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There’s No Compromising on the Kedusha of the Kotel: Why You Need to Sign the “One Kotel” Petition Now
ere’s No Compromising with the Kedusha of the Kotel
Why You Need to Sign the “One Kotel” Petition Now
BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Ask any child to draw for you a picture of Eretz Yisroel, and undoubtedly, you’ll find a sketch of the Kotel in your hands a few minutes later. Layers upon layers of stone, crevices overflowing with scraps of paper filled with prayers, and soaked with tears, the Kotel is the heart of the Holy Land. Although every part of our homeland is precious and cherished – from the rolling hills of the Golan, to the shores of Tiveria, to the thirsty desert of the Negev, and to the verdant forests of Tsfas – the Kotel, the last remnant standing of the surrounding walls of the Beis Hamikdash, is the place where we feel the most at peace.
And that is why the Reform and Conservative movements have set their sights on the Kotel.
“It’s only the beginning,” Leah Zagelbaum, Director of Operations for Am Echad, says.
A Bit of History
Let’s back up a few years – or maybe many years – and talk about the history of the Kotel in recent times.
One hundred years ago, Israel – then known as Palestine – was under Ottoman rule. During that time, the area of the Kotel was under the authority of the Muslim Waqf, and Jews were forced to pay a tax for the privilege of praying in a small alley along the Wall that stretched a mere 28 meters. Jewish philanthropists like Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Edmond Rothschild attempted to buy parts of the Western Wall, but their efforts were rebuffed. Entreaties to allow Jews to erect benches for those who wished to pray at the Kotel were refused by Muslim authorities.
In 1929, amidst unfounded rumors that Jews wished to take over the Western Wall, rampaging Arabs slaughtered scores of Jews in the tragic Hevron Massacre. British reaction to the murders (Palestine was then under British rule, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire) was tepid – an investigation into the pogrom called them “1929 disturbances.” The British government concluded after
Clearing the Kotel plaza in 1967 Clearing the Kotel plaza in 1967
The small area set aside for Jews for prayer under Ottoman rule, 1911 Rabbi Shlomo Goren blowing the shofar at the Kotel after it was liberated from Jordanian hands
The small area set aside for Jews for prayer under Ottoman rule, 1911
the murders that it would be best to leave the issues of the Western Wall as “status quo.” As such, Jews were not able to blow shofarot at the Kotel or bring any chairs or mechitzahs to the Wall.
In 1948, after the establishment of the Jewish State, the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem was evacuated. The Kotel fell into Jordanian hands.
Less than twenty years later, in 1967, scenes of soldiers staring up in wonder at the glistening stones of the Kotel made headlines around the world. IDF chief rabbi Rabbi Shlomo Goren accompanied the Paratroop Brigade on June 7 when they liberated the Wall. He blew a shofar, symbolically heralding the news that the Kotel was now in Jewish hands. During the few weeks in June after the Kotel was liberated, more than two million Jews pressed in to the small plaza to visit and kiss the Kotel’s ancient stones.
The Israeli government worked quickly to expand the Kotel area and even uncovered the prayer area down about 2.4 meters to reveal more rows of stones. But the government, although not Orthodox, instinctively knew that the Kotel was more than just a tourist attraction. When Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim demanded that the Kotel be under the purview of the Chief Rabbinate, Rabbi Yehuda Meir Getz, former colonel in the IDF and Tunisian-born, was appointed as the rabbi of the Kotel. been able to daven freely at the Kotel. But the fight for the Kotel is far from over.
In June 2021, in an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s new Minister of Diaspora Affairs Nachman Shai wrote, “I am committed to putting the Western Wall compromise back on the government’s table as a symbol of our commitment to world Jewry. This is a crucial acknowledgment of our respect and appreciation for the full spectrum of the Jewish experience.”
He added, “I am committed to working with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and our broad coalition to bring this issue back to the decision-making table with a realistic acknowledgment of the fragile newness of our current government.”
It is this new coalition that is bent on changing the dynamics of prayer at the Kotel. It is a coalition without hareidi representation and a coalition more malleable to the whisperings of the Reform and Conservative movements.
Since the 1980s, groups of women from the Women of the Wall movement have encroached on the women’s section of the Kotel with talleism and tefillin, carrying Torahs and disrupting the prayers there. In 2003, Israel’s Supreme Court instructed the Israeli government to prepare the site of Robinson’s Arch for egalitarian prayer. The site was inaugurated in August 2004. But at the time, the Women of the Wall and the Reform movements rejected Robinson’s Arch as a place of prayer. Women of the Wall wanted a separate women’s prayer site – not an “egalitarian” site – and so they continued to loudly take their talleism and tefillin to the women’s section of the Kotel each month; the Reform movement asserted that Robinson’s Arch was an archaeological site and not a site for prayer. The Masorti (Conservative) Movement took advantage of what the government offered and has been holding prayer services there since.
In 2013, when Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall, began to get into publicized fights with Jerusalem police at the Kotel, the government knew that something had to be done. Natan Sharansky, who was then chair of the Jewish Agency, was tasked with finding a solution. His “One Kotel for One Jewish People” plan called for a dedicated egalitarian prayer space at the Robinson’s Arch area of the Wall and equal access to all three prayer areas – the men’s section, the women’s section, and the egalitarian section.
The Sharansky plan – known as the Kotel Compromise – was adopted by the Knesset in 2016.
One proviso of the plan ensured that there be three separate but equal entrances to the three different parts of the Kotel. It also expanded the area at Robinson’s Arch for egalitarian prayer services.
More concerning, under the plan, the oversight and management of the new section would be removed from the rabbi of the Kotel and the chief rabbinate and handed over to a “Public Council,” a committee comprised of representatives of the Jewish Agency, the Reform and Masorti movements, Women of the Wall, and liberal organizations.
Additionally, “local customs of the site (minhag hamakom) 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.” In other words, the egalitarian site would be set up
k’neged halacha.
When the haredi parties in the Knesset heard about these provisions in the plan, they threatened to leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. In response, Netanyahu formed a committee to revisit the plan. And in June 2017, the Kotel Compromise was officially frozen.
“ eir rst Encroachment”
But now, there’s a new coalition in power, a coalition without haredim and cobbled together with many tenuous players. Bennett, determined to hold onto power and intent on keeping his coalition partners happy, is now reviving the Kotel Compromise. The Reform and Conservative movements know that this is their chance to revive the plan. But for them, it’s not just about the Kotel. As Leah Zagelbaum notes, “This is their first encroachment.”
The Reform and Conservative movements are coming after the Kotel because the Kotel is a symbol of Orthodox Judaism. It’s the place where no one can ignore the supremacy of halacha and Torah. But once they get
Reform female and male rabbis holding a prayer service at Robinson’s Arch in 2016
Members of Women of the Wall at the Kotel in 2016
a hold onto the Kotel and stamp their “values” onto the holy site, there is no stopping them.
Leah points out that the Reform and Conservative movements have already gone after kashrus in the Holy Land. They are working at dismantling frum conversions in Israel and the autonomy of dayanim.
“It’s the whole fabric of Jewish life in Israel that they are targeting,” Leah says.
She adds that reviving the Kotel Compromise would grant these movements a legitimacy in the eyes of Knesset members and the powers that be in the Holy Land.
Nachman Shai alluded to this in his op-ed a few months ago.
“Certainly, formalizing an egalitarian section of the Western Wall will not solve all of the deep challenges facing the Jewish people, or fully repair the strained relationship between us,” Shai wrote in June. “Nor does it respond to pressing needs concerning Jewish identity and education. For that matter, it will also not erase antisemitism, the Iran nuclear threat, or the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“Yet, it is one basic intervention of many that Israel must take to give progressive streams what they have repeatedly requested and rightfully deserve,” he asserted.
When Reform and Conservative members come to Israeli politicians and tell them that they represent American Jewry, some of those politicians may actually believe that all American Jews drive to shul on Yom Kippur or watch their Shabbat prayers on livestream. And Israeli politicians know that Diaspora Jewry should have an important say in what goes on in their homeland. But who is to say that there are Jews in the Diaspora who yearn for a state with conversions, kashrus, and batei din that are run according to halacha? Who will speak up for Torah-true values?
Enter Am Echad
Rabbi Moshe Sherer, zt”l, knew that Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora needed to be able to speak up for the taken on varying issues, all with the same goal of defending Torah-true ideals. Now, the issue of the Kotel has taken on an added urgency with the Bennett government in place.
“Today, the Kotel Compromise is a symbol of the inroads that the Reform and Conservative movement want to make,” Leah notes. “We need to speak up and show Knesset members that Diaspora Jews care about the Kotel and are concerned about what is going on there.”
Leah adds that the Reform and Conservative movements have the
Holy Land. Thirty years ago, Rabbi Sherer created Am Echad, an organization that unites Jews from the Diaspora and Israel to preserve our 3,000-year-old heritage. The organization was founded to defend religious freedom, the Jewish character of Israel, and anti-Semitism. Rabbi Sherer, with his far-reaching vision, saw that the Reform and Conservative movements were setting their sights on the Holy Land as their new frontier. And he knew that Orthodox Jews needed to speak up for Torah-true values in Israel.
Over the years, Am Echad has ear of the Bennett government. She notes that Nachman Shai met with the leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements while deciding to tackle the Kotel Compromise. It was the haredi groups that he didn’t reach out to.
“We, Am Echad, reached out to him and started these dialogues with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs a few months ago. We convened a conference, on Zoom, with representatives of Am Echad from all around the world – Shanghai and Beijing and Australia and Berlin and Canada and the U.S. All these representatives shared their sentiments with Nachman Shai – that the Kosel is not negotiable.”
What You Can Do
But there’s more to be done – and each one of us needs to do our part.
We need to show Israeli politicians that Orthodox American Jewry is vibrant and vocal. The Kotel is important to us – and we cannot compromise on what we hold most dear.
Over the past few weeks, Am Echad has been circulating a petition in which Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora can reach out to Prime Minister Bennett and urge him to reconsider taking on the Kotel Compromise. With only a few weeks to go before Am Echad heads to Eretz Yisroel armed with the thousands of names of Orthodox Jews who care for the sanctity of the Kotel, we need to make sure that all of Diaspora’s Orthodox Jews have made their voice heard.
Signing the petition is easy – it takes less than a minute.
Am Echad’s goal is to come armed with 150,000 signatures to prove to the Bennett government that Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora are a strong, vocal group. If you care about the sanctity of the Kotel, make sure that one of those signatures is yours.
Sign the petition at: https://one kotel.org/one kotel/TJHFive Towns
