In response to the Israeli cabinet’s decision to freeze a plan to install a mixed-sex prayer area at the Western Wall, and to the intense expressions of American Jewish outrage that greeted it, Liel Leibovitz suggests that those unhappy with the decision try engaging in the hard work of old-fashioned politics:
If you’re displeased with leaders who have little interest in the fine and exhausting art of politics, the answer is to do it yourself and [go] to Israel. When you get there, don’t stage media-friendly protests or schedule meetings with senior officials just to cancel them. Instead, just chat up a few folks, and you’ll soon see surprising coalitions taking shape. . . .
Imagine that the same people who argue so passionately about the right of all Jews to pray anywhere would extend the same universal principle to Jews wishing to pray on the Temple Mount, just a few feet away. Imagine that those who are perfectly comfortable offending the rigid sensibilities of pious Jews felt the same way about the equally rigid sensibilities of pious Muslims, and informed both that if you believe in freedom of religion, well, you believe in it everywhere and for everyone. Do that, and you wouldn’t just make a logically and morally sound argument, you’d also open up a dialogue with a large swath of religious Israelis who may support you because they would come to see you not only as a leftist social-justice warrior but as a principled person committed to grown-up politics.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/239405/kotel-controversy-politics