Lawmakers voted 56-47 Wednesday afternoon in favor of the preliminary reading of a bill giving the Chief Rabbinate full control over prayer at all parts of the Western Wall, drawing harsh condemnation from progressive Jewish groups, which condemned the controversial legislation as “patronizing and antisemitic.”

The bill, sponsored by far-right Noam MK Avi Maoz, is intended to undercut last Thursday’s High Court of Justice ruling that the state must move forward with the upgrade of the Western Wall egalitarian plaza, which would allow non-Orthodox prayers at a lesser-used portion of the holy site. The stalled upgrade was part of the Western Wall Compromise agreed to by Netanyahu’s government a decade ago, which called for a pluralistic prayer platform at the site.

The new bill would give the country’s two chief rabbis, both Orthodox, ultimate authority over Jewish holy sites including the so-called Ezrat Israel, which has been used as an egalitarian prayer area, and define any activity at the site contrary to their instructions, such as non-Orthodox worship, as a “desecration.”

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

Days ago, Prime Minister Benjamin 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 freely, although several Likud lawmakers, including Yuli Edelstein and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, ended up skipping the vote.

Celebrating the passage of his bill “preserving” Israel’s holy sites, Maoz said that it would “unify the Jewish people, both those in Israel and those in the Diaspora.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who also serves as religious services minister, likewise praised the bill, calling on lawmakers to quickly pass it into law in order to “put an end to the High Court’s interference in the management of the Western Wall.”

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party praised the law as a bulwark against “attempts to desecrate and violate the rules of the place that have been practiced for generations” while United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni framed the bill as a victory over the Reform Movement, which he described as “the destroyers of the Jewish people.”

In a post on Telegram, Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal quoted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as telling members of his far right Otzma Yehudit party that the bill would give Jews greater control over the adjacent Temple Mount.

The bill does not contain any reference to the Temple Mount which, despite its importance in Judaism, is not legally classified as a Jewish holy site. A spokesman for Maoz told The Times of Israel that there is “no connection” between the legislation and the Temple Mount.

Responding to the vote on the legislation — which will now go to committee for further discussion ahead of the first of three readings needed for it to pass into law — representatives of progressive Jewish organizations condemned efforts to cement the rabbinate’s control of the Western Wall as an attack on non-Orthodox Jews and the Diaspora.

The bill is “patronizing and antisemitic,” declared Anna Kislanski, the CEO of the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism. “The State of Israel is about to criminalize non-Orthodox Jewish prayer at the Western Wall. What hypocrisy. If such a law were to be passed in the United States, Australia or Britain, and prevent Jews from holding their prayers under threat of imprisonment for up to seven years, the State of Israel would immediately launch a fierce fight against antisemitism.”

The Women of the Wall prayer group decried the vote as a “black day for the Jewish people” in which the state of Israel “divorced Diaspora Jewry and declared outright that they are not welcome and are not accepted in the home of the Jewish people.”

The group argued that a state willing to jail women for reading the Torah at the Western Wall is “taking giant strides toward becoming Iran.”

“Avi Maoz’s crazy law approved in a preliminary reading turns anyone who disobeys the Chief Rabbinate into a criminal who must be thrown in jail,” said The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi. “We will not allow Avi Maoz and Benjamin Netanyahu to spit in the face of our brothers around the world, who, while they are dealing with an unprecedented wave of antisemitism, are being stabbed in the back by the government and the coalition.”

Today’s approval of moving forward with legislation to imprison Jews who pray at the Egalitarian Kotel will always be remembered as a dark day in the history of Zionism and the nation-state of the Jewish people. A day on which 56 MKs raised their hands and told millions of Jews… — Yizhar Hess יזהר הס (@yizhar_hess) February 25, 2026

Today’s approval of moving forward with legislation to imprison Jews who pray at the Egalitarian Kotel will always be remembered as a dark day in the history of Zionism and the nation-state of the Jewish people. A day on which 56 MKs raised their hands and told millions of Jews…

— Yizhar Hess יזהר הס (@yizhar_hess) February 25, 2026

“Today’s approval of moving forward with legislation to imprison Jews who pray at the Egalitarian Kotel will always be remembered as a dark day in the history of Zionism and the nation-state of the Jewish people,” agreed World Zionist Organization Vice Chairman Yizhar Hess, the former CEO of the Masorti movement.

“The Prime Minister of the Jewish state must publicly intervene following this horrific message having been sent to the majority of world Jewry and say: this bill will never become law. How could it be that the only western democracy without freedom of religion for Jews could be the Jewish state?”

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