The “Women of the Wall” is a multi-denominational Jewish feminist group that seeks legal permission to perform, at the women’s section, practices reserved solely for men under the current arrangements at the Western Wall; namely to pray collectively and read aloud from a Torah scroll while wearing fringed prayer shawls. Historical surveys of prayer practices at the Western Wall in fact show that several gender-related arrangements currently in place at the site are not actually traditional. Most noticeably, perhaps, is the gender divider. This photograph, by Felix Bonfils, as do an abundance of other documentations from the late 19th and early 20th century, illustrates the lack of a formally organized and constant separation of men and women at the Western Wall. The two sexes were frequently depicted together, at times only a few feet away from each other. Gender separation practiced at the Western Wall today, therefore, stems from relatively late modifications to the prayer arrangements that had been maintained at the site for centuries.