A new area south of the current prayer area at the Kosel will be opened at which Reform women will be permitted to do whatever they want, including reading in a Torah and wearing talleisim, according to a Cabinet resolution passed last week. The current area of the Kosel will remain a beit knesset that operates according to the widely accepted rules of holy places.
Both legal and administrative precedent recognize that the current area is used steadily and extensively by those who study and pray in accordance with traditional rules. The courts have also recognized several times, that the community that regularly visits the Kosel has rights that may not be infringed by a small group that insists on performing ceremonies that are known to be provocative and offensive to the regular community of the Kosel.
Now the current government, which seems to relish every opportunity to offend the chareidi community, has decided to allocate an area where the Reform and secular women will be officially allowed to do whatever they want. Several years ago a special area was prepared for them in the archaeological area near the southern corner of the Kosel. However the Reform and secular women hardly went there because it is an isolated area from which they are not visible to anyone else. Although the area has everything necessary for traditional prayer, it did not serve their publicity-seeking goals and they hardly used it.
