How Israel's Supreme Court President is Reforming Judaism

The battle for Israel’s soul is increasingly being fought not on its borders, but at its holiest sites and within its judicial chambers. A profound rift has opened between the traditional Orthodox establishment, which views the preservation of Halakha (Jewish Law) as essential to national survival, and the Reform movement, which seeks to implement a liberal, egalitarian vision of Judaism. This tension has reached a boiling point following a landmark Supreme Court ruling led by President Yitzhak Amit, which grants official recognition and space to non-Orthodox denominations at the Western Wall.

The Reform movement, while numerically marginal in Israel (representing less than 0.5% of synagogues), utilizes the judicial system as a "battering ram" to dismantle the Jewish character of the state. From spreading misinformation regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to liberal organizations indoctrinating IDF soldiers against tradition, the following accounts examine the ideological war being waged against the Orthodox "social contract" and the role of the Supreme Court in trying to reshape the religious landscape of the Jewish State.

On July 27, 2025 the Union for Reform Judaism published in its website "Reform Movement Statement on Starvation in Gaza...

"...No one should be unaffected by the pervasive hunger experienced by thousands of Gazans. No one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly. Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster. The primary moral response must begin with anguished hearts in the face of such a large-scale human tragedy...Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the “total victory” over Hamas it seeks, nor can it be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law...

Why did the Union for Reform Judaism help spread lies about the "Starvation in Gaza"?

On February 20, 2025 Heritage Minister Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu wrote in Arutz 7 " In May 2021, when Israel was burning during Operation Guardian of the Walls, when millions of Israelis, children and the elderly, sat day and night in shelters under barrages of Hamas rockets - over 90 rabbinical students of the Reform movement published a public letter. The future generation of their leadership. What did they write there? Did they condemn the terror? Did they send strength to their brethren under attack? Absolutely not. They accused the State of Israel of "apartheid," called to halt military aid to the IDF, and cried crocodile tears over the suffering in Gaza. This is not a one-time slip. This is a movement from which vast sections are today providing a tailwind, funding, and legitimacy to radical left-wing organizations on US campuses. Organizations that promote BDS, that call for boycotting Israeli products, and that persecute Jewish students who dare to support Zionism. As far as they are concerned, Judaism is universal, global, one that embraces everyone - except for the Israeli Jew fighting for his life. This disdain for everything related to our nationalism comes from the highest levels. Listen to what happens at their "rabbinical" ordination ceremony (Hebrew Union College). The keynote speaker who takes the stage, to the sound of applause, doesn't speak about the eternity of Israel. On the contrary. He stands there and trashes the IDF. He describes our presence here as "walls made from the bodies of teenage soldiers." Do you understand? Those 19-year-old heroes standing on the firing line to prevent the next massacre are to him just pawns of an occupation protecting a "ghetto of zealots." And more than that - he explains to their prospective clergy that there is no problem whatsoever, and it is even desirable, for the Jewish people to disappear and assimilate. He calls on them to tear down the "walls" of Judaism, preaches that intermarriage is the right path, and declares that if Judaism disappears from the world in favor of some enlightened "global tribe" - that is completely fine. For two thousand years, Jews sacrificed their lives so as not to assimilate, to preserve our heritage and our unique identity, and today, on their main stage, they celebrate the erasure of the Jewish people.

"And here is the numerical absurdity that simply cries out to high heaven: Out of about 12,000 synagogues in Israel, the Reform movement holds barely 50 congregations. That is less than half a percent. A marginal group that barely exists on the ground in Israel. It is exactly like one person, within a congregation of 300 worshippers, standing up in his audacity and demanding to expropriate a quarter of the synagogue for himself and his friends from abroad. Not just expropriate - but to bring loudspeakers there, change the prayer arrangements, and conduct ceremonies that trample on the tradition of the 299 other worshippers. In any normal place in the world, they would show him the door.

"But then comes the Supreme Court. Last night, in a decision that proves once again how disconnected the Supreme Court justices are from Jewish identity - excuse me, they are not disconnected. They are actively working against it. Against tradition, against Judaism, and against the majority of the Israeli public, they decided to hand this movement a victory. In the name of those empty words of "equality," the Supreme Court is forcing the State of Israel to grant an official allocation and space at the Western Wall - the beating heart of the Jewish people - to those same people who despise us from afar. They don't come to the Kotel (Western Wall) to pray. The Kotel doesn't really interest someone who dreams of becoming a citizen of the world and views our nationalism as a crime. They come to the Kotel as a battering ram. They want a foothold in our holiest place in order to gain political recognition, to poke a finger in the eye of traditional Judaism, and to undermine the Jewish identity of the state from within. It is time that we, the sane majority in Israel, stop apologizing and stop bowing our heads to these manipulators. The Western Wall is not real estate to be divided, nor is it playdough that can be molded according to the political whims of the Supreme Court. It belongs to a nation that is proud of its Judaism, that preserves its heritage, and that loves its soldiers. Whoever dreams of a world without a Jewish people - should not look for an estate at our Kotel."

While everybody else is distracted with Iran, King Yitzhak Amit, the Supreme Court President, is busy reforming Judaism. Israel has become a monarchy: an illegitimate one, headed not by a crowned king but by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit.

The Knesset and Israel's Chief Rabbi must declate that Reformism is not Judaism and therefore reject the Supreme Court's ruling granting an official allocation and space at the Western Wall to the Reform Movement.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote:

"By the Grace of God, 27th of Sivan, Brooklyn, NY., Greetings and blessing:

"...an Orthodox Rabbi cannot in all conscience recognize the Conservative and Reform points of view, inasmuch as both of the latter do not accept the Written and Oral Law. Hence these movements and their representatives cannot be recognized as legitimately representing the Jewish religion, inasmuch as they reject it. This has been unequivocally ruled by the Rambam and other authorities that followed him, who have established the laws and attitudes of the Shulchan Aruch, leaving no room for doubt or discussion on this basic issue.

"From the above it follows immediately that the activities of such dissident groups cannot be recognized as Jewish religious activities within the definition of Jewish religion. Therefore, Orthodox Rabbis cannot, in all conscience, be members of a body or organization together with representatives of the non-Orthodox points of view, namely, of the Conservative and Reform movements, inasmuch as participation and affiliation in such a body or organization would ipso facto constitute a recognition of the Conservative and Reform interpretation of Judaism as being legitimate parts of the framework of the Jewish Religion, in direct conflict with the unequivocal Psak Din of the Rambam and other autyhorities, as mentioned above..." (source: "The Letter and the Spirit", volume II page 57)

On February 18, 2026 Arutz 7 reported "Women of the Wall block main entry and exit from Western Wall plaza, allegedly endangering lives...

"The Western Wall Heritage Foundation reported that during the festive prayers, a group of activists from "Women of the Wall" blocked the main entrance and exit to the Western Wall plaza..."

"The Women of the Wall responded: "The ushers of the Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall leave us no choice. We are fed up with the mistreatment and the attempts to harm our prayers. We are fed up with the fact that despite there being no legal or halakhic (pertaining to Jewish law -ed.) prohibition, the Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall prevents us in every way from reading from the Torah scroll. We will read from the Torah on the first day of the Jewish month, and implement what the court decided a long time ago: Women of the Wall’s prayer with a Torah scroll is a local custom, and we are allowed to read from the Torah at the Western Wall."

On February 16, 2026 Arutz 7 reported "In a statement to the Supreme Court, the Chief Rabbis assert that the Western Wall is a synagogue and is subject to halakhic rules that require separation between men and women...

"In the statement, filed by attorney Doron Taubman, the Chief Rabbis declare that the Western Wall plaza is considered a synagogue, and halakhic rules requiring gender separation apply to it. The Rabbinate points out that the southern plaza ("Ezrat Yisrael") provides an alternative for groups wishing to pray outside the traditional Orthodox customs..."

It is ironic that most people that participate in Women of the Wall protests are part of the same radical leftist reform aligned organizations who in America participate in pro-Palestinian protests calling to "end the occupation" and say Kadish for Hamas. Jews were not allowed to pray in the Western Wall when it was illegally occupied by Jordan. The same Women of the Wall who want to reform Judaism and want to impose changes in the Western Wall are part of the same radical leftist reform aligned organizations who in America call to "end the occupation" by which NO JEW WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE WESTERN WALL.

Here are some of the leaders of the Women of the Wall movement:

"Anat Hoffman is a founding member of Women of the Wall. Anat served for 20 years as the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the legal and advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel...

"Tammy Gottlieb Vice Chair of the Board...For many years Tammy worked for the Masorti movements in Israel and today is the Executive Director of the NGO 'Signing Anew'.

In 2012 NGO Monitor reported that "Signing Anew" was intiated and funded by Soros radical leftist New Israel Fund "NIF was the initiator of and continues to fund “Signing Anew” (an Israeli political NGO), including authorizing grants in the amount of $100,000 in 2011, $300,343 in 2010, and $465,282 in 2009. Until 2010, Signing Anew was included on NIF’s Financial Statements with the notation that “NIF and Signing Anew have related Board members and staff such that NIF has oversight of Signing Anew.”

In 2012 NGO monitor reported that "Signing Anew" was responsible for false accusations of apartheid in Israel that were used to promote BDS " The pseudo-poll and headline published by Haaretz on Oct. 23 is now generally acknowledged as a major mistake. The poll’s manipulative methodology and shallow questions have been dissected in newspaper columns and talk shows across the Israeli spectrum. Haaretz was forced to publish a correction, which was largely hidden, and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote a minimal retraction.

" However, a great deal of damage has been done outside Israel, where this farce was used to further the campaign of anti-Israel political warfare and demonization. The British Guardian and Independent, the Canadian Globe and Mail and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald ran the story accompanied by headlines as misleading as the headline on the original Haaretz piece: “Many Israelis support apartheid-style state, poll suggests,” and “The new Israeli apartheid.”

" The poll that generated such attention was flawed in many dimensions. In Maariv, Ben-Dror Yemini details many of the false claims and absurd statements it contains. And in Haaretz, former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Yehuda Ben-Meir emphasized that the actual conclusion to be drawn from the poll results was “exactly the opposite of what’s written in the article’s headline” and that the majority of Israelis were “unwilling to live in a country with an apartheid regime.” As a “push” poll used for crude political manipulation, and involving only 503 people, this survey was driven by clear political objectives.

" These activities are an integral part of an ongoing campaign that began in the NGO Forum of the U.N.’s 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The crudely anti-Semitic event was described by the late Congressman Tom Lantos as “an anti-American and anti-Israel circus.” In alliance with the Arab League and Iran, 5,000 officials from 1,500 “civil society organizations” that use the banner of human rights, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, adopted a declaration accusing Israel of “apartheid and ethnic cleansing” and adopted a strategy of “complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state … the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links.” It is in this context that the poll, the headlines that followed (based on an equally misleading press release) and those responsible for it must be understood.

"The pseudo-poll is another form of attack in this political war to demonize Israel. Responsibility for the attack, beyond Haaretz, lies with Amiram Goldblum, a founder of Peace Now, who runs the Yisraela Goldblum Fund (named after his late wife), which paid for costs, under the wider framework of the non-profit group known as “Signing Anew.” This funding, in turn, was provided by the New Israel Fund, and Goldblum is a member of NIF’s International Council..."

Here is an interview with Yochi Rappaport, executive director of Women of Wall:

"...Yochi Rappaport, the executive director of Women of the Wall...Rappaport actually grew up in a classic religious-Zionist atmosphere in Safed. She was a member of the Bnei Akiva youth movement and studied in an ulpana, a high school for religious girls.

"The changing point in her life was when she served in the army. Yochi Rappaport: “I was a commander in the Nativ course, which is in charge of conversion to Judaism for soldiers. I fell in love with the liberal and feminist Jewish world,” she said. She worked for different organizations in the world of cultural Judaism and afterward for Women of the Wall for six years. “In May 2019, I was appointed as director-general,” she said...She is married, the mother of two daughters and a Jerusalemite. Rappaport’s family are members of an egalitarian open Orthodox community.

"...Rappaport explained that she also has criticism towards secular Israelis. “When I talk about religion in Israel, the seculars suddenly jump up in surprise when they see a woman wearing a tallit [prayer shawl]. That’s part of the story we’re talking about. We are drawing a line and saying that religion belongs to everyone.” She added that “this is part of the task of Women of Wall as a movement: to normalize religion and to make sure that the public understands that it also belongs to women.” Rappaport said that she is asked frequently, “Why exactly do you have to make trouble at their Wall?” I answer them that the Kotel is public and does not belong to anyone. Precisely from the secularists I hear more shock about what we do at the Kotel. There are also those secular Israelis who don’t want any connection to religion, because for them it does not allow equality. The seculars in Israel are very conservative. They will say, ‘How dare you change something traditional?’ Yet there are the seculars in Tel Aviv whose attitude is: if Judaism is not equal towards LGBTs and women, then they don’t want to be part of it. Our goal is to promote Judaism that embraces all Jews, not the opposite.”

"Rappaport...said she is constantly invited to speak to groups across Israel, whether liberal religious schools or secular educational institutions. “I meet about 120 groups a year, and I speak to them about Women of the Wall or even just about Judaism in general. Sometimes I meet young girls who wrote an essay about our movement. “Many teachers tell me that they want to bring Judaism to their students but not a Chabad rabbi, for example, because the students don’t relate to them. I speak about liberal Judaism, and many of these students respond in a surprised manner: ‘Wow, we didn’t know that this type of Judaism exists.’ They want our Judaism.”

The left is using schools and the IDF to promote ideology aligned with the leftist Reform Movement to indocrinate young people against Orthodox Judaism, people like Yochi Rappaport are a result. The goal is to weaken Orthodox Judaism . Why does the Knesset allow this?

The Reform's war against Orthodoxy merged with the left's war against Judicial Reform, they are now the same. First the Women of the Wall wanted to remove the mahitza in the Kotel, now anti-Orthodox activists want to forbid the mahitza in public spaces all over Israel.

On October 5, 2023 Caroline Glick wrote "The insurgents’ current target is religious Judaism and religious Jews. On Sunday night, a group of leftist male bullies stormed a movie screening for ultra-Orthodox girls and women in Jerusalem to block them from watching a film without males in the room...reporter Yael Freidson cheered them on, writing on X/Twitter, “Neighborhood men appeared at a [film] screening that was organized for women and girls, and prevented the same-sex event from taking place.

"For those who didn’t understand from the events of recent weeks, the contract has been reopened.” Freidson’s allusion to “the contract” relates to Israel’s social contract, which permits autonomy and use of public spaces for various religious and social sectors in Israel’s multicultural society. The leftist insurrection now demands that freedom of access be blocked for people who aren’t like them. Freidson’s mention of “the contract” was also an allusion to a new political party.

"In August, the heads of Brothers in Arms, the insurgency’s habitually violent paramilitary force, formed a political party called “New Contract.” It will run candidates in the municipal elections scheduled for Oct. 31. The goal is to win enough seats on municipal councils to prevent mayors from forming governing coalitions or otherwise cooperating with religious parties and Likud.

"Public spaces

"By making mayors dependent on Brothers in Arms and their shock forces-turned-city-councilmen, the hard leftists are certain they will be able to prevent the practice of traditional Judaism and ban traditional Jewish lifestyles from public spaces. They may be right. To date, no liberal or leftist politician has given Brothers in Arms and its comrades from the Kaplan Brigades and the left’s other anti-government groups a reason to fear failure. When Brothers in Arms and its comrades rioted at Yom Kippur services in central and northern Tel Aviv, in Givatayim, Rishon Letzion, Zichron Yaakov and Haifa last week, no center-left or leftist politicians condemned them.

"On the contrary, most leftist politicians supported the rioters and condemned the Jews who were trying to pray publically. Opposition leader Yair Lapid’s underling Orna Barbivai, who recently left the Knesset to fun for the Tel Aviv mayor, said in a radio interview last Wednesday that if she is elected, Orthodox Jewish outreach will be banned from the public square, and that anyone who doesn’t get with the program will be shown the door.

“I think that every resident of Tel Aviv needs to be asked what happened that in the base of liberalism, there is such a large group of Torah communities that managed to root themselves and come in from outside with agendas.” If she is elected mayor, Barbivai pledged, “Anyone who doesn’t abide by the standards that I as a liberal mayor will lead—won’t be here.”

"...They want to reduce the Jewish character of Israel to the level of a kitschy accessory for the otherwise progressive, globalist plutocracy where they, as the enlightened elite, will hold all the reins of power. Their sword is intimidation. Their shield is the self-selected judicial oligarchy that shares their post-Zionist intuitions and holds unlimited powers. All the same, the depth of their hostility toward actual Judaism and the Jewish character of the State of Israel was largely hidden behind the ocean of Israeli flags that their billionaire financiers have armed them with, in a fairly successful effort to appropriate patriotism to their side.

"That all ended on Yom Kippur when members of Brothers in Arms, the Kaplan Force and the left’s other paramilitary groups used force and intimidation to ruin and break up public prayers on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar in central and northern Tel Aviv, and in other liberal cities around central and northern Israel. Although the media tried to present the events as a fight between two warring factions, the leftists working to protect the liberal character of their cities from far-right provocateurs, rather than real worshippers, no one was buying it. One clip that immediately went viral told the tale.

‘You people!’

"A young Mizrahi Jewish man at the prayers at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, surrounded by Ashkenazic rioters screaming at him about “You people,” lost patience and shot back.

“I’m [at the demonstrations] at Kaplan Street every Saturday. I’m a secular, high-tech worker! I live here in Tel Aviv. So who is ‘You people’?

" When you say, ‘You people,’ who are you referring to? Is it the color of my skin? Is it my kippah? Who is ‘You people’!?

“Please explain to me, ‘Mr. Enlightened Left,’ who is ‘You people’! Because I’m at Kaplan, every Saturday, fighting for my democracy! And one day of the year, when I decide to put on a kippah, suddenly, I’m ‘You people’?!”

"That young man was far from alone. A lot of the people who were blocked from praying had until then identified with the anti-government protesters. But after Yom Kippur, they realized that the protests aren’t about the balance of powers. They are about the nature of the Jewish state. The people they thought were on their side are actually using them to advance an anti-Jewish agenda they hadn’t signed on for..."

The Reform's war against Orthodoxy merged with the left's war against Judicial Reform, they are now the same. First the Women of the Wall wanted to remove the mechitza in the Kotel, now anti-Orthodox activists want to forbid the mechitza in public spaces all over Israel.

The debate over the Reform movement is about far more than prayer arrangements; it is an existential struggle over the definition of Judaism itself. To the Orthodox majority and the Rabbinate, the Western Wall is a synagogue governed by millennia of tradition that cannot be "molded according to political whims." They view the push for egalitarian spaces as an import of foreign values, funded by external NGOs, that threatens to erode the unique national identity for which Jews have sacrificed for two thousand years.

The merger of the anti-Orthodox movement with broader anti-government protests suggests that the "social contract" in Israel is being fundamentally renegotiated. Whether the Knesset will intervene to override the Supreme Court and declare that traditional Halakha remains the sole standard for the State’s holy sites remains to be seen. However, one thing is clear: as long as the "beating heart of the Jewish people" remains a site of political and religious friction, the call for a "sane majority" to protect the Jewish character of the state will only grow louder, demanding that the identity of the state be determined by its people and its heritage rather than its courts.

Ezequiel Doiny is author of "Obama's assault on Jerusalem's Western Wall" and "Jerusalem is the Spiritual capital of Judaism while Mecca is the Spiritual Capital of Islam”