A plan to reduce tensions at the Western Wall has lost support following a recent court ruling that said women praying out loud in prayer shawls at the site are not disturbing the public order and should not be arrested.
After Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, made the plan public a few weeks ago, it received at least tacit approval from a range of activists, but now both Orthodox and non-Orthodox leaders are saying they no longer support it.
The plan would expand the egalitarian section of the Western Wall Plaza, called Robinson’s Arch, and create a unified entrance to the Wall’s traditional and egalitarian sections. It is meant as a compromise between haredi Orthodox leaders who want to maintain exclusive control of the site and religious pluralism activists who want it open to egalitarian prayer at all times.
Now, prominent figures on either side of the issue have withdrawn their endorsements after the April 25 court decision concluding that prayer in the existing women’s section of the Western Wall does not contravene the law.
Anat Hoffman, head of Women of the Wall, backed off her earlier support for the compromise, saying it is no longer “relevant to our needs.”
The recent court ruling, Hoffman said, “allows Women of the Wall to pray how we always wished, with women of all denominations in the women’s section, with our prayer shawls and Torah and shofar.”
Meanwhile, a statement from the office of Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said Orthodox leaders needed to consider whether to oppose the solution. Rabinowitz earlier had said he could “live with” it.
“We must, along with the Chief Rabbinate and other great rabbis, examine if we should oppose the proposal referring to Robinson’s Arch, which is not part of the Western Wall synagogue, if this would be a solution acceptable to everyone,” the statement said.
Sharansky had formulated the compromise plan in large part because of the controversy surrounding Women of the Wall, the prayer group whose members have been arrested or detained nearly every month for wearing prayer shawls at the Wall — a practice that was said to violate Israeli law requiring respect for “local custom” at the site.
Protests over the arrests from Jewish communities outside Israel led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask Sharansky to come up with a solution.
“We have three options,” Hoffman said. “To reject Sharansky’s plan, to embrace Sharansky’s plan, or to say that right now it is not relevant for Women of the Wall. It’s completely not relevant for us. Our victory in court means that our place is safe.”
Hoffman, who noted that the plan’s specifics are not yet known, said her group includes Orthodox women who would object to praying in an egalitarian prayer space.
“As a group that is multidenominational, we want to be sensitive to every member of our group,” she said.
Neither Rabinowitz nor Sharansky could be reached for immediate comment.
Women of the Wall will meet on Friday, May 10 for its monthly service. The group has announced that, following the court decision, a member would read from the Torah in the women’s section, something the group has not done for a decade.