Politics in the Planning of the Western Wall Plaza

Chapter 3 Politics in the Planning of the Western Wall Plaza

The question of how to design and construct the Western Wall plaza arose immediately with the end of the Six-Day War. The total destruction of the Mughrabi Quarter, the empty space created as a result, and the transfer of the Western Wall to the authority of the State of Israel and the Ministry of Religions afforded an unparalleled opportunity to plan and construct the plaza as a site bearing both national and religious meaning. There was general agree- ment that the nondescript, newly created plaza required a process of architectural development. But how was the state to design such an important and significant site to meet the needs of the many worshippers and visitors, one befitting its status as a Jewish holy place and an Israeli symbol? How should the site be rebuilt in order to serve as a place of worship and religious com- munion and simultaneously as a historical and national emblem? The answers to these questions, as we will see below, turned out to be exceedingly complex and sensitive. The indecision regarding the architectural design of the Western Wall became the subject of an incisive and prolonged public and political de- bate in Israel; in it, Israeli and Jewish values, religion and nationality, and past and present all came into conflict. The present chapter focuses on the struggle surrounding the issue of the design and renovation of the Western Wall plaza in the first decades following the Six-Day War, and analyzes the political forces that put this process in motion. In the chapter’s first section, we discuss the creation of the temporary plaza facing the Western Wall. This plaza – the result of religious and architectural needs born out of the war – was quickly constructed. Later in the chapter we discuss the reluctance surrounding the need to develop a detailed architectural plan for the site, and the emergence of Moshe Safdie as the leading architect for the preparation of such a plan. We then see how pressure applied by various agents regarding the Safdie plan caused its implementation to be thwarted, turning the temporary plaza into a permanent one. The chapter explains why, despite the many plans proposed for the Western Wall plaza – foremost among them Safdie’s plan – no plan was adopted, turning the temporary design of the plaza following the war into its permanent appearance.

1 The Creation of the Temporary Plaza

In the midst of the 1967 war – even before the ceasefire – soldiers, politicians, and citizens began to arrive at the Western Wall plaza. The flow increased after the end of the war, causing the narrow plaza of the pre-1967 period to grow ever more crowded. The immense number of visitors expected to arrive at the Western Wall in the days and weeks after the war, the expectation that masses would come there to mark the upcoming Shavuot holiday, and the desire to remove the shabby houses of the Mughrabi Quarter from the vicinity were among the cen- tral factors in the decision to demolish the neighborhood. As described in the previous chapter, the government quickly evacuated the many families living in the quarter, and bulldozers destroyed the houses and flattened the entire area. The Western Wall now faced a wide plaza nearly an acre in size, different in its shape and character from the rest of the Old City.1 The hasty evacuation and destruction of the Muslim homes was met with dissatisfaction by segments of the Israeli public. A large, exposed space now lay at the foot of the Western Wall, but visitors familiar with the Wall prior to the war were astounded by the loss of historical proportion with respect to its surroundings. For many, the joy following the liberation of the sacred wall was replaced by disappointment with its new appearance; in the huge plaza created beneath it, no trace remained of the sense of ancient grandeur that had per- vaded the site in the past. Eliezer Brutzkus, the official charged with national planning at the Ministry of the Interior, was a prominent critic of the neighborhood’s demolition. He argued that it was the duty of the State of Israel, as the new ruler of East Jerusalem, to preserve the architectural status quo in the Old City in general, and, in particular, that the state should have acted carefully and responsibly with regard to the demolition of the Mughrabi Quarter’s houses. He demanded that any future change in the Western Wall plaza be implement- ed following consultation with an international body of experts, which would recommend changes and improvements after an in-depth consideration of the holy site’s complex suite of problems.2 The huge flow of visitors at the Western Wall – numbering in the thou- sands each day – created abundant operational issues. Access to the site was complex, and the movement of visitors through it problematic. Worshippers and tourists flocked to the Wall in one throng; the plaza was exposed to the

1 Benziman, Jerusalem, 37–46. 2 JMA, container 2059, Western Wall, 1, E. Brutzkus to Kollek, 13 June 1967.