Yochi Rappeport was born in Safed and raised in the Orthodox environment of the Old City of her birth.

 

Upon turning 18, Yochi was drafted to the Israel Defense Forces where she served as a commander in the Nativ Military Course - teaching Judaism and Zionism to new immigrants and non-Jewish soldiers.

 

Following her military service, Yochi studied Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at Bar Ilan University. After graduating, she served as an executive assistant at an Israeli news agency.

 

Yochi joined Women of the Wall in 2016 as Director of Education and Community Outreach. Yochi, with her vast pedagogical and halachic knowledge, dedicated herself to educating and inspiring the Israeli public about WOW’s mission to achieve gender equality and religious pluralism.

 

In 2019, after expanding WOW's educational activities to more than 3,000 people a year – including 2,000 students - Yochi was appointed Executive Director of the organization.

 

Yochi's identity as an Orthodox woman and feminist shows that a woman may indeed possess both attributes. Married and the mother of toddler girl, Yochi strives to make Jerusalem and Israel more tolerant places for her daughter’s generation and beyond.

 

Women of the Wall, (Neshot Hakotel  הכותל נשות in Hebrew) is a group of Jewish women from Israel and around the world who strive to achieve the right to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem, Israel. The Western Wall is Judaism’s most sacred holy site and the principal symbol of Jewish peoplehood and sovereignty, and Women of the Wall works to make it a holy site where women can pray freely. Women of the Wall is comprised of women from all denominations of Judaism – Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Masorti, Renewal and Reconstructionist.