A struggle for the character of the Western Wall, this city's iconic Jewish holy site and central place of worship, is under way, and it is being fought with prayer shawls and Torah scrolls. On Friday, sheets of rain obscured the Old City's ancient domes. But by 7 a.m. about 150 Jewish women had gathered at the Western Wall to pray and to challenge the constraints imposed on them by traditional Jewish Orthodoxy and a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court. Under their coats many of the women, supporters of a group of religious activists called Women of the Wall, wore a tallit, or fringed prayer shawl, a ritual garment traditionally worn only by men. Some wore their prayer shawls openly, an illegal act in this particular setting that can incur a fine or several months in jail. Last month Nofrat Frenkel, 28, an Israeli medical student and a committed follower of Conservative Judaism, a modern, egalitarian strain, was the first woman in Israel to be arrested during prayers at the Western Wall, also known as the Kotel, for publicly wrapping herself in a tallit. The police accused her of acting provocatively and in a way that upset public order. Frenkel said the investigation was still under way. The Women of the Wall, who meet for prayers at the Kotel at the start of every Hebrew month, are at the vanguard of a feminist struggle in Orthodox Judaism and other more contemporary strains to adapt time-honored religious practice for the modern age. They came in droves on Friday, the first day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, to express their outrage over Frenkel's case. The group's activities present a head-on challenge to the religious establishment, which is dominated in Israel by Orthodox rabbis who interpret and apply the rules of religious law in their strictest form. The Kotel is defined in Israel as a national and holy site that is open to all. In practice, the women say, it operates like an Orthodox synagogue, with separate prayer sections for men and women and a modesty patrol to ensure that visitors are appropriately dressed. Traditional Orthodox women pray individually, and quietly, by the Kotel's massive beige stones, a remnant of the retaining wall of the mount revered by Jews as the site where their ancient temples once stood. Critics of the Women of the Wall say that their practices -- like holding organized prayers, singing out loud, carrying a Torah scroll and wearing prayer shawls -- offend the more traditional worshipers at the site. 