American Jews Rally in Support of Anat Hoffman
The Jerusalem Post reports that on Thursday, American Jews held a rally in support of Anat Hoffman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Close to 50 protesters, among them a dozen rabbis, warned the Israeli government on Thursday that the recent arrest of a woman carrying a Torah at the Kotel risked alienating American Jewry.
“I’m a proud Zionist, and I’m in love with Israel,” said Rabbi Jonathan Roos, addressing a crowd standing outside the Israeli Embassy in 90ºF (32ºC) heat. But he said the July 13 arrest of Anat Hoffman “sullies the entire Zionist enterprise.”
Another demonstrator, Washington lawyer Rebecca Sendor-Israel, said, “I love Israel, and I’m scared of what the Israel that I love is becoming.”
The arrest of Hoffman, a leader of the Reform Movement in Israel, comes at a delicate time in Israeli-Diaspora relations, as members of the American community have mobilized to oppose a conversion bill in the Knesset that would anchor in law Orthodox rabbis’ control over the process in Israel.
It was an Orthodox rabbi, however, who organized Thursday’s protest, in part to show that many Orthodox Jews embrace the right of women to hold Torah scrolls, and oppose Hoffman’s arrest.
“This is the greatest desecration of God’s name, the fact that Jews arrested other Jews for holding a Torah,” Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Washington’s National Synagogue said. “According to Jewish law, a woman is permitted to hold a Torah scroll.”
At Thursday’s rally, Herzfeld called on Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to denounce the arrest.
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