Israel approves prayer space at Western Wall for non-Orthodox Jews

If Israel’s Cabinet approves the plan in a vote expected on Sunday, advocates say it would mark unprecedented government support for liberal streams of Judaism.

In accepting the compromise, Women of the Wall ceded their original demand, while forcing the state to acknowledge the right of non-Orthodox groups to worship at the site, the holiest place where Jews are legally allowed to pray.

Women of the Wall, a group that has staged women’s prayers at the wall, praised the reform as granting them increased access to the holy site.

The Western Wall is part of the exterior wall of the Jewish Temple compound built by King Herod 2,000 years ago-not part of the Temple itself, which was totally destroyed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to overcome Orthodox Jewish interests in his own government to pass the new legislation, reports ABC News.

According to Muslim tradition, the Western Wall is where the prophet Mohammad tied the winged animal Buraq, which he rode on the night he ascended to heaven.

“For the first time ever, you will have a choice”, said Anat Hoffman, director of Women of the Wall, a feminist organization that had been fighting to create a space that was open to both men and women and will form part of the body governing the new area. The student reportedly wrote that Jews were “troglodyte albino monsters of cultural destruction” and called for all Jews to go “back to Israel”. The new site will be created with a new entrance to the Western Wall area, supervised by a new management consisting of different representative members from the Reform and Conservative movements.

In remarks broadcast before the 15-to-5 vote, Netanyahu said the plan sought a “solution to the question of the Women of the Wall” and “a compromise on this sensitive issue of a place that is meant to unite the Jewish people”.

Ban wrote that he would always stand up for Israel’s right to exist, but added: “The time has come for Israelis, Palestinians and the global community to read the writing on the wall: The status quo is untenable”.

Jewish groups in Israel and the United States hailed the decision as a historic step toward religious pluralism in Israel.

The new prayer area will be administered by an independent committee, removing it from the auspices of the Western Wall’s official religious custodian, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, who commented that he received the cabinet’s decision with a “heavy heart and a sigh of relief”.

Leaders and supporters of the group – often with prayer shawls and Torah scrolls – have been repeatedly arrested at the site, generating publicity and pressure on the Orthodox authorities who control the Kotel and most religious life in Israel.