The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Chairman Natan Sharansky met today with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation to express his shock at a letter sent by the Israeli Police. The letter stated, in part, that the police would arrest women who recite Kaddish at the Western Wall.

Rabbi Rabinowitz assured Sharansky that, contrary to the letter, no woman would be arrested for reciting Kaddish at the Western Wall. [eJP note: this reinforces the long-held belief Rabinowitz does, in fact, control the police in the Kotel plaza area; an extremely troubling thought for Israeli democracy.]

Sharansky is currently in the final stages of drafting recommendations for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to decrease the tensions and ensure that every Jew in the world can pray in the manner that they are accustomed to at Judaism’s most important national and religious site.

In recent days, Sharansky met with a number of appropriate ministers in Israel’s new government on this issue and is engaged in a last round of discussions with leading religious and public figures in Israel and the Jewish world.

Natan Sharansky said that the growing tensions at the Western Wall highlights the urgent need to find a solution. He added that “The Kotel must continue to be a symbol of unity for all Jews in the world and not a symbol of strife and discord.”