The High Court of Justice on Sunday was scheduled to hear a petition demanding the government follow through on its plan to build a prayer plaza where men and women can pray together at the Western Wall.
The plan, originally approved in February 2016, was scrapped a year later over the fierce objections of the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism.
The current petition, filed by Women of the Wall, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement in Israel and the Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism in Israel, will be heard by an extended, seven-judge panel.
The petition, which is the third the groups have filed on this issue, says preventing egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall constitutes "a serious and continuing violation of freedom of religion and the right to equality and dignity for millions of Jews, women and men in Israel and the Diaspora, who are denied the right to pray in Judaism's most sacred site."
According to the petitioners, the violation of freedom of worship is expressed, first and foremost, by the fact that Conservative, Reform and secular Jews are denied the right to hold mixed prayer services at the site.
According to the Women of the Wall, the current prayer regulations enforced at the site are particularly discriminatory against women, who are barred from carrying Torah scrolls onto the prayer plaza.
