Egalitarian Kotel prayer

Kudos to Masa Yisraeli for the decision to offer Israeli 11th graders the option to choose the mixed-gender prayer area during visits to the Kotel. CEO Uri Cohen misses two very salient points, though, in his October 16 article.

The original egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall was not created “courageously three years ago by... Natan Sharansky and Naftali Bennett.” Groups under the aegis of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement have met for prayer by Robinson’s Arch inside the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, at the southern end of the Western Wall, for nearly two decades. (Visits in the early morning hours were and are free; later, even those visitors coming to pray must pay an entrance fee.) The person who deserves the credit for suggesting that arrangement is MK Isaac Herzog, who was then cabinet secretary for PM Ehud Barak. Bennett’s contribution was to add an additional space available around-the-clock every day of the year, always at no charge.

Even more important is Cohen’s failure to observe that while the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which operates the historic section of the Kotel now under Orthodox hegemony, is, citing its own website, “a government body established by the Ministry of Religion [sic]” and is lavishly funded by the Government of Israel, no such public funding is provided for the mixed-gender area. Instead, the Masorti Movement of Israel provides visitors with Torah scrolls, prayer books and all other necessary equipment at its own expense as a public service.

One of the commitments on which the government of Israel has reneged is a promise to provide funding for the egalitarian prayer site’s operations, which would be, according to the suspended agreement, the responsibility of a public body on which non-Orthodox movements would have representation.