A bill aimed at banning and criminalizing non-Orthodox practices at the Western Wall will be discussed in a key Knesset committee in the upcoming days, a spokesperson for the panel’s chairman Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman confirmed to The Times of Israel on Monday.

A date for the discussion has not been set yet, but it is expected to be as early as next week. The spokesperson for the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee said that usually the agenda for the following week is decided on Wednesday.

The new bill would give Israel two chief rabbis, both Orthodox, ultimate authority over Jewish holy sites, and define any activity at the site contrary to their instructions, such as non-Orthodox worship, as a “desecration,” carrying a penalty of seven years in prison.

The scope of the law would include the Ezrat Israel egalitarian prayer area, where for years, liberal Jewish movements have been holding religious ceremonies and events, albeit among many difficulties.

“Legislation that pushes out of the Jewish tent and of the Zionist tent millions and millions of Jews all over the world because of the fact that they are not practicing Judaism in an orthodox way is a disgrace for both Judaism and Zionism,” said Yizhar Hess, a World Zionist Organization vice chairman and senior representative of the Masorti/Conservative Judaism at Israel’s national insitutions, which include the Jewish National Fund-KKL and the World Zionist Congress.

“This is the least Zionist government that Israel ever had,” he added, speaking with The Times of Israel over the phone.

The bill, sponsored by MK Avi Maoz, the sole representative of the far-right party Noam, was approved in the preliminary reading by the Knesset plenum 56-47 in March, although days earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had canceled a meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation in order to prevent the government from backing it in an apparent bid to avoid pushback from Diaspora Jews.

“We were promised by the Prime Minister’s Office that the bill would not pass the preliminary reading, and it did,” Hess said. The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to a request to comment on the matter.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure that [Netanyahu] really wanted to shelve it,” Hess added. “We know that Netanyahu is an effective leader when it comes to his party. So if members of the Likud voted against him, I find it hard to believe that he didn’t know or expect it to happen.”

The legislative initiative came days after the High Court of Justice instructed the government........

© The Times of Israel