The cabinet says its decision is based on the growing diversity…
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JERUSALEM-In a rare instance of a Middle East dispute being resolved by compromise, the Israeli cabinet on Sunday allocated a stretch of Jerusalem’s Western Wall, hitherto reserved exclusively for Orthodox religious practices, to non-Orthodox Jewish denominations to follow their own prayer services as they wish.
The decision preempted a court discussion on a petition filed by Women of the Wall, activists who had insisted on their right to pray in the traditional women’s section, despite the objections of the ultra-Orthodox rabbi who controls the holy site.
The Israeli government has approved the creation of a new prayer space for non-Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, allowing men and women to pray together.
“We applaud Israel’s historic decision”, a joint statement from the Conservative, Reform movements and Jewish Federations in the United States read.
After Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it created a plaza adjacent to the wall, that includes a wide men-only and a smaller women-only prayer section.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem is considered the only standing remnant of the holiest site in Judaism. Most religious rites take place in the men’s section in accordance with centuries-old Orthodox standards that hold sway in Israel.
North American Jewish leaders are praising the vote to create the new arena.
Sharansky was appointed three years ago by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come up with a solution to the pressure to open up Judaism’s holiest site.
“In approving this plan, the state acknowledges women’s full equality and autonomy at the Kotel and the imperative of freedom of choice in Judaism in Israel”, said a spokeswoman from Women on the Wall, which endorsed the plan.
That has forced many Israelis to choose between a secular lifestyle that often ignores Jewish tradition and a stringent religious one dictated by the Orthodox that is often out of sync with democracy and modernity. Since then, a temporary prayer platform was built for Conservative Jews, but they said it was not always available for them to use.
The area will be located at the south of the Western Wall Plaza, near Robinson’s Arch, the area of the Kotel where, in 2013, women were first allowed to wear prayer shawls while praying at the Wall.
More liberal streams of Judaism, which have larger followings outside of the country, object at the restriction. That ruling may even have included a ordering a fully egalitarian prayer area be established at the Kotel proper and stripping the haredi Kotel rabbi of exclusive power over the holy site.
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While the new prayer space is a partnership between religiously liberal Jews and the government, Schonfeld said, “we don’t view this as something the government is doing for the Diaspora. This is my policy”, Netanyahu says. And what we have done is liberate another part of the wall that will be open to all.
