The government under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted the so-called “Kotel compromise” formulated by then-Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky in early 2016. Under the deal, a non-Orthodox egalitarian prayer section for men and women was to be created at the southern end of the Western Wall.
Under pressure from haredi parties in the coalition, however, the government abandoned the plan on June 25, 2017, much to the chagrin of non-Orthodox movements and Diaspora Jewry, the majority of which supported it.
Now the new government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has the perfect opportunity to repair the damage and implement the Kotel deal. It is an ideal way to put the Israel-Diaspora relationship back on track.
Before the government took office this week, political affairs reporter Gil Hoffman quoted sources familiar with the coalition negotiations as saying that the Bennett government would implement a resolution creating a state-recognized egalitarian prayer section.
The clause was written in the coalition agreement at the request of Yisrael Beytenu, whose leader, Avigdor Liberman, voted against nixing the deal in 2017, Hoffman reported. Under the original deal, the egalitarian section was to be administered by a board that included progressive Jewish representatives and members of the Women of the Wall organization.
Negotiated in a dozen meetings over more than three years, the 45-page deal with detailed prayer arrangements included the following:
• There will be one entrance divided into three routes of inspection stations: women, men and “mixed” in a way that will enable each worshiper to choose a path.
• Regulations of the 1967 Protection of Holy Places Law will be amended to read, “Local customs of this site will be based on the principles of religious pluralism and gender equality. Prayer in this site will be egalitarian and unsegregated, women and men together, without a partition.”
• The egalitarian plaza will spread out over an expanse that will include a raised prayer plaza of almost 900 square meters, which is about 70% as large as the present men’s section at the Western Wall and 130% larger than the present women’s section.
• A public council, appointed by the prime minister, will be headed by the chair of the Jewish Agency and six representatives from the Conservative Movement, the Reform Movement and Women of the Wall, alongside six professional representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office and various ministries, as well as the Antiquities Authority.
• The Prime Minister’s Office will assign an annual budget of no less than NIS 5,000,000 for the management of the site, as well as the maintenance, marketing and religious services that will be provided to the public.
Religious affairs reporter Jeremy Sharon wrote in a recent analysis in The Jerusalem Post, “The new Israeli government is far better placed to repair the strained relationship with the Jewish Diaspora than the outgoing one, and its personnel from the top down have more interest and inclination in embarking on this challenge than the last Netanyahu-led coalition.”
Sharon pointed out that Bennett is the son of American Jewish immigrants, and although he is Orthodox, he has a liberal attitude on religious issues that was evident during his service as Diaspora Affairs minister. In that role, he upgraded the neglected egalitarian plaza at the southern end of the Western Wall in 2014.
The key to changing the status quo when it comes to religious affairs, including the implementation of the Kotel deal as a first step in breaking the Orthodox monopoly on such issues as conversion and kashrut, is in the hands of Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana (Yamina). Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai (Labor) will also play a key role in this.
We urge them to lead the way, under the guidance of Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is also a progressive when it comes to religion, and expedite a revival of the Kotel deal on the fourth anniversary of its cancellation.
It will score the new government points with non-Orthodox Jews here and abroad and help restore the close relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. It will also be doing the right thing: Jews around the world must feel comfortable to pray at the Western Wall, regardless of their affiliation.