A new regulation imposed by Jerusalem City Hall results in a total vehicular ban to the Kosel Plaza, eliminating a long-standing arrangement permitting VIPs to enter with a vehicle, including Rabbonim and Admorim Shlita.
In an interview with HaKol BaKol, Yerushalayim askan R’ Chaim Miller comments, “Mayor Nir Barkat appears to think that he can do as he pleases in Yerushalayim, closing the Old City access routes to the Kosel for all private vehicles. Both [former mayors] Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert also wanted to ban private vehicles, but they didn’t dare to do so since they knew such a move would elicit a outcry; and this is exactly what will take place now”.
R’ Miller calls City Hall’s decision a “chilul Hashem”, explaining Admorim and Rabbonim will no longer be permitted access to the Plaza, and visitors, mispalalim coming to the Old City during the late night hours will no longer be able to reach the area by private car.
Miller accuses Barkat of taking steps and implementing policy without consulting with advisors first, adding “I hope the chareidi advisors to the mayor are listening and will act appropriately”.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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18 Responses
What will zekeinim do? Of course this will be an inconvenience to the Rabbanim and Admorim Shlita but this is not even to mention how zekeinim and infirmed people will get to the Kosel?? ( If someone knows how they do now and if it is already banned for them please comment so I can clarify) if this is so it is very very sad that we will be keeping people who perhaps need even more kavana for tefilla for a refua or yeshua from getting to where they can have that kavana
So which is it? Did he ban access only to rabbonim (as your headline says) or did he ban all access (as the first paragraph of the article said).
Would, for example, President Obama, be banned from driving up by private car? Does the ban affect handicapped access? Does it allow the government to grant permission selectively to its friends? Is it a ban on all private access (perhaps reasonable) or a ban on frum VIPs (discriminatory).
Oh my goodness! You mean that cars of Rabbis and those who are well connected politically will not be able to park on the plaza and they will have to use the regular entry and be subject to security procedures like everyone else?
Let’s have a riot and protest this unjust travesty!
Who’s forgetting when there was no access to the Kosel for anyone? Now we’re crying about parking; for shame.
Unbelievable. Here we have the most important security concern in the entire country, and they want to keep it secure by not letting in ANY vehicles. Can someone tell me that every vehicle used to transport a godol or admor is guarded 24/7? If there is someone who cannot walk, there are wheelchairs there and there are guards and others who would welcome the opportunity to do a mitzvah by escorting anyone who needs help, let alone a godol.
And another thing to ponder. When I have davened at the Kosel, my kavonoh has been impacted a hundred times more by the noise and disturbance the few times a vehicle has come in than by a woman wearing a tallis or a yarmulke. From my admittedly contrarian viewpoint, Whichever woman or women who davens there kneged our understanding of Halocho will need to answer to the aibishter, not to me. As long as the skirts and sleeves are long enough. It seems that would be an issue bein odom lamokom. However, bringing a vehicle in to the area is an absolute distraction, and as long as it isn’t necessary for security or medical emergency, Whoever does it needs to consider his actions as they relate to his fellow yid, and that is an issue bein odom lechaveiro.
Let us lastly remember that the kosel isn’t the property of our part of the community alone; it is the ribono shel olom’s property and he grants its use for tfiloh to every Jew.
So everyone will have more s’char halicha this way. What’s the big deal? Why is it a chillul Hashem? Is there some halacha that says that some people should have exclusive access to the kotel with vehicles?
Interesting how the chilonim have the chutzpah to think that the Kotel belongs to them. If anything, the secular VIPs, including the PM, the President, and the secular Mayors of the cities, should not be allowed vehicular access as they do not unerstand the holiness of this place.
What a pity . The Mekabalim who pray in the Vatikin Minyans at the Kotel are the ones holding up this entire world. They can barely walk the 100ft. to the Kotel.
What are they supposed to do ? I pray B.H. that this terrible idea be rescinded.
Ezra Hanon
dont you get a mitzvah for every daled amos you walk in E”Y! BH these individuals will have the chance to do an extra mitzvah! Just as there will surely be “exceptions” made for say, Barak Obama or the like, I am sure there will be exceptions for the handicapped or otherwise incapacitated. but seriously, it has gotten out of hand. everyone and their brother calls their cousin’s friends neighbor who happens to be in the know and parks at the kosel? be happy we arent talking 50 yrs ago when being within a mile of the kosel was dangerous.
I DARE SAY THAT NONE OF YOU ARE GETTING THE POINT:
whether rabbonim should get special treatment or not, is not the issue here. Rather it is the way Nir Barkat feels he can dictate the rules for all in Jerusalem without consulting advisors or representatives of the people he is lording over.
He said he would not change the status quo in Jerusalem and he seems to be doing all he can to change it.
#9, when the status quo has been moved constantly geographically, in plannning, services, demographics, tax base since 1967, and as the chareidi community has constantly changed the status quo – neighborhoods, new schools and shuls, restricting road access in new areas on shabbes, and in itself changed the demographic makeup, why should we be surprised that Barkat did a cheshbon, realized there were more non chareidi dati, chardal, and secular residents in total, and if he was REALLY following the status quo, he would ensure their prerogatives were returned to them as they had been in the past.
And, #9, you seem to have hit upon the point. If chareidi communities will only be satisfied with a freeze on movemement, innovation, planning for future growth, realistic assessment of changing security circumstances, Then we will eventually find ourselves with no political power, no leverage, and few practical ways of dealing with the world we live in, rather than the one we want. Wishing will not make it so.
one of my great moments at the korel was at a Shabbat vasikin minyan 14 years ago when an old yerushalmi asked that i walk him to damascus gate, a path that has the fewest stairs. his doctor had warned him against walking to the kotel years BEFORE.
I understand a car for ALL the elderly, that is how they can be mikayaim a mitzvah. It can pick them up where cabs and busses stop today. But for younger admorim and RY, exercise in service to God may not be the worse thing.
Tikva (#9)- “..Nir Barkat feels he can dictate the rules for all in Jerusalem without consulting advisors or representatives of the people..”
He probably did.
Easy solution,
let the kotel admin buy 2 or 3 golf carts ( like they use in airports) and anyone who can’t walk can get a courtesy ride.
One point though, even if president Obama or the israeli president, and primeminister comes, his car shouldn’t be allowed in. After all he wouldn’t be able to ride up to the arab dome. Do we care less?
LET’S ALL CALM DOWN, AND PUT ON OUT THINKING CAPS:
1. QUESTION:When Shimon Peres comes to the Kosel (as he does, occassionally), is he allowed to bring a car? How about Netanyohu? Eli Yishai?
2. What makes them more important than our
Gedolim?
ANSWER: This change in policy is an assertion of the primacy of secular authority over Torah authority. It is a put-down.
That’s the whole point!
akuperma, do you enjoy insulting the Yeshivaleit who blog onto this website? You don’t comprehend kovod ha’torah, do you?
I really see no problem with this. The rabbanim can still be driven up and let out to go through security just like everyone else.
The Kedusha Being Attacked
Without a question those of us that attend the minyan daily understand quite well that the Ruach that happens at netz at this minyan and all the learning that happens before and after is a stimulas and a magen to the world. The Kossel and the enviornment changes from before the minyan until after it. Once the light hits and the rest of the world comes to the kossel plaza the ruach becomes entirely different. All of us feel the Kedusha at Netz and understand full well why the Sitra Achar would attack so viciously. Obviously, the ones who took on this kedusha like those that destroyed the Makom HaMikdash have no understanding how these teffillas of the holy people who daven there affect their very existence despite the fact that they are non-observant. We must enlist our forces around the world to deluge the city council with a protest as great as if someone that is being sent to their death… To prevent anyone from entering the plaza as are the entire powers of the old city who are trying to stop any vehicles from entering the jaffa gate is a war we must take on.
The old city residents are literally being terriorized daily and threatened with their daily functioning, threatened with their homes being taken…it is a real war of kedusha now creeping down from the upper plaza to the lower plaza… that is the a story that needs investigating and publicity from the group that runs the affairs of the old city to the city council itself…
They all don’t understand and those of us that see the light of that blue sky at Netz all know that feeling of Kedusha…but we all have to work on ourselves for these gezera’s come because of what we have done wrong and manifest itself in these sort of edicts…
chava18 – So what’s your point? By the way, “kee lee kol ha’aretz”; you can feel or not feel kedusha anywhere in the world.