Western Wall Prayer Deal in Danger of Collapse as Netanyahu Waffles
The historic agreement to allow egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall is reportedly in danger of collapse after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caved to ultra-Orthodox demands to reopen negotiations on the sensitive deal.
Haaretz reports that Jewish Agency chief Natan Sharansky, the architect of the agreement, believes new talks could scuttle the agreement that would allow Reform and Conservative Jews to pray according to their traditions at the Kotel.
“Every word and principle in the agreement involved concessions,” Sharansky told Haaretz, in his first public statement since Netanyahu suggested he might modify the plan. “Once you start dismantling it, everything can fall apart.”
Ultra-Orthodox partners in Netanyahu’s fractious ruling coalition have vowed to defeat the plan, which would create a space for egalitarian prayer at the site often called the holiest site in Judaism.
The Orthodox rabbi who oversees the Kotel has also backtracked on his support for the plan and now says it must be modified.
Even small changes are likely to prove unacceptable to Diaspora Jews who spent months hammering out a deal with the help of Sharansky.
The protest group Women of the Wall, which has led a long fight for access to the Kotel, is also unlikely to accept changes after Netanyahu’s government agreed to the plan in January.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
