Western Wall Rabbi Now Opposes Egalitarian Prayer Plan
Sharing the Holy City: Observant Jews pray in mourning for Tisha B?Av at the Western Wall Image by getty images
The Western Wall rabbi withdrew his support for a deal establishing a separate egalitarian prayer section at the holy site.
Shmuel Rabinowitz in a letter Monday urged ultra-Orthodox party leaders to introduce legislation to cancel the Jan. 31 deal and a 2013 district court ruling allowing the Women of the Wall group to pray in the main Orthodox section of the wall, Haaretz reported.
“I call upon you to act with the same determination to stop the holy site desecration at the Western Wall, whose spiritual damage is beyond imagination,” he wrote, according to Haaretz.
“For years I have stood alone in the struggle” against modern streams of Judaism, including Women of the Wall, seeking prayer rights at the site, Haaretz reported Rabinowitz writing. Women of the Wall have “now gone too far, they are seeking to tear down the wall and the people of Israel into bits and pieces.”
The deal expands the Wester Wall’s existing non-Orthodox prayer section and creates a shared entrance with the Orthodox main section to its north. Women of the Wall, which holds women’s services in the Orthodox section, is to eventually move to the non-Orthodox section as part of the deal — which is backed by the Reform and Conservative movements, the Israeli government and the wall’s haredi management.
Israel’s chief rabbis, Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau, oppose the deal, as does Religious Services Minister David Azoulay, who has called Reform Jews “a disaster for the people of Israel.”
Also Monday, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri told Channel 2 that his Shas party would not sit in a government that recognizes the Reform movement.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
