MERCAZ USA Newsletter - Spring 2005

Masorti Kotel Officially Opened

After five years of use, the section of the Western Wall located next to Robinson's Arch known as the Masorti Kotel has now been officially inaugurated. Located within an archeological garden at the Wall's southwestern end, below the Temple Mount, the site was recently renovated in response to an Israeli High Court ruling, which on the one hand, barred the "Women of the Wall" Group from conducting public worship at the main Western Wall area but, at the same time, required the government to assign a nearby alternative site to the organization.

While the Women of the Wall have attacked the Robinson's Arch site as being "in exile", Rabbi Ehud Bandel, President of the Masorti Movement, called the site improvements, which included $500,000 in renovations for a proper prayer platform and series of wheelchair-friendly walkways, "an important step toward the equality of the streams of Judaism in Israel." Bandel added that the use of the Masorti Kotel did not constitute the Masorti Movement's giving up its right to pray according to its own beliefs at the traditional Western Wall area.

Although more than 80 minyanim took place at the Masorti Kotel this summer, because of its location within an official tourist site, services at Robinson's Arch are limited in terms of days of the week and times of the day and must be reserved in advance. For more information, contact Rabbi Andrew Sacks, Director of the Rabbinical Assembly, Israel Region, Tel: 972-2-624-6510, raisrael@jtsa.edu; or Rabbi Jim Lebeau, Director of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center for Conservative Judaism, Tel: 972-2-625-6386, lebeau@uscj.org.

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