Sitting in his office 20 feet above the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz is unperturbed by the simmering tensions below.
For years, Israeli and American Jewish groups have agitated for greater religious freedom at the Wall, which currently allows for only Orthodox worship. Occasionally the outrage boils over.
In October, Israeli police arrested Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall, which organizes monthly women’s services at the holy site, for wearing a prayer shawl.
As the chief rabbi of the Kotel and chair of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the government-funded nonprofit that governs the site, Rabinowitz has sole authority to accommodate liberal Jewish practices. But as a haredi Orthodox rabbi, Rabinowitz refuses to abide any deviation from traditional Jewish law, which prohibits women from singing aloud, reading the Torah and wearing a tallit at the Kotel. Violations are punishable by up to six months in prison or a fine of about $125.
“The decisions are mine,” Rabinowitz said. “If everyone does their own custom, the house will explode.”
Rabinowitz is a political appointee, named to his post in 2000 by then–Minister of Religious Affairs Yossi Beilin. His authority stems from a 1981 law that gives the Kotel’s chief rabbi power to “give instructions and ensure the enforcement of restrictions.” The law also establishes that any prayer at the Kotel must be according to “local custom.”
Who determines local custom? Rabinowitz.
Rabinowitz further exercises authority through the heritage foundation. Founded in 1988 to promote tourism and support the Kotel’s physical upkeep, it is now a government subsidiary, given full authority over the Kotel’s administration in 2004. Last year, it received nearly $8.5 million in government funds, the bulk of its budget. The foundation’s 15-member board includes no non-Orthodox representatives and steadfastly has resisted attempts to legalize non-Orthodox worship.
“The body which has been given the keys of the Kotel by the Israeli government is a nondemocratic, nonelected body,” said Lesley Sachs, Women of the Wall’s director. “It’s not a body that gives any kind of representation to world Jewry or Israeli Jewry. They have turned [the Kotel] into a haredi synagogue.”
Critics charge that Rabinowitz has carte blanche to do what he likes, but the rabbi insists he doesn’t “change things.” He mere- ly applies millennia-old Jewish laws.
“This is the order that’s been there for 45 years,” he said, referring to the period since 1967, when Israel took back the Western Wall from Jordanian control.
Before then, things were different. Photos from the British Mandate period show worshippers praying at the Wall without a mechitzah, the religious divider that splits the plaza into separate sections for men and women. But Rabinowitz says the photos are meaningless, since the Wall wasn’t under Jewish sovereignty at the time.
Rabinowitz calls the Kotel “the biggest synagogue in the world,” and it’s almost certainly the busiest, with 8 million visitors annually. They include Women of the Wall, which has met at the back of the women’s section at the beginning of every new Jewish month since 1988. Over the years, the group has faced arrest and occasional harassment, and has not succeeded in changing the 1981 law, despite several attempts. Israel’s Supreme Court repeatedly has rejected the group’s petitions for a change in local custom, most recently in 2003. In that ruling, the court suggested that the group pray at Robinson’s Arch, an area adjacent to the Kotel that is open to non-Orthodox prayer. The group rejected the option.
Now the Israel Religious Action Center, an advocacy group headed by Hoffman and affiliated with the American Union for Reform Judaism, plans to petition the Supreme Court to mandate a change in the makeup of the foundation’s board. While Rabinowitz would still hold ultimate Jewish legal authority over the Kotel, it is hoped the board can provide a check on his power.
It’s unclear whether this latest effort will gain traction.