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........

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