“One Wall for One People”

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (Worthy News)– Last year Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tasked Natan Sharansky to redesign the area of the Temple Mount so as to accommodate both traditional and liberal Jews wishing to pray at the Wailing Wall, considered by Judaism to be the last remnant of the Second Temple on Mount Moriah.

According to the Washington Post, Sharansky calls his redesign, “One wall for one people.”

Muslims, however, call it the al-Buraq Wall, a name alluding to the mythical beast that Muhammad rode up to heaven and then returned upon; Muslims also refer to the Temple Mount as the Noble Sanctuary, the third-holiest site in Islam on which stands the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque.

But whatever the wall and its surroundings are called, under Sharansky’s plan, the section of the wall reserved for Jewish prayer would remain under the control of Orthodox Jews who have unevenly divided it by gender and where women must worship in silence. In contrast, Sharansky wants to open a new section where both Jewish men and women can vocally worship together.

To create this new section, Sharansky plans to construct a raised deck above an important archaeological site where several stone blocks from the Western Wall stand as silent witnesses to the Roman destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70.

There are also remnants of an ancient Arab neighborhood that was destroyed after Israeli troops captured the Old City in ’67. Above this rests a temporary wooden ramp leading to the Mughrabi Gate that in Sharansky’s plan would form a barrier between the wall’s Orthodox and proposed co-ed sections.

To date, Sharansky has not released any blueprints to the public, but when he does, it will surely result in outcries from those with conflicting interests.

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