Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has announced a plan to build a new worship site at the Western Wall that will accommodate both sexes. Currently there are segregated worship areas at the Wall, a large one for men and a smaller one for women, with the sections divided by a wall. For years, the Women of the Wall organization, which represents the “liberal streams of Judaism,” has been demonstrating for mixed-sex prayer. In Herod’s Temple women were restricted to the Court of the Women. It was also called the Middle Court, because it was between the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of Israel which was for Jewish men. The synagogues were also traditionally divided into men’s and women’s sections until recent times when the more liberal ones integrated worship. The Israeli government plans to build a mixed-sex worship area to the south of the existing worship areas in a place currently occupied by an archaeological dig. The Western Wall Plaza was built in 1967 immediately following the Six-Day War when Israel gained access to eastern Jerusalem. The area of the plaza near the Wall, known as the lower plaza, functions as a synagogue. (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2016, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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