Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center and the leader of the religiously observant group Women of the Wall, was a guest speaker at a packed Temple Tikvah on Friday evening. Hoffman, who was arrested by Israeli police on July 12, 2010 for praying at the Kotel while reading from the Torah scroll and wearing a tallit, explained the segregation between men and women in Israel and the unjust rule that women aren’t allowed to worship the Torah.

Israel is “The Disneyland of Jews,” as Hoffman put it, yet it is a place where women are unrecognized as worshipers.

“My choice is to be in Israel and to make Israel better,” Hoffman said. “That’s why I’m here — to try to convince you to do everything you can to make Israel better — and there are many things you can do that you don’t do.”

She suggested writing not just a couple of letters or e-mails to the Prime Minister of Israel, but loads of letters to the point where things get uncomfortable and something must be done for a change.

“I am embarrassed to tell you that we have bus lines where women are forced to sit in the very back of the bus,” Hoffman said. “We have gone to court against the bus company and against the administration of transportation and we won last Thursday…It is [now] absolutely illegal to put women in the back of the bus…and there are no segregated buses anymore.”

As the Rosa Parks of Israel, Hoffman has fought hard for women’s rights and she has made progress, but she still needs help.

“If I have one message for you tonight it is, you should do a lot more than you have done and you can do a lot more than you know,” Hoffman said. “I need troops on the ground here; I need a lot more help than I have because other than the unfortunate acronym of IRAC, our organization is the leading organization of issues of religion and state, but I do need a big stick so to speak — and that is you.”

Rabbi Randy Sheinberg, who wouldn’t even be considered a Rabbi in Israel, said Hoffman is a force of justice in the world and a true role model.

“The struggle of women to have equal rights strikes a real chord in a lot of people, particularly those of us who have grown up in the sixties and it’s a very difficult thing,” said Susan Kane of Albertson who attended the program.

Before the service concluded, the Sisters of Temple Tikvah presented pictures of women worshiping the Torah and petitions to Hoffman, made a donation to her cause and gave their word that they had her back in regards to women’s’ struggles in Israel.

If you would like to speak to Anat Hoffman regarding the topics written in this article, please feel free to e-mail her at anat@irac.org or visit www.irac.org.