Some Advice for Those Upset by the Failure of the Western Wall Compromise

For the past eighteen months, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties have succeeded in holding up the implementation of a compromise approved by the Netanyahu government that would create a mixed-sex prayer area at the Western Wall. Yesterday, ḥaredi members of the cabinet, with minimal opposition, managed to “freeze” the plan by threatening to leave the governing coalition. Counting himself among those angered over the failure of this compromise, Shmuel Rosner gives some sober advice to those who feel similarly. To Rosner, the underlying fact is that ḥaredi politicians have significant electoral clout and believe this issue to be of the utmost importance; few Jews in the Diaspora, and even fewer in Israel, feel the same way: