Women and the Western Wall JERUSALEM - The rain didn't deter many observant Jews from visiting the Western Wall on a recent Sunday. And I wasn't surprised to see more men than women, and more Orthodox men than other Jews. After all, the men have the luxury of access to a spacious covered area, where only they can pray, as long as they don't stray from Orthodox customs, while women must weather the elements. That the Orthodox come out to pray in the rain is no doubt due to their devotion to this holiest of Jewish sites, the remnant of what once was the Jewish Temple. But the government-appointed administrators of the wall who make the rules for gathering and praying also make life easier for Orthodox Jews. The area is managed by Orthodox rabbis according to a strict version of Orthodox practice, which among other things means male-centered policies and restrictions on female worshipers. For more than 20 years, a small group of Jewish women has been fighting against the Orthodox rule at the Kotel, as the Western Wall is known to many Jews. Their organization, Women of the Wall (WoW), has been on a long journey that has involved public demonstrations, court battles and confrontations with the police. The group has been threatened, insulted and attacked by other Kotel visitors. And yet these women kept insisting on their right to pray as they prefer, wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) or a kippa, and to be allowed to read from the Torah at the women's section of the wall. The ultra-traditional rabbis have refused to allow it, and the courts haven't done much to help, instead mandating that women pray somewhere else, still near the wall but away from where others come to pray, and in an area that is not designed to accommodate worshipers. If it's raining, they get wet. Due to the political might of the Orthodox community, and after having lost too many legal battles, the Women of the Wall had only one hope left: gaining the support of the American Jewish public. While Israelis were somewhat indifferent to this battle, WoW found that the more liberal American Jewish community could be enlisted to help. Their cause was celebrated in American synagogues and temples. Their leaders became celebrities in America and were invited to speak and raise money for the movement. In so doing, WoW succeeded in making their Kotel war one of the most contentious issues standing between the Israeli government and the American Jewish community. Jewish Americans, time and again, found it hard to believe that what they consider to be routine custom - women reading from the Torah - was still controversial in the Jewish state. It became such a political hot potato that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Natan Sharansky, a Soviet-era dissident and former government minister, to sort out the mess. Sharansky's deal, almost finalized, is a measured compromise with a grain of irony. To accommodate American Jews" liberal leanings he brokered a "separate but equal" arrangement: The area near the wall where visitors can worship will be expanded to include a new section in which WoW - and all other Jews wanting to avoid strict Orthodox custom - can pray as they wish. Women will be able to wear a prayer shawl without being detained by the police; men and women will be able to mix, pray and celebrate together. From the view of the women's movement, this is both good politics and good policy. Good politics because the burden now shifts to the Israeli government, which will have to prove that it is serious about implementing the deal. And good policy because it achieves three goals: Jews of all stripes will now have a place at the Kotel; an ugly clash between the Orthodox and other Jews has been avoided; and relations between Israel and the wider world of religious-but-not-Orthodox Jews will improve. A "separate but equal" compromise may not be ideal - it still leaves the Orthodox in control of the larger part of the plaza - but it's a worthy agreement, and a step in the right direction.