Video Response

I thought that the video today was interesting. When I was in Jerusalem during the winter break, we went to the Kotel (Western Wall) and I was able to see how it was sectioned off for men and women and I can remember thinking how it seemed odd that the wall, one of the most sacred landmarks in the world for the Jewish people, was sectioned so that women had a little piece of the wall to go up to and the men had a long stretch of it followed by an entrance to the left where you could go inside and see the tunnels. I agreed with the speaker from the video who said that the traditions did not need to be lost, but need to adapt to include all Jews, which include women. We were also at a Kibbutz where we had Shabbat services and the Reform Rabbi was a woman. I have been to few Shabbat services, but I thought that this one was very nice. What was interesting was that a girl next to me said, "I am all for women's rights and everything, but I have had a male Rabbi my whole life and having services with a women just isn't the same for me..." There was another part of the trip, which I was reminded of from the video we watched today. I am referring to the part where we saw how the woman was segregated from the group of men, behind a sheet or curtain, while singing, and she was interviewed on how that made her feel. Back to the Israel trip, we visited a mosque in Ein Rafa where we saw a section enclosed with cloth. Someone from the group asked why that was and the man who was answering questions and talking to the group about how Islam works and its role in Israel and the world answered that the women had to pray in a different section because if the men saw them during prayer, it could distract them, giving them impure thoughts and disturbing the state in which they need to be in to respectfully pray, that it was not being sexist. This seems different from the situation addressed in the video, but it made me wonder: If in the mosque they separate women from men to keep them in a pure state during prayer... couldn't there also be a good reason why there is separation in Judaism?