The NIS 15 million required to expand the egalitarian section at the Western Wall, with an entrance from the current Kotel Plaza, will be allocated by multiple cabinet ministries in the months ahead, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post at Monday’s Labor faction meeting.
The 2016 Western Wall deal called for a large, state-recognized egalitarian section that would be accessible from the main Western Wall complex and run by a board of relevant members, including progressive Jewish representatives and members of the Women of the Wall organization. But the deal was abandoned under haredi (ultra-Orthodox) pressure a year and a half later.
In his role as Jerusalem affairs minister, current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett built a plaza in an archaeological site at the southern end of the wall in 2014 that was set to be upgraded as part of the Western Wall agreement, which was written by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit when he was former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary.
“The money is the easy part,” Shai said. “That’s not what will stop it from being implemented. We won’t let the issue go.”
Labor leader and Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli said there was not yet a concrete timetable for implementing the Western Wall agreement. But she said she would insist on it being carried out.
“We will make a true effort,” Michaeli said. “It has taken too long, and it will happen.