During a much-anticipated Aug. 31 hearing, Israel’s Supreme Court sharply criticized the government for failing to implement its January 2016 deal with the non-Orthodox streams and Women of the Wall to create a pluralistic prayer space at the Kotel. […]

“This is like a Rorschach test,” Anat Hoffman (Women of the Wall) told The Jewish Week. “Some people are saying that the two-week deadline is a good indication the court is impatient with the government. But I can say from experience that the government will ask for another extension and then another and then another.”

Hoffman … hopes the High Court will eventually bring the government to its senses.

“I think the court will go out on a limb but will make sure it’s a thick limb,” Hoffman said. “First, it will give the government as long as it needs to provide an answer, and that may take a long time. Second, they will enlarge the panel of judges from the current three to seven or more” as a way of showing the public that the issue is a serious one.

If and when the court does make a ruling, Hoffman predicted that it will rule on the principal that “the holiest site of the Jewish people cannot fund and be run by only one faction of the Jewish people.”

In the meantime, she said, the court “will drag its feet” and “test our patience to the utmost.”