Women also need room for prayer

The writer Shmuel Sackett noticed something very troubling during one of his overseas trips to the USA when it comes to how women can pray:

I am writing this article on an EL AL flight back to Israel, having concluded a two-week visit with family and friends. New York - or at least the few parts that I saw - looked the same to me, with one new addition in the frum community that everyone is excited about: The 24 hour “Minyan Factory" which allows you to daven anytime you want. I must admit that these places are extremely convenient and I davened in the “Non-Stop Minyanim" in the Five Towns and also in the brand new one in Monticello on St John St. From mikveh to mincha… and from Kaddish to coffee, these places offer everything Am Yisrael needs… except one. A woman's section. Women are not welcomed in these minyan factories.

How do I know? Simple! I came to daven one morning with my wife (what a rebel!!) and innocently asked where the women’s section is? The gabbai of the Non-Stop Minyanim on Cedarhurst Ave waved his hands - as if to say: “Please don’t ask ridiculous questions"… but I pressed on. “Seriously, my wife wants to daven. Where is there a place for women?" Realizing that I was not joking around he apologized and told me that there are so many men coming to daven that there is just no room for women. I thanked him for his explanation but made sure I got in the last word. “It’s unfortunate how you found room for pizza and sushi but not for women."

The minyan factory in the Catskills was exactly the same. A tremendous amount of money was invested into buying a big house in Monticello, which was renovated from top to bottom. The rooms are big, spacious and clean. There is a beautiful Bet Midrash in the building as well, where guys can sit and learn and there is a mikveh downstairs that is modern and nice. There are coffee machines, vending machines and even a small Judaica store which sells everything a family needs. However, just like the Five Towns, this minyan factory does not have a mechitza, allowing women to daven.

Please don’t misunderstand me. When I write that we need to have a place for women to daven, I am not pushing the agenda of “The Women of the Wall". Those women are not interested in davening, they simply want to fight. Their agenda is to break the religious hold on the Kotel and to water down authentic Tefila with reform Judaism. My words are the complete opposite! I am referring to our holy wives, mothers, sisters and daughters whose power of prayer can pierce the heavens! [...]

What has happened to us? When did we begin to distort concepts - in the name of holiness - that actually drive us away from our Father in Heaven? Am Yisrael desperately needs the tefilot of our Eishet Chayils, women of valor, and we need to welcome them in every shul we build. Countless commentaries and passages in the Talmud teach us that it was because of the women that we left Egypt. We all know that women loved the land of Israel, so were not punished in the sin of the spies and did not die in the desert… only the men! Nothing is purer than the tefilot of women who do not look at their watches (or cellphones) when they daven. They cry when they daven - much more than men - and their heartfelt words penetrate the “Gates of Tears", which have never been locked.

I assume frum alludes to a Haredi community, but whoever's running the store in the neighborhood he speaks of has certainly done it again, and embarrassed Judaism for the sake of selfishness and irresponsibility. That's the precise problem that's already long brought down Orthodox Judaism. Perhaps since this is in New York where this is taking place, that too is why this is regrettably happening, and what if it turns out some of these communities are so leftist they support Zohran Mamdani? One more reason they're being utterly shameful with their exclusion of women even from prayer services.