(Here’s another post about my Birthright Israel trip)

One of the highlights for any Jew visiting Israel is the obligatory visit to the Western Wall (a.k.a The Kotel, or the Wailing Wall). This has been hailed as one of the holiest sites, for Jews and people of other faiths, in the world. In other words, it’s a Thing. My personal understanding of it was that it stands for the persecution of Jews over centuries, and also Jewish resilience and pride. I was ready to go to it and experience an overwhelming feeling of Jewish shared history and shared identity, but I was also unsure that I would feel anything at all.

What I wasn’t prepared for was a feeling of anger and isolation. I guess in the back of my mind, I knew that the Kotel was divided by gender. Jewish men, specifically Hasidim and the most religious Jewish men, have different obligations than Jewish women. Judaism (like most organized religions, maybe?) has a history of gender segregation. Many synagogues are still divided by gender, and some probably still don’t allow women. Clearly, I’m uninformed. And I grew up as a reform Jew whose rabbis often changed “he” to “god” when referring to Adonai. We say the Amidah with all the foremother’s names too, which my Israeli security guard friend would fascinating.

I need to say that I understand Judaism is more complicated than how I’m seeing it. And that my feelings about all this are incomplete and sometimes ill-informed. I know that I have no place to feel like Jewish women are “oppressed” and that there is a lot of privilege-play going on to even write this post. I know. I think I know. But my feelings upon arriving at the Kotel were feelings of sadness, and they were my own.

I’m making a life for myself that hinges on feminism. I am all about this. This critique of power, this critical feminist lens, this goal of making the world a more just place. It’s what I am about. And I’ve created a sort of insular life for myself, I know. My twitter feed isn’t the world. My friends, who are all or mostly self-identified feminists, are not the rest of the country. But I felt overwhelmed at the Kotel, with thousands of people who just seem to didn’t see the problem the way I did.

The wall is divided by gender, and not equally. Women get a fraction of the wall, probably 20% or so. Maybe a quarter. This wall is a symbol, for many people. But for me, it was a tangible, living reminder of inquality. It was more than symbol, it was actual. The division of the wall, a place where women get a fraction of what men get, in a world that mirrors that. And it was compounded by the idea that this was the holiest place; a place where I was supposed to feel it all. How can I feel it if I don’t get it? If it’s not for me?

My feelings of Jewish community were largely overshadowed by my feelings of frustration. My tears at the wall were not about my Jewish Homecoming and the Promised Land, they were overtly about sexism and division. My feelings of isolation weren’t just about feeling separated from the men (and the men in our group, who were my new friends), but also about feeling isolated from the world. How can this sight be the most holy sight, with this huge gaping problem that I see? How can I feel united by Jewish identity at a place where I felt I was the only one angered by what I felt is a glaring fatal flaw? How can everyone else be OK with this?

We went to the wall twice, and both times I was visibly upset. My new friends were slightly dismissive in trying to be helpful; they basically said I should enjoy it like everyone else. That’s a familiar feeling — that something is wrong with me for pointing these things out and being a “feminist killjoy.” Just dance! It’s Kabbalat Shabbat! One of my peers said she liked the division, and that it wasn’t about the male gaze when we were dancing with each other to welcome Shabbat. Later in the trip, I mentioned my uneasiness about the Kotel to our tour guide, and he said that I was letting something small overshadow something big. That my fervent passion for gender equality isn’t what it’s about. I was missing the point.

I took a voice record of my thoughts at the time, at the wall, before meeting back with the group. I talked about how I don’t feel religion the way these people do. I even said “Privilege isn’t the same thing as God.” I talked about how the wall felt dead to me, how everyone else was experiencing it and I wasn’t feeling the same things. I sound insecure, and I say that maybe these people have something I don’t have. Of course, I’m sure there are people that share my trepidations, but for some reason I’m someone who can’t put them away. I say that this wall is a “big thing.” But the one thing I keep saying it “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”