On Tuesday, as early morning light illumines the glass-domed courtyard of Rodef Shalom Congregation in Shadyside, a service will be held in solidarity with women who have endured harassment and arrest for holding organized prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall.

"We're doing this so the women in Israel will feel supported in the cause of equal access for women at the wall," said Rabbi Sharyn Henry, an associate at the Reform synagogue. "They are not trying to pray on the men's side. We are only looking for women to have a place to pray on the women's side" of the wall.

The Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, is the only accessible remnant of the Jewish temple that the Romans destroyed in 70 AD. People come from all over the world to pray there.

Israel recognizes it as a synagogue, which means it is governed by Orthodox tradition. That required separate areas for men and women. Prayer on the women's side was generally private, since it isn't commonly accepted Orthodox practice for women to lead prayer or read the Torah aloud in public.

But in December 1988 a group of 70 Jewish women first came to pray together and read the Torah aloud at the wall. They represented all branches of Judaism, including Orthodoxy. Some wore the yarmulkes and fringed prayer shawls that men wear to synagogues. They began to pray at every New Moon, a holiday that begins each month on the Jewish religious calendar.

Although the Torah commands all Jews to observe the New Moon, rabbinical tradition made it a special day for women, when they were freed from work. So it was chosen for prayer at the wall.

But the sight of women in prayer shawls, reading aloud from the Torah, angered some groups in Jerusalem's influential ultra-Orthodox minority. The women have had chairs hurled at them and had their prayers disrupted by ultra-Orthodox women.

After the Women of the Wall sought legal protection, Israel's Supreme Court decreed that they couldn't hold services at the wall itself, and ordered the government to build a prayer site for them nearby. The controversy is entwined in a larger effort by Reform and Conservative Jews to have the government recognize their marriages, divorces and conversions, not just those of the Orthodox.

Anat Hoffman, a founder of Women of the Wall and executive director of the Reform public affairs office in Israel, has compared the order to pray elsewhere to the "separate but equal" slogan of Jim Crow America.

When 200 Women of the Wall went to the wall in November, a 25-year-old medical student was arrested for participating. In January Ms. Hoffman was detained and fingerprinted after praying there with other women. She said that as they prayed, some ultra-Orthodox called them Nazis.

Last year Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, called the women "stupid," accusing them of political, not spiritual, motives.

"These are deviants who serve equality, not Heaven," he said, in a widely publicized sermon.

The Women of the Wall argue that their opponents aren't representative of Orthodoxy. Some Orthodox synagogues allow women's prayer groups.

Tuesday morning's service at 7 a.m. at Rodef Shalom is open to all women and men who want to show support for the Women of the Wall. It is the New Moon -- Rosh Hodesh -- for Nissan, the month in which Passover falls.

"Passover is the celebration of our freedom and I thought it was a perfect time to use our freedom to stand alongside the women of Israel, who don't have that freedom," Rabbi Henry said.

Other Pittsburgh groups have also honored the Women of the Wall. During a Women of Reform Judaism assembly in November, they were presented with a Torah donated by Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill.

"I know that there are a lot of people in Pittsburgh who support the idea of religious pluralism in Israel. I'm hoping we can gather them together," Rabbi Henry said.

The Women of the Wall are on Facebook and at www.womenofthewall.blogspot.com.

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