The Knesset House Committee on Monday voted to send a bill expanding Orthodox control over the Western Wall Plaza to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for preparation for its first reading in the Knesset plenum, drawing harsh condemnations from liberal Jewish groups.

The Constitution, Law and Justice Committee is chaired by Religious Zionism’s MK Simcha Rothman, a national-religious lawmaker with a history of cooperation with the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox factions.

The bill, which is sponsored by far-right Noam MK Avi Maoz, advanced in a preliminary reading last month. It is intended to undercut a recent High Court of Justice ruling that the state must move forward with a planned upgrade to the Western Wall egalitarian plaza, a side area used for non-Orthodox prayers at the Jewish holy site.

The stalled upgrade was part of the Western Wall Compromise agreed to by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government a decade ago, which called for a pluralistic prayer platform at the site.

If passed into law, the bill would give the country’s two chief rabbis, both Orthodox, ultimate authority over Jewish holy sites including the egalitarian plaza, and would define any activity at the site contrary to their instructions, including non-Orthodox worship, as a “desecration.”

The bill currently states that “desecration” of a holy place carries a penalty of seven years in prison.

In a post on X on Thursday, Maoz celebrated his bill’s advancement, writing that “the curbing of the High Court of Justice’s intervention at the Western Wall is drawing nearer” and that the legislation will return authority over the holy site “to its natural and proper place, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and will safeguard the sanctity of the remnant of our Holy Temple.”

Anna Kislanski, the CEO of the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism, which has championed non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall, blasted the advancement of the law as a slap in the face of non-Orthodox Jews, both in Israel and abroad.

“In the midst of a war, while Jews of all stripes are fighting for their lives and are in the army, in the reserves, and on the home front, the coalition chooses to promote the Western Wall Law, the same law that defines those citizens as second-class Jews, the same law that divides the people and harms one of its most unifying symbols,” she said.

As antisemitic violence in the Diaspora, where most Jews are not Orthodox, is increasing, “the Israeli government chooses to take advantage of the emergency to tell the Jews of the Diaspora you are not Jewish enough to pray in your own way at the Western Wall,” she added.

Women of the Wall, an activist group that advocates for egalitarian prayer and women-led Torah readings to be allowed at the Western Wall, also protested the decision, saying in a statement that “you have to rub your eyes in disbelief.”

“In the midst of a war, when millions of Israeli citizens are in safe rooms and shelters, the economy is not functioning, the education system is paralyzed and children are sitting at home, and the Western Wall plaza stands empty, the coalition finds it urgent to continue to advance the disgraceful” bill, the group said.

“At a time when we need our sisters and brothers in the Diaspora more than ever to stand with us on the international stage, the State of Israel is spitting in their faces and telling them: Your place is not here with us.”

Addressing the Knesset House Committee, The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv pointed out that the decision came only days after an attempted terrorist attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the largest Reform synagogue in the United States. Advancing such a law is a stab in the back of “millions of liberal Jews around the world,” he said.

Former Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai, currently the dean of the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, similarly noted that the move came only days after the attack, tweeting sarcastically, “Who said that the Israeli Knesset and government do not identify with Jews in the Diaspora and especially with Temple Israel in Detroit? ”

Lawmakers voted 56-47 late last month in favor of the preliminary reading of the bill, only days after Netanyahu canceled a meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation in order to prevent the government from backing the bill in an apparent bid to avoid pushback from Diaspora Jews.

Netanyahu ultimately allowed members of his coalition to vote according to their own views as opposed to requiring a unified coalition line, although several Likud lawmakers, including Yuli Edelstein and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, ended up skipping the vote.

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