Cabinet to vote on a gender-mixed area at Western Wall

Cabinet members are set to vote next Sunday on the establishment of an egalitarian area at the Western Wall where non-Orthodox Jews can worship in gender-mixed services, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

According to the report, officials want to come to an agreement on the issue before Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit assumes his new position of attorney general at the beginning of February.

Called Ezrat Yisrael, the gender-mixed area is located in the plaza’s southernmost corner underneath Robinson’s Arch, separate from the Wall’s main plaza.

For nearly three years, the ultra-Orthodox foundation that oversees the operations at the Western Wall and the Women of the Wall group, an organization which seeks to promote women’s prayer rights at holy site, have clashed over the later’s efforts to make the holy site more inclusive.

According to the agreement reached between the two parties, Ezrat Yisrael will overseen by the government, not the the ultra-Orthodox foundation.

In a Wednesday meeting with Mandelblit, Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich and ultra-Orthodox Knesset members Aryeh Deri, Yaakov Litzman and Moshe Gafni were said to have agreed to the new worship area, but said they would abstain from Sunday’s vote.

Without opposition from ultra-Orthodox parties, the proposal is unlikely to have any major opposition, the report noted.

In November last year, Netanyahu pledged to find a solution for women wishing to read from the Torah at the Western Wall, while upholding the status quo that bans them from doing so.