JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli government’s decision to allow non-Orthodox Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s Western Wall is a major breakthrough for the country’s long-marginalized liberal streams and their powerful supporters in the United States.
But the compromise agreement also highlights the deep rift between the world’s two largest Jewish communities over how religion should be practiced in the Jewish state, where ultra-Orthodox control is entrenched over religious life.
Progressives celebrated Sunday’s Cabinet vote in favor of building a new $9 million plaza for mixed-gender prayer at the Western Wall as a historic, formal recognition of the Reform and Conservative movements that dominate American Jewish life but are largely sidelined in Israel.
Still, ultra-Orthodox rabbis strictly govern Jewish practices in Israel such as weddings, divorces and burials. The Orthodox religious establishment sees itself as responsible for maintaining traditions through centuries of persecution and assimilation, and it resists any inroads from liberals it often considers to be second-class Jews who ordain women and gays and are overly inclusive toward converts and interfaith marriages.
The government decision followed decades of efforts by liberals to have a greater stake at the site.