Giving in to the religious parties, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cancelled an agreed-upon plan to establish a designated mixed-gender prayer area at the Western Wall.

Reaction from Diaspora leaders, many of whom are in Israel for previously scheduled meetings of The Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors, has been universally negative. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, said “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to say ‘no’ to his previous ‘yes’ is an unconscionable insult to the majority of world Jewry… The stranglehold that the Chief Rabbinate and the ultra-Orthodox parties have on Israel and the enfranchisement of the majority of Jews in Israel and the world must – and will – be ended.”

The Jewish Agency’s Board cancelled tonight’s dinner with the Prime Minister and “will be changing its entire agenda for the remaining two days of its meetings in Jerusalem, in order to address the ramifications of these decisions.”