Progressive Jewish groups decry Western Wall bill as a ‘stride toward becoming Iran’

By Sam Sokol 25 February 2026, 1:49 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Conservative/Masorti Movement leaders praying at the egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall in October 2025. (Courtesy MERCAZ Olami)

The Knesset’s advancement of legislation giving the Chief Rabbinate full control over prayer at all parts of the Western Wall is an “antisemitic” attack on Diaspora Jewry that has effectively criminalized non-Orthodox worship at the Jewish holy site, critics declare after lawmakers vote 56-47 in favor of the controversial bill in a preliminary reading.

The bill is “patronizing and antisemitic,” declares Anna Kislanski, the CEO of the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism. “The State of Israel is about to criminalize non-Orthodox Jewish prayer at the Western Wall. What hypocrisy. If such a law were to be passed in the United States, Australia or Britain, and prevent Jews from holding their prayers under threat of imprisonment for up to seven years, the State of Israel would immediately launch a fierce fight against antisemitism.”

If passed into law, the bill would give the country’s two chief rabbis ultimate authority over the so-called Ezrat Israel or Robinson’s Arch area, and define any activity at the site contrary to their instructions, such as non-Orthodox worship, as a “desecration.” The law currently states that desecration of a holy place carries a penalty of seven years in prison.

The Women of the Wall prayer group decries the vote as a “black day for the Jewish people, a day that will be remembered in the history of the State of Israel, when the state divorced Diaspora Jewry and declared outright that they are not welcome and are not accepted in the home of the Jewish people.” The group argues that a state willing to jail women for reading the Torah at the Western Wall is “taking giant strides toward becoming Iran.”

“This is a law against every Jew who is not Haredi, and its impact will be much broader than the Western Wall,” says The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi.

“We will fight this extremist law with all our might, together with the majority of the secular and traditional Israeli public and with the majority of world Jewry,” Kariv adds. “We will not allow Avi Maoz and Benjamin Netanyahu to spit in the face of our brothers around the world, who, while they are dealing with an unprecedented wave of antisemitism, are being stabbed in the back by the government and the coalition.”