Misleading headlines about the Kotel

headlines started pouring in about Israel and Netanyahu rejecting the American Conservative and Reform communities by denying them a place to pray at the Kotel, I was upset. I didn’t quite understand the details in the compromise that was scrapped in the Knesset, setting everyone’s fuses off. Years ago when the compromise was struck — a designated, egalitarian prayer section at the Southern Wall of the Kotel, I supported it. Full disclosure, for me, this was a leap of openness. Others were and remain unhappy with this compromise. They felt that allegiance to centuries of traditional prayer was dishonored. Not a compromise, but a capitulation, they said. Why would they go and renege on the compromise, though, I thought? Apparently, there was a desire to […]