I was in high school when I went to Indianapolis for my first regional AZA Conference. I almost didn't make it back alive because of what happened that Shabbat. I couldn't believe it when the rabbi called a woman to open the ark. A woman! But that wasn't all. I was shocked when she pulled back a corner of the curtain, pushed a button, a motor began to whir, the curtain parted, lights went on, a choir began to sing; I knew right then and there God would strike me dead for being a part of the revival of the golden calf.
I survived my first encounter with Jewish observance different from what I'd been brought up to believe was the one true form.
My home shul, the one where I was bar mitzva, Agudas Achim, in Columbus, Ohio, was what some today call "conservadox." Men sat on one side, women on the other, separate but equal, and in the middle, true integration.
But it was a long way from egalitarian. Years later, when I became a husband and then had a daughter, I wanted an egalitarian congregation and found one where the rabbi believed and taught that all Jews are created equal. Today egalitarianism is widely practiced throughout the United States, where nearly 90 percent of Jews are non-Orthodox.
Egalitarianism, however, is still a revolutionary concept in the only Jewish state and unless that changes it could drive a further wedge between Israel and American Jewry, which feels increasingly alienated by the excessive influence of the ultra-religious establishment over daily life.
The debate in Israel over keeping women in their place - at the back of the bus, off the stage, dressed properly, seen but not heard (especially if they sing) and, above all, obedient - is about much more than religious practices. It reaches into what kind of country Israel is and wants to be, and its relationship with or alienation from the rest of the Jewish world. Does it want to be a 21st-century democracy or a 17th-century theocracy? It is one thing for the ultra-religious to practice their belief system as they wish among themselves, and something wholly different when they try to impose it on the majority of the society, which is also expected to financially support them because so many do not have jobs or pay taxes.
A poll out this week shows 56% of Israelis support (34% oppose) a Supreme Court ruling that women have the right to pray at the Western Wall "as they see fit," even if some religious groups object.
Women of the Wall holds Rosh Hodesh service the first of every month at the Kotel. And how do the pious religious gentlemen who claim control of the Kotel respond? They spit at the women, throw rocks, curse them, toss chairs, yell and physically assault them. All in the name of God.
Last Friday they bused in hundreds of teenage girls to flood the women's section of the Kotel so the liberal women were forced far away on the plaza. But something had changed. Instead of arresting the women for such heinous crimes as wearing a tallit, the police protected them from assault by those pious, peace-loving holy men.
