The permanent mixed-gender prayer area will replace the temporary platform and create a new entrance to the Western Wall area so that both Orthodox and non-Orthodox prayer areas will be given equal prominence. The gatherings frequently ended in physical tussles and arrests.
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The new prayer section would enable men and women to pray together in a space comprising hundreds of square metres.
According to the proposed agreement, a new prayer area will be set up along the wall south of the current prayer area. The ultra-Orthodox establishment has significant political power and maintains a monopoly over daily Jewish life.
The Wailing Wall is considered the only standing remnant of the complex that once housed the Jewish Biblical Temple, the holiest site in Judaism. Projected to cost about $9 million, the plaza will be able to accommodate 1,200 worshippers and be officially registered in Israel’s Law of Holy Sites. It will be administered by government officials.
It comes after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ended a year of wrangling and approved the Mendelblit Plan for a third, pluralist prayer section at the Western Wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel. Sharansky and outgoing Israeli Cabinet secretary Avichai Mandelblit led the negotiations, which included representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements, the Heritage Foundation and Women of the Wall.
Traditional and separated men’s and women’s sections will remain at the Wall’s northern end, while the mixed gender section will be situated at its southern end.
“I am gratified that the cabinet voted this plan into existence”, said Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, head of the Rabbinical Assembly, an worldwide association of Conservative rabbis. “That is about to change”, said Rabbis Noa Sattah and Gilad Kariv in a joint statement. They also did not fight it or threaten to bring down the government.
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”.
Jewish groups in Israel and the United States hailed the decision as a historic step toward religious pluralism in Israel.
“We will offer an option to all Israelis and Jews from around the world to express their Judaism”, she said.
The overwhelming majority of affiliated Jews in North America belong to the non-Orthodox Reform and Conservative streams, and their leaders said they had felt increasingly alienated from Israel. It recognises that Judaism is an inclusive religion with a variety of different but valid expressions.
Liberal Jews, whose prayer is egalitarian, also find the religious atmosphere, as well as gender-segregated prayer sections, at the wall inhospitable.
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The Western Wall forms part of a huge compound in the Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram ash-Sharif.
