A ban on mixed-gender prayer at Western Wall may be near

Israel’s parliament has given preliminary approval to a bill that would put the country’s Orthodox chief rabbinate in charge of the entire Western Wall in Jerusalem, raising fears among liberal Jews that mixed-gender prayer at the site will soon be outlawed.

- By JULIA FRANKEL

DAN KITWOOD Getty Images JEWISH men pray at the Western Wall, the holiest site in the world where Jews can pray, in 2023.

The bill, if approved, threatens to further strain relations between Israel and the Reform movement, the largest stream of Judaism in the United States.

The Western Wall is the holiest site in the world where Jews can pray. Although its gleaming main plaza is under the supervision of the rabbinate and prayer there is segregated, the site also has an egalitarian section, far off to the side, where men and women can pray together.

Under the bill, any prayer at the wall that runs contrary to the chief rabbinate’s specifications would be deemed “desecration,” punishable by up to seven years in prison. That could spell the end of the wall’s egalitarian section.