Israeli PM pushing for liberal Jewish prayer at holy site

The place where a plaza for mixed-gender prayer will be placed at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem’s Old City, Monday, Feb. 1, 2016.

The plan comes after an nearly 30-year struggle by non-Orthodox Jews who have fought for extended rights for women at the holy site, and for mixed services.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the U.S.-based executive vice president of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, called the decision “a very important step”, especially because “there has been no previous acknowledgment of egalitarian Judaism by the Israeli government”. “That is about to change”, said Rabbis Noa Sattah and Gilad Kariv, of the Israel Religious Action Centre and the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, in a statement.

Under the compromise approved by the Cabinet-with the five representatives of Orthodox parties outvoted by 15 non-Orthodox ministers-the existing prayer area will remain unchanged, with separate areas for men and women.

Bennett declined to say whether the decision would lead to additional recognition for religious pluralism in Israel or equal funding for non-Orthodox institutions and rabbis. There is nothing inherently more special about the section of wall where the “Kotel Plaza” is (except that it was exposed before 1967, and other parts of the wall weren’t).

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.

As per agreement, the part governmental Jewish Agency and the Israeli Government will offer the majority of $8.8 million budget spread over a period of two years.

“The vision of the new section of the Kotel is a physical and conceptual space open to all forms of Jewish prayer”, Women of the Wall said in a statement. And it’s going to be next to the section where strict Orthodox Jews pray.

Following the vote, Moshe Gafni, a haredi Orthodox lawmaker who chairs the Israeli Knesset’s powerful Finance Committee, said he would not recognize the decision and called Reform Jews “a group of clowns who stab the holy Torah”. “It’s not appropriate. The Western Wall is a place of unity”, Ariel said on Israeli Army Radio. He said ” it harms the Jewish tradition and will lead to unnecessary conflict”.

The religious-nationalist government past year canceled reforms meant to ease conversion to Judaism, unraveling painstaking efforts by the previous government to weaken the grip of Israel’s Orthodox establishment. Amid the long-simmering tensions, Netanyahu was eager to deliver a tangible result that assuaged American Jewish concerns.

“The most complex problems usually require such solutions”, he said.

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