BREAKING NEWS

Pluralist groups warn government over foot-dragging on Western Wall deal

The Reform and Masorti (Conservative) Movements in Israel, together with other pluralist groups, including Orthodox organizations, are reviving a petition to the High Court of Justice against the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, as a warning shot against any effort to water-down the plan to upgrade the pluralist section at the southern end of the Western Wall.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he was asking his bureau chief to find solutions to the intense opposition expressed by the haredi coalition partners to the deal, who have threatened measures against the government unless it is revised.
Leaders of the non-Orthodox denominations in Israel and the US are concerned that this may constitute an attempt to dilute the plans for the pluralist prayer area and its management, and have warned that if the government was to back away from the agreement it would cause severe harm to relations between the state and Diaspora Jewry.
The petition in question was filed in 2013 by the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, along with Women of the Wall, the Masorti Movement, the Center For Women’s Justice, Hiddush, Kolech - Religious Women’s Forum, and the Yaacov Herzog Center, an Orthodox educational institute.