The Prime Minister’s Office recently submitted a request to continue the engagement with the Antiquities Authority, for the benefit of preparing the prayer platform at the Robinson Square for mixed prayer, under Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu. The request comes as a follow-up to the Prime Minister’s directive from two months ago to act as soon as possible to renovate the extension adjacent to the Wall, in a quick procedure that will be carried out through an exemption from a tender.
In this way, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues the line he established back in 2016, for the prayer arrangements at the Western Wall, when he instructed to work on the construction and training of the southern prayer plaza, the Keshet Robinson site (Ezerat Israel), works that have not yet been actually carried out.
As I recall, the “Outline of the Wall” is an agreement on the prayer arrangements at the Western Wall, which includes a prayer platform in the southern part of the Western Wall for all sects, alongside leaving a prayer platform in the north with gender segregation, as is the case today.
The contract with the Antiquities Authority – which was created due to the fact that this is a place of archaeological importance – has already been extended several times, at no additional cost, the most recent of which was by the Exemption Committee in April 2021. The reasons for the extensions stemmed from many difficulties that arose with regard to the issue of the building permit at the site, until the introduction Notes on changing accessibility and safety.
This is about renovating the entire extension for the benefit of prayer for the non-Orthodox communities and restoring the possibility to reach the wall of the Western Wall stones, which has been prevented since in July 2018, one of the Western Wall stones fell in the area of the “Ezerat Israel” prayer area, causing damage to the stairs there. Due to the fall of the stone, the Jerusalem Municipality issued an administrative order demanding that work be carried out until the danger is removed.
After the hearing, which took place two months ago in the Supreme Court, in a panel of seven supreme judges led by President Ester Hayut, who discussed for the fifth time the petition of the reformist and conservative movements and the “Women of the Wall” organization, to implement the outline of the Wall, the Prime Minister instructed the professional unit in the Prime Minister’s Office “to act As soon as possible to prepare an application for an individual building permit.” That is, the renovation of the extension adjacent to the wall stones immediately, along with the application for a building permit to qualify the entire extension.
In light of the delays and difficulties, some of which are technical and some of which are aimed at postponing the works, the ministry was approved to enter into a follow-up contract with the Antiquities Authority at no additional cost while utilizing a balance of over one million and 300 thousand shekels, for the purpose of completing the works. The approval joins another document that we published in February of this year, in which the state requested to increase the operating budget of “Ezerat Israel”, and to add a standard of a sorter alongside the existing standards and on-site operation.
According to the proposal, the budget will be increased by another NIS 169,974 for the coming year, according to the definition of the tender “so that it can serve the worshipers of Keshet Robinson in prayer in accordance with the administrative aspect as well as the operational aspect”, as stated in the document drawn up by the Ministry of Finance. With the aim that the place “will be physically adapted to be used as a respectable place of prayer where the prayer will be conducted according to a pluralistic and Jewish prayer, in a way that will provide an answer to Jewish worshipers who do not pray according to the custom of Orthodox Judaism, according to Torah law.”
