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Editorial

Battle Over Prayer At The Wall Not Over

o one is thrilled over Natan
Sharansky's proposal to
expand the non-Orthodox
prayer site at the Western Wall, but
that's the nature of the art of com-
promise – all sides budge. An April
court ruling favoring women's prayer
with prayer shawls in the regular
women's section at the Wall hasn't
eroded the need for a long-term fix to
a lingering conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu asked the Jewish Agency
for Israel chairman to curb unrest
over Orthodox control over women
praying at Judaism's holiest site,
located in Jerusalem's Old City.
The Sharansky plan would create
an egalitarian space equal in size to
the sections for men and women com-
bined. It would ease the divisiveness
spurred by prayer as promoted by
Women of the Wall, an advocacy group
seeking gender equality at the Wall,
which is at the foot of the Temple
Mount's western side. Under the plan,
an egalitarian space in an archaeolog-
ical park known as Robinson's Arch,
adjacent to the Western Wall Plaza,
would be improved.
At first, the April 11 arrests of five
Women of the Wall members who
prayed out loud at the Wall in prayer
shawls punctuated the need for a
quick, fair and sustainable solution to,
as Sharansky put it, "allow every Jew
to feel at home at the Western Wall."
On April 25, however, the

Jerusalem District
Court upheld a
Jerusalem Magistrate
Court ruling that
there was no cause
for the April 11 arrests
and that the women's
actions didn't dis-
Natan
turb the public order.
Sharansky
The court rejected a
police request for a
restraining order to ban the women
arrested from visiting the site for
three months.
In the wake of that ruling, Women of
the Wall, feeling vindicated, reassert-
ed its quest for complete standing at
the regular women's section and with-
drew endorsing the Sharansky plan, at
least for now. Previous to the ruling,
women who wore prayer shawls at
the Wall were deemed in violation of
Israeli law requiring "local custom" to
rule at the site – vague as that is.
Women of the Wall has held a
prayer service at the Wall almost
every month for 20 years on Rosh
Chodesh, the beginning of the new
Hebrew month, at the back of the
women's section. Since June, partici-
pants have been arrested, either for
wearing prayer shawls or for allegedly
disturbing the public order.
Reacting to the District Court rul-
ing, Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the
Western Wall and Israel's holy sites,
declared: "I implore the authorities
and the silent majority that cares

a

about the Western
Wall to prevent fanat-
ics from all sides from
turning the Western
Wall Plaza into an
area of conflict
between brethren."
As part of a broad
Rabbi
consensus, Rabinowitz
Rabinowitz
originally seemed
tolerant of the
Sharansky plan. But he wavered under
pressure from Orthodox rabbis in
North America and following the court
ruling barring abridgement of women's
prayer in the existing women's section,
according to JTA. He vowed to fight
any deviation from customary practice
at the Wall, but didn't specifically say
the Sharansky plan represented such
deviation.
Rabinowitz's pronouncement that
any deviation "from what is, and
has been, customary at the site for
decades" would "face strong opposi-
tion and bring about a civil war" was
alienating bluster. It did nothing to
encourage considering and tweaking
the Sharansky plan to try to bring
religious-stream harmony.
The plan envisions the Robinson's
Arch area, which sits below ground
because of archaeological excava-
tion, to be raised to the level of
the Western Wall Plaza. The two
areas would share an entrance.
The Mughrabi Bridge leading to the
Temple Mount would stay; it divides

Robinson's Arch from the Western
Wall Plaza. Women would be allowed
to wear prayer shawls at Robinson's
Arch, under the plan.
A timeline continues to be devel-
oped for the Sharansky plan despite
the Jerusalem District Court ruling.
Potential hurdles include archaeologi-
cal and funding matters as well as
concerns from the Wakf, the Muslim
religious administration charged
with managing the Temple Mount
site. Sharansky insists the Mughrabi
Bridge would not be disturbed.
While Women of the Wall seemed
to win an important victory on April
25, lower-court rulings can be fickle.
It was the Israeli Supreme Court that
in 2003 upheld a government ban on
women wearing tefillin or a prayer
shawl, reading from a Torah scroll or
blowing a shofar at the Wall.
So the Sharansky plan still boasts
long-term potential.
As Sharansky put it: "An agreed
solution reached through dialogue,
understanding and mutual compro-
mise will ensure that the Western
Wall remains a symbol of unity for the
entire Jewish people."
Continued tension at the Wall not
only will whip the winds of discord
there, but also take precious time
from solving such fiery civil matters
as state restrictions on marriage and
conversion, Shabbat bans on public
transit and haredi exemptions from
Israel's mandatory draft.

❑

Commentary

Civil Marriage In Israel: The Time Has Come

W

ith all of the many issues con-
fronting the state of Israel —
the Iranian nuclear threat, the
challenges of renewing meaningful peace
talks with the Palestinians, the increas-
ing social divisions in Israeli society, an
unconventional and somewhat precarious
coalition government, serious deficits
in the educational system, insufficient
employment opportunities for Israelis with
advanced degrees, and an increasingly tur-
bulent and unpredictable neighborhood —
one might assume that the Jewish state has
more than enough on its collective plate.
For the first time since 1977, there are
no ultra-Orthodox parties in the recently
formed governing coalition. The ascen-
dancy of two new parties, in particular
Yesh Atid (There is a Future), reflects an
increasing restiveness in Israeli society,
amply demonstrated during the summer

28

May 16 • 2013

of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of
respective religious communities.
Israelis literally took to the streets to pro-
This arrangement, which dates back to
test the growing unaffordability of Israeli
the Ottoman Empire, was continued dur-
ing the British Mandate (1918-
life and the unfairness of not
requiring all Israelis to share in
1948). In June, 1947, David
Ben-Gurion, then chairman
protecting the country.
But there is an additional
of the executive of the Jewish
critical issue facing Israel today
Agency (the quasi-government
— civil marriage.
of Israel before it became a
Israel shares the lack of a civil
state), offered a set of guaran-
marriage option with the follow-
tees preserving the "status quo"
ing countries: Egypt, Lebanon,
regarding marriage and other
Syria, Jordan, United Arab
matters of personal status to
Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia,
two religious parties, Agudath
Israel and Mizrahi (later the
Yemen and Libya — as well as
Susie Gelman
Mauritania, Indonesia and Iran.
Wash ington
National Religious Party), so
In Israel, only religious authori-
Jewis h Week
that they would join the first
ties, specifically, the Orthodox
elected government of Israel
Chief Rabbinate and rabbinical courts, and in 1949, thus entrusting to the Orthodox
the Islamic and Christian authorities have
Rabbinate the authority to determine
the power to officiate at marriages in their
all such matters according to the laws of

Halachah.
This accommodation became problem-
atic almost immediately, when the Law of
Return was passed in 1950 guaranteeing to
all Jews the right to make aliyah, therefore
inviting the question of "Who is a Jew?"
— an issue that remains controversial to
this day.
Moreover, by failing to separate religion
and state at the inception of Israel's exis-
tence, Israel has continuously had to con-
tend with challenging issues concerning
religious identity, citizenship, marriage,
divorce (including the status of thousands
of agunot, women deserted by husbands
who will not divorce them and who are
therefore unable to remarry) and burial.
The situation was further exacerbated
by the aliyah of more than 1 million Jews
from the former Soviet Union in the early
1990s. Today, approximately 300,000

