Israeli Deputy PM: The Kosel Shouldn’t Be a Shul

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meridorThe Kosel should be a national site and not a shul, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday, in a revealing conversation in Tel Aviv about matters of religion and state with rabbis and leaders of the American and Israeli Conservative Movement.Top American Conservative and Reform officials met this week with Meridor as well as with a number of other government ministers in separate and – according to the Reform Movement – uncoordinated meetings.

Whereas the visit of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of the Reform Movement in North America, was planned months in advance, the Conservative delegation, which consisted of heads of congregations and rabbis from across the United States, emphasized that they had come for a brief visit to address what they perceived as a recent serious downturn in religion-state relations in Israel.

Meridor, who is secular but attends an Orthodox shul in Yerushalayim’s Rechavia neighborhood, told the Conservative rabbis that he “identifies with them” and is unsatisfied with the status quo.

He said he was upset by a recent incident at the Kosel in which a woman was arrested for davening with a tallis and Sefer Torah . He spoke about the incident with Kosel rov Rav Shmuel Rabinovich but failed to change his mind.

“The truth is that there is no equality between religious streams in Israel,” Meridor said. “There is no free market.

“What happened at the Kotel bothers me. It doesn’t have to be a bet knesset. It is a national site. I would change the status quo if I could, but it cannot be done with the current coalition.”

{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}


10 COMMENTS

  1. Most intelligent secular Israelis consider Reform and Conservative Judaism to be a fraud. Zionism recognizes that Judaism was always defined by the Jewish people’s connection with Torah until Zionism came along to replace Torah as the definition of the Jewish people. However, Zionists look upon the Reformed an Conservative movements as their competitors and fraudulent ones at that. Meridor was just prattling to mollify the group he was speaking to.

  2. Dan Meridor speaks only for himself, and not a single other Israeli.

    I am a secular Jewish Israeli; some of the regular readers of this website may consider that to be oxymoronic, but that’s a debate for another occasion.

    The Kotel was, is, and always will be the focus of the Jewish people, the Jewish religion, and Jewish feeling – in the past, now, and for ever more.

    I implore my orthodox Jewish brethren not to take a single scintilla of notice of the braggart and fool called Dan Meridor. He speaks for no one but himself.

  3. How can Matsav use the term ‘Rabbi’ in conjunction with the word ‘Conservative’?? The truth is we shouldn’t even let the Reform and Conservative get away with calling what they practice ‘Judaism’

  4. I agree with SG. I once heard someone express it very well. Most Israelis don’t go to shul.
    But the shul that they “don’t go to”, is an orthoodox shul. THey may nit be frum, y choice, but they have no tolerance for the fakerie that is conservative and reform

  5. he is right though. if israel is going to succeed as a democracy then he has a very strong point about what the governmental policy must be with regard to a holy site like the kotel.

  6. The Kosel shouldn’t be a Shul and you shouldn’t be Deputy Prime Minister. What a retarded statement. MayOlam Lo Zuz Shchineh MeyKosel Hamaravi… The Schineh is there and its not a Shul? Get your head examined Mr. Deputy Prime Minister…

  7. why do the reform conservative and feminist movements treat the temple as a holy site? its where male priests killed poor little animals and threw their blood around.who wants to identify with a place like that?

  8. We can’t pray on top of the Temple Mount and now we shouldn’t pray below either
    iS THE DEPUTY pm A CLOSET nETUREI kARTANIK? chas v’Shalom
    Furhter the State grants offical status to religion if a polydox definition of Judaism is recognized then standards of observance viz a via the state would become meaningless. The most extreme reform jew can pray on the appropriate side of a mechiza and Orthodox Jew must seperate between the genders etc.

  9. I totally agree with you-the kosel should NOT BE A SHUL.
    Please Hashem, get rid of that silly old ruined wall AND GIVE US BACK OUR BEIS HAMIKDASH, with karbonos shechinah and the kohen gadol.
    We can wait no longer.
    Hashiveynu hashem aylecha venashuvah

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