A draft bill to be submitted to the Knesset, announced on Monday, would prohibit any practices at the Western Wall that are not deemed strictly Orthodox.

The bill, initiated by members of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, would ban women from wearing prayer shawls or tefillin at the Jewish holy site. It would forbid them from reading from the Torah or blowing shofars in the women’s section, and it would ban egalitarian prayer services anywhere near the Western Wall. […]

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Reform movement in Israel, called the bill an attempt to circumvent the decision taken by a government in which Shas is a full partner. “It is part of the continued campaign of incitement and instigation being waged by Haredi politicians against the Reform movement,” he said.
Kariv said it was “horrifying” that instead of condemning the vandalism at the Reform synagogue last week, Shas had chosen to respond in this way.