American Jews have reacted angrily to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government’s decision not to implement the 2016 Western Wall Agreement, which would have established a permanent place for egalitarian prayer at the holy site.
Leaders of the Conservative Movement said in a statement on Sunday, “The persistent denial of religious freedom is contrary to the prime minister and other ministers’ desire to bridge the gap between Israel and World Jewry.” The head of the reform movement in Israel issued a similar statement on Friday.
the decision to postpone the plan was Reported Confirmed by The Times of Israel in December and by Bennett Interview Last week with The Jerusalem Post.
Along with the reactions of the two largest liberal movements in the American Jewish community, it marked the latest flashpoint in a years-long struggle over the place of American Jewish and its more liberal leanings in a Jewish state whose religious life is dominated by the conservative Chief Rabbinet. And whose government is still dominated by the political right.
The agreement was reached in 2016 through meetings between US leaders of liberal Jewish movements and the conservative group controlling the Western Wall plaza and mediated by Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet Refusanik, who then served as the head of the Jewish Agency. was done. The main western wall plaza, which is controlled by an Orthodox foundation, is divided into separate men’s and women’s prayer places, where women are not allowed to read from Torah scrolls, in line with traditional Orthodox practice.
The settlement would have seen a permanent and extended space for egalitarian prayer established at an archaeological site to the south of the traditional prayer site which is actually a continuation of the wall. Signs leading to the main western wall plaza would also have directed visitors to the egalitarian site, which currently consists of a raised platform that allows visitors to access a small section of the actual wall.
But in 2017, facing pressure from his ultra-conservative coalition partners opposing the deal, then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrapped the deal. When Bennett’s coalition came to power earlier this year, the deal was expected to be renegotiated. But despite the absence of ultra-Orthodox parties in the current coalition, Bennett and Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana decided not to implement the Western Wall Agreement.
Then-education minister Naftali Bennett makes a statement at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on December 25, 2016. (hadas man/flash 90, file)
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Bennett said that his government could not act on the agreement due to a lack of consensus on the issue within the coalition.
“Not all of our dreams will come true in this government,” Bennett said.
In a statement shared on Facebook Friday, Israel Reform Movement CEO Anna Kislansky questioned whether Bennett’s government was different from the Netanyahu government.
“It is both incensing and disturbing when the prime minister of a ‘change government’, in which all heads of his coalition are committed to implementing the Western Wall accord, bow down to extremist factions that object to the agreement and its implementation. with the former prime minister,” Kislansky said.
Anna Kislansky (courtesy)
Conservative leaders’ statements, which included heads of essentially all Conservative Jewish organizations, said they “feel betrayed.”
“It is unconscionable that Prime Minister Bennett has shelved these plans in light of the fact that, with most ministers in the current government and the MK, who agree with the implementation, most Israelis also believe that free will for all Jews. There should be access. To pray at the Western Wall according to their custom. It is unimaginable that the government of Israel would continue to curtail the freedom of prayer and equal rights for all Jews,” he said.