3 min read
A compromise is an agreement whereby a dispute is settled with each party to it making concessions. Neither side gets everything it wants, but all sides can claim a victory of sorts. So when I read that a "historic compromise" had been reached over the attempts by a variety of groups to break the Charedi stranglehold on management of Jewish prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall, I was pleased and relieved. Now I'm not so sure.
For some decades the so-called Women of the Wall have attempted to assert their right (as they see it) to hold Rosh Chodesh services in the women's section of what we commonly think of as the Western Wall. Of late, those participating have been arrested, either for wearing tallitot or tefillin or, less explicitly, for "disturbing public order". In October 2012, matters came to a head when Anat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women at the Wall (fined in 2010 simply for holding a Sefer Torah at the Wall) was arrested for the crime of singing at the Wall, strip-searched, held overnight in police custody and then issued with a temporary order banning her from even setting foot on the site.
Meanwhile, the Reform and Conservative movements have been lobbying for the right to enjoy official status in determining prayer arrangements at the Wall. And while - to the best of my knowledge - none of their leaders has been strip-searched, it has not escaped the attention of the Israeli government that these movements, though small in Israel, are large in America, where their adherents enjoy significant political leverage.
Something had to be done. The man to do it - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided - was Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky. In April 2013, Sharansky - a first-rate shmoozer - embarked on the delicate task of arriving at a consensus that would be underwritten by all sides, including the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which is under Charedi control and which enjoys a managerial monopoly at the Wall in question. There must, Sharansky later remarked, be "one Kotel [Wall] for one people"; all sides must therefore make "serious compromises".
The Western Wall, approached via a security fence permitting entrance to an imposing plaza, and divided into a men's section and a smaller women's section, is but a fragment of the entire outer Wall as built by Herod the Great and - inexplicably - left standing by the Romans when they destroyed the Temple edifice. To the south of what the media think of as the Western Wall is an area known as Robinson's Arch, over which the Heritage Foundation has no control. Robinson's Arch has long been used by non-Orthodox groups and, under the compromise Sharansky has brokered, an "official and respected" area of prayer will be constructed there, overseen by government-funded staff and open to all forms of Jewish worship. Its management will be in the hands of a committee that will include representatives of the government, the Reform and Conservative movements and of non-Orthodox women. In time, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox sections of the Wall will be accessed via one entrance.
On the face of it, this is indeed a happy compromise, in which it's all too easy to pick holes. The Women of the Wall are on record as having scarcely two years ago rejected the very proposals to which they've now agreed.
While the Conservative and Reform movements are recognised in the new arrangements (which will hopefully have a positive impact on their relations with the Jewish state), the Liberals are not.
In making this agreement work, there will need to be a great deal of goodwill on all sides. But the Charedi establishment (whose control of the Heritage Foundation remains intact) shows little inclination to play its part in facilitating this.
Speaking in the Knesset on February 2, Rabbi Meir Porush, an adherent of Agudas Yisroel, gloated that the net result of the new arrangements was that Reform and Conservative Jews and the Women of the Wall had been "thrown out of the camp" and had been quite appropriately allotted a place to pray "near the Dung Gate", which (Porush opined) was highly apt for those who "should be thrown to the dogs".
Is this the way for Israel's deputy minister of education to speak about his fellow Jews?
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