Shria Pruce, the PR director of Women of the Wall, has gone into defensive mode over multiple articles accusing the group of being interlinked with Anti-Israel organizations.
The past week’s McCarthy-esque crusade against Women of the Wall, accusing the organization as having a hidden, “anti-Israel” agenda, is no more than a desperate attempt to besmirch our loyalty to the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
The guilt-by-association plea, to suggest that we intend to harm the state because of leaders’ affiliation with certain organizations, is worthy of Joe McCarthy at his most evil and is an insult to the intelligence of Women of the Wall supporters.
Pruce does not actually address the actual debate over the organizations that the leaders of Women of the Wall are tied to. Instead, she accuses critics of being “evil” and in a breathtaking leap claims…
The libelous allegations have nothing to do with Women of the Wall. Women of the Wall cannot be anti-Israel- not only because we are a non-partisan, registered Israeli NGO
Actually Women of the Wall shares a mailing address and leadership with another, quite partisan organization, and its foreign donations go through the New Israel Fund, an even more partisan and far more Anti-Israel group.
We cannot be anti-Israel because in our diversity and our pluralism we ARE Israel. We are left and right and center.
Actually WOW’s leaders appear to come from the left. Pruce proves this, unintentionally, by trying to list its board in reverse order and whitewashing their bios.
“Anat Hoffman was born in Israel, represented Israel as a champion swimmer and served as an makit in the IDF,” Shria Pruce writes.
Anat’s swimming days are long behind her. More recently than that she was involved in Women in Black.
“Leora Bechor made aliyah and as a lawyer she has championed the rights of individuals, minorities in Israel, as well as clerking in the National Office of the Public Defender and the Department of International Affair in the Ministry of Justice,” Pruce writes.
Leora Bechor’s “championing of the rights of minorities” involved denouncing Israel to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Here a document with her name on it charges Israel with the “the unilateral and illegal annexation of East Jerusalem”.
Perhaps Bechor should stop being a hypocrite and stay out of East Jerusalem.
“Batya Kallus, whose good name has been besmirched in the media this past week, is a philanthropic advisor for foundations which support many projects in Israeli civil society (all legal, registered Israeli NGOs), with a special focus on civil rights, social justice, democracy and improving educational and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged in Israel,” Pruce writes.
Read that as NGOs that campaign against Israel, deny its right to exist as a Jewish State and promote hostile activities against it.
“I am Shira Pruce. Before making aliyah at the age of 22, I traveled the US and Canada helping students combat anti-Israel activity on college campuses and founded the Zionist campus movement, Israel Inspires.”
That much is true, but Pruce leaves out her work with the Anti-Israel New Israel Fund. And she brushes over her own political sympathies.
“Hadash: This is an attempt to build a party with Arabs and Jews. They have a very intersting mix of Arab and Jewish men and women, activsts running on their list. Very left wing and a very important voice that needs to be heard in the wake of the war we are still recovering from.”
More accurately Hadash is the Communist Party. It’s Anti-Israel to put it mildly. And here’s Pruce’s more current political outlook.
When I started out as a campus activist in 2001, I felt the need to defend Israel and make sure that Jewish students could feel proud to be associated with Israel and the Jewish community. I support Israel’s right to defend her citizens, when attacked, even though I don’t think that war accomplishes anything in terms of peace.
On campus, I did not want the claims of “Israel is an apartheid state” and “Zionism = racism” to label Jewish students. I also knew that those toxic, provocative slogans did nothing to serve Palestinian advocacy…
My past as an activists for Jewish students and Israel doesn’t mean I can’t criticize Israel. Now, working in an organization that teaches me more on a daily basis about co-existence and existing inequality than I could ever have learned on my own, and living, voting as an Israeli, I know that as a responsible citizen, I must criticize Israel. Like this controversial NYT Op Ed suggests, I too love to “hate” Israel
Women of the Wall. It’s the most patriotic Israeli organization ever.





















