MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Spring 2010

Masorti Seeks Unlimited Access to Robinson's Arch

In the wake of the letter-writing campaign undertaken to protest the arrests of Women of the Wall activists following events last fall, the Masorti Movement has called on the Israeli government to carry out fully the 2003 decision of the Israeli High Court to provide separate AND equal facilities for non-traditional services at Robinson's Arch, the area to the south of the traditional Western Wall.

Without denying the legitimacy of the Women of the Wall's struggle for the right to hold monthly Rosh Hodesh women-only services in the women's section of the traditional Kotel, Conservative leaders noted that the prayer site at Robinson's Arch, touted by Israel's Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren as the designated alternative for non-traditional services, while separate is in no way equal in conditions to those provided elsewhere at the Western Wall.

For example, access to the traditional Kotel is open and unlimited 24 hours a day, while Robinson's Arch is available as a prayer site in the morning only until 10:30am. Services at the arch must be scheduled in advance, and anyone arriving or leaving late is charged an $8 entry fee.

In addition, unlike the main Kotel, whose basic prayer equipment is supplied by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation from a sizeable annual grant of NIS 20.4 million (more than $5 million) from a variety of government offices, Robinson's Arch lacks all such basic religious objects as arks, tables for reading the Torah, chairs, prayer books and Torah scrolls, all of which must be supplied by the worshippers themselves or borrowed from the Masorti Movement.

For more information about the protest campaign regarding the unequal treatment at the Kotel, contact the Masorti Foundation office at 212-870-2216 or go to www.masorti.org.

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