GROUP OF AMERICAN RABBIS INCLUDING WOMEN PRAY NEAR WAILING WALL, 1999-02-01 (photo)

Rabbi Deborah Hirsch (C,R) from Manhattan, New York, and Rabbi Sharon Sobel, from Stamford, Conn. (3rd from Left) join in a group prayer held by some 33 American Rabbis from the Reform and Conservative movements marking the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat February 1. Israeli police had to provide continuous protection to the American rabbis as some 100 ultra-orthodox hassidic Jews heckled the group holding their prayers in a fenced-off area on the Wailing Wall plaza but some distance away from the Wall, Judaism's holiest site. The American group of Rabbis have linked aid given to Israeli political candidates with that candidate's declaration of religtious pluralism. jwh/Photo by Jim Hollander REUTERS