Revolution at the Kotel: Attorney General says Rabbi of the Kotel has authority to prevent Reform Kotel Mixed Prayer

The drama surrounding the Reform and the Kotel isn’t over yet, and events have taken another direction: On Wednesday, the Attorney General of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Attorney Yisrael Pat sent a letter to Gilad Kariv, chairman of the Reform movement, in which he announced that he is forbidding him from holding a prayer service the next day on the upper Kotel platform. He advises him to hold the ceremony at the Ezrat Yisrael area; the area designated for the Reform in 2001 and which lately has been called, “the Reform Kotel” following a Government decision to enlarge the area and grant the Reform authority over it.

In his letter, Attorney Pat noted, “Deliberations have been held during the past month in the Ministry of Justice on this subject. As such, a procedure of the rabbi of the Kotel and the holy places of May 16, 2016 concerning prayer in the upper platform of the Kotel Maaravi was brought to our attention. According to the protocol, the upper platform is not available for prayer or religious ceremonies, but is meant for visitors, without any relationship to the type of prayer or religious service that might be held.

“We mean to accept a decision now that taking into account all the diverse interests pertinent to this matter, no religious service is to be held in the upper Kotel platform. Anyone wishing to hold a mixed-gender service may do so in the Ezrat Yisrael.”

This was a brilliant move on the part of the Rav of the Kotel, following the Attorney General’s former decision that created a breach when he determined that “local custom” at the upper platform was not an Orthodox one, and since that decision the Reform have held mixed-gender services twice in the upper platform.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!