Hundreds of members of the Reform and Conservative movements from Israel and the United States arrived on Friday morning at the Kotel plaza for the Rosh Chodesh Adar B prayer. They were met with enormous resistance from mostly Haredi Jews, including an estimated ten thousand seminary women who followed the instructions of two leaders of the Haredi Lithuanian public,
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I believe that both the Israeli Masorti <Conservative> Movement and the Nashot Hakotel are shooting themselves in the foot by associating themselves with the Reform Movement, both its American mothership and its satellite in Israel. The Masorti Movement in Israel is doctrinally closer to Orthodox Judaism than it is to Reform Judaism. There is a commitment to binding halacha, and most of its members are observant of Shabbat and Kashrut.

Reform Judaism, on the other hand, makes Shabbat and Kashrut optional. It replaces the mitzvot [commandments] of the Torah as codified into halacha with a collection of platitudes that many observers note are identical to liberal – lately, “progressive” – American (or left-wing Israeli) politics.

The observance of mitzvot because they are mitzvot and not because of their social utility is the essence of Judaism, more important than any set of beliefs. This is entirely absent from Reform Judaism, and I think this in itself is enough to support the position that Reform Judaism is a different religion from Orthodox or even Masorti Judaism.
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The ordinary Israeli sees Reform Judaism for what it is, which is a politically left-leaning, spiritually vacuous, non-Jewish religion. But it is the 800-pound gorilla of the non-Orthodox world, with money, clout, and people that it uses to project its influence here in Israel, where, in my opinion, it does not belong. Both the women and the Masortim thought they could help their cause by hitching a ride with them.