Attorney Yizhar Hess, executive director of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement, welcomed Mendelblit’s decision. Not only is the bill unconstitutional, he said, “but it’s also an anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist bill. This is a bill that, if it were passed, would have put an end to the State of Israel’s being the national home of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, thought the attorney-general’s ruling “lends legal support to the feeling of most of the Israeli public that is sick of the rabbinical establishment’s aggressive conduct.

“For many long years the haredi parties have rejected all pragmatic solutions to  the issue of the mikvehs and they have led the way to the High Court’s decision. The bill is a direct continuation of the same aggressive conduct and we have no doubt that despite the political pressure being put by haredi parties on the prime minister, the ritual baths bill will not win approval in the end.”