive stones. The peak of tension came after the hour long prayer service, as the women exited the Western Wall plaza and boarded armored buses, which were then pelted by rock throwing and spitting ultra-Orthodox demonstrators.
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