Sixteen members of Israel’s coalition government have submitted a bill to parliament that would ban non-Orthodox religious ceremonies at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and severely limit women’s participation in prayers at the site.
Men and women would not be allowed to hold mixed services, and women would be prevented from reading from the Torah or wearing prayer shawls in the vicinity on the grounds that such activity would “offend worshippers at the place” under the proposed legislation.
Violations of the Kotel Law, as it is known, would be punishable by six months in prison or a 10,000 shekel (£2,100) fine.
The rights of a multidenominational feminist prayer group called Women of the Wall to hold a monthly prayer service at the holy site was held up by a Jerusalem court ruling in 2013.
The new bill, critics say, seeks to undo the court’s decision.
Three members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party supported the bill in what Yizhar Hess, executive director of the Conservative-Masorti movement in Israel, said was a “big slap in the face” to the Israeli leader.
We expect [Mr Netanyahu] to declare in no uncertain terms that this bill will not move forward,” Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Reform movement in Israel, told Haaretz.
