Purely Commentary: The Kotel Belongs to All Jews | Detroit Jewish News | CPT PPP Coverage

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Just as the Jewish world is pluralistic, so the Kotel must be pluralistic and open to all who wish to worship there.

Editor’s Note: The Times of Israel reported on Feb. 9 that the Israeli government backtracked and said it would not move forward with the proposed Kotel restrictions bill. Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “The status quo at the Kotel, which is precious to all Jews, will be kept precisely as it is today.”

Aryeh Deri, a convicted criminal, who served time in prison and only last year admitted that he was also guilty of tax evasion, is now urging the government to introduce legislation to “preserve the sanctity of the Western Wall and the adjacent plaza.”

Among the clauses of the bill that is being proposed are ones that forbid the conducting of any religious ceremony that does not conform with the practices of the chief rabbinate; providing religious services not sanctioned by the Rabbi of the Kotel; and reading Torah, wearing a tallit or laying tefillin in the women’s section of the Kotel.

Those found guilty of infringing the law would face three months in jail or a fine of 10,000 shekels (about $2,800)!

A short history of the Kotel is in order. It was never part of the edifice of the Temple as some mistakenly believe but was built by King Herod in the first pre-Christian century to enlarge the area of the Temple Mount.

A photo of the Kotel from 1880 shows men and women praying together. When we went to the Kotel in 1967 following the Six-Day War, men, women and children, religious and secular, flocked there together. There was no mechitzah separating men from women and no Rabbi of the Kotel to tell us what we could or could not do. Only later would the haredim claim it as their own.

But the Kotel is not theirs. It is part of our national heritage and belongs to all Jewish both in Israel and in the diaspora. Just as the Jewish world is pluralistic, so the Kotel must be pluralistic and open to all who wish to worship there.

Denying that right and enshrining that in legislation would be just one more step toward Israel becoming a halachic state.

Michael Boyden made aliyah from the U.K. in 1985, is a former president of the Israel Council of Reform Rabbis and is currently rabbi of Kehilat Yonatan in Hod Hasharon, Israel.