Abstract
Women of the Wall (WOW) is an international community of women who, since 1988, have sought the freedom to conduct women-led Torah services in the women’s section at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The group has been at the center of a controversy raises several complex issues. Its legal claims and political strategies raise questions about women’s rights to equality within Judaism and under Israeli law, the nature of religious toleration for non-Orthodox Jewish movements, and Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. The decades of violent opposition to WOW highlights the role of tradition and patriarchy at the heart of Jewish nationhood, but WOW’s success in turning around Israeli public opinion, winning international support, and succeeding in court has expanded the horizon for religious feminism.