Source: Jerusalem Post
On June 13, 2004 the Jerusalem Post reported, "The 15-year-long struggle over the right of the Women of the Wall to hold monthly prayer services at the Western Wall is still not over, despite two supposedly final rulings by the High Court of Justice over the past four years. Last year, on April 5, a panel of nine Supreme Court justices revoked a decision handed down by the same court three years earlier, allowing the Women of the Wall to don tallitot, pray out loud, and recite from the Torah during the morning prayer for the new month at the Western Wall. But the court gave the state 12 months to prepare an alternate site at Robinson's Arch, far from the Western Wall plaza, for the monthly service. The state has not yet completed work at Robinson's Arch and, when the deadline expired in April of this year, the women returned to the Western Wall, where they have held two services so far. On Sunday, Supreme Court President Aharon Barak heard the state's request for an extension of the deadline until the end of July, at which time, it promised, work at Robinson's Arch will be complete. The state also asked the court to extend the ban on the women praying at the Western Wall until that time. The women argued against granting the state's request. Their attorney, Nira Azriel, told The Jerusalem Post that the Women of the Wall insisted that the court's ruling was final and that, accordingly, if the state did not prepare Robinson's Arch by the end of the original deadline, the women's congregation would be allowed to pray permanently at the Western Wall plaza."