History

The Western Wall, the Kotel, is the most important site in the world for the Jewish people, being the last remnant of the Holy Temple. Jews from around the world gather at the wall to pray. People write notes to God and place them between the ancient stones of the Wall.

Many important events took place on Mount Moriah, known as the Temple Mount. Mount Moriah is the place God told Abraham to go and offer his son Isaac for sacrifice, where the binding of Isaac took place.

Later on, the Holy of Holies – the core and heart of the First and Second Temples was built on this place.

According to the Hebrew Bible Solomon’s Temple was built atop what is known as the Temple Mount in the 10th century BC and was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. After the Jews came back from the Babylonian exile, they rebuilt the Temple known as and the Second Temple and it was dedicated in 516 BC.

Around 19 BC Herod the Great began a massive expansion project on the Temple Mount. In addition to fully rebuilding and enlarging the Temple, he expanded the platform on which it stood,

The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans, along with the rest of Jerusalem, in 70 CE during the First Jewish-Roman War. The Western Wall is the part of the retaining wall around the temple that remained standing. Most of the Jews were exiled from the land, but close to a million remained in Israel and settled in villages.

After the Romans defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, Jews were banned from Jerusalem. The Romans changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina the name of the land of Israel to Palastina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel and Judah.

When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity under Emperor Constantine I in 325 AD, Jews were given permission to enter the city once a year, on the ninth of the month of Av to attend at the Wall a Memorial and mourning of the destruction of both temples that occurred on the same date. In 425 CE, the Jews of the Galilee wrote to Byzantine empress Aelia Eudocia seeking permission to pray by the ruins of the Temple. Permission was granted and they were officially permitted to resettle in Jerusalem.

Middle Ages 500–1500

Several Jewish authors of the 10th and 11th centuries write about the Jews coming to the Western Wall for devotional purposes. Samuel ben Paltiel (980-1010) wrote about a Rabbi giving money for oil at “the sanctuary at the Western Wall.” Benjamin of Tudela (1170) wrote “In front of this place is the Western Wall, and hither come all the Jews to pray before the Wall in the open court.” Obadiah of Bertinoro (1488) states “the Western Wall, part of which is still standing, is made of great, thick stones, larger than any I have seen in buildings of antiquity in Rome or in other lands.”

Muslim Rule

In the 12th century, after Muslim Saladin conquered Jerusalem in 1187, in 1193; Saladin’s son and successor al-Afdal established the land adjacent to the Wall as a charitable trust. Named after the mystic Abu Madyan Shu’aib, it was dedicated to Moroccan settlers and houses were built just feet away from the Wall (only 4 meters (13 ft) away from the wall). This became known as the Moroccan Quarter, and it stood until 1948.

Ottoman Occupation

During the Turkish Muslim Ottoman rule from 1517 to 1917, the Turks welcomed Jews after they were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand II and Isabella in 1492. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was impressed by Jerusalem and ordered a huge fortress wall built around the Old City, which still stands today. In the late 16th century, Suleiman also gave Jews the right to worship at the Western Wall.

At this point in history, the Wall became a popular destination for Jews for prayer because of the freedoms Suleiman granted them. Rabbi Gedaliah of Semitzi visited Jerusalem in 1699 and recorded that the scrolls of halacha (law) are brought to the Western Wall on memorial days of national tragedy.

During the 19th century, as the world became more global and more and more Jews came to perform their devotions at the Wall, foot traffic at the Western Wall began to build up.

Tensions increased during this period because of the noise from visitors that upset those who lived in homes nearby who were not Jewish. This gave rise to Jews pursuing to acquire land near the Wall.

Over the years, many Jews and Jewish organizations tried to purchase homes and land near the Wall, but without success because of tensions, lack of funds, and other problems.

In 1869 Rabbi Hillel Moshe Gelbstein settled in Jerusalem, and was successful in acquiring nearby courtyards that were set up as synagogues. He started a custom of bringing tables and benches near the Wall for study, a custom that was banned in the late 1800s by a formal decree, which also forbade Jews from lighting candles at the Wall. However, this decree was overturned around 1915.

Under British Rule

In December 1917, British forces under Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem from the Turks. Allenby pledged, “That every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer of whatsoever form of the three religions will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faith they are sacred”.

There was a renewed hope for the Jews to be given possession of at the Wall. Unfortunately, Jewish-Arab tensions kept this from happening and several deals for the purchase of land and homes near the Wall fell through.

In early 1920, the first Jewish-Arab dispute over the Wall occurred when the Muslim authorities were carrying out minor repair work on the Wall’s upper courses. The Jews, while agreeing that the work was necessary, appealed to the British that the repairs be made under supervision of the newly formed Department of Antiquities. They claimed that the Wall was an ancient relic. Tensions arose over the divider separating the men’s and women’s prayer sections being placed at the Wall, which resulted in the constant presence of a British soldier. They made sure Jews did not sit at the Wall or place a separation device at the sight.

Around this time, Arabs began worrying about Jews taking possession of more than just the Kotel, but also of pursuing the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Jewish National Council reassured the Arabs that “no Jew has ever thought of encroaching upon the rights of Moslems over their own Holy places, but our Arab brethren should also recognize the rights of Jews in regard to the places in Palestine which are holy to them.”

In August of 1929, Jews started protests in Tel Aviv against acts of harassment ordered by Mufti Amin al-Husayni (Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places,) that included having mules go through the alley in front of the Western Wall, often dropping excrement, and attacks on Jews praying at the wall. They were shouting, “The Wall is ours.” The next day, the Jewish fast of Tisha B’Av, 300 youths raised the Zionist flag and sang Hatikva at the Wall. The next day, on August 16, an organized mob of 2,000 Muslim Arabs descended on the Western Wall, injuring the beadle and burning prayer books, liturgical fixtures and notes that were placed in the cracks of the Western Wall. The riots spread and a few days later, the tragic Hebron Massacre (the killing of sixty-seven or sixty-nine Jews on August 24, 1929) occurred.

Following the riots, a British commission approved by the League of Nations undertook to understand the rights and claims of Jews and Muslims in connection with the Western Wall. In 1930, the Shaw Commission concluded that the Wall and the adjacent area belonged solely to the Muslim waqf (an Islamic religious trust or “Islamic Religious Endowments” organization, best known for controlling and managing the current Islamic edifices on and around the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.) After that decision, Jews still had the right to “free access to the Western Wall for the purpose of devotions at all times,” with a set of stipulations like forbidding the blowing of the Shofar, and some restrictions on certain holidays and rituals.

David Yellin, Head of the Hebrew Teachers Seminary, member of the Ottoman parliament, and one of the first public figures to join the Zionist movement openly, testified before the Commission. He stated:

“Being judged before you today stands a nation that has been deprived of everything that is dear and sacred to it from its emergence in its own land – the graves of its patriarchs, the graves of its great kings, the graves of its holy prophets and, above all, the site of its glorious Temple. Everything has been taken from it and of all the witnesses to its sanctity, only one vestige remains – one side of a tiny portion of a wall, which, on one side, borders the place of its former Temple. In front of this bare stone wall, that nation stands under the open sky, in the heat of summer and in the rains of winter, and pours out its heart to its God in heaven.”

Captured by Jordan

In the War of Independence of 1948, Jordan captured the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, destroyed many Jewish homes, and many Jews were killed or driven out of their homes. From 1948 until 1967, the Western Wall was under Jordanian rule and Jews were not allowed into the Old City and/or the Wall, despite the Article VIII of the 1949 Armistice Agreement that provided for Israeli Jewish access to the Western Wall.

Liberation

During the 1967 Six-Day War which the Jordanians joined against Israel’s advice, Jordan lost the battle over Judea and Samaria, and in the bitter fighting in the streets of Old City of Jerusalem. A group of Israeli paratroopers managed to get to the Old City through the Lion’s Gate and liberate the Western Wall and Temple Mount. Jerusalem was reunified, and Jews were once again allowing to pray freely at the Kotel (The Wall) the paratroopers wept loudly in pain over their comrades who had fallen along the way. The words of the Kaddish (prayer of mourning the dead) was heard by the stones of the Western Wall’s after 19 years of silence, tears of mourning, shouts of joy, and the singing of “Hatikvah” (the Israeli anthem.)

Following Israel’s victory during the 1967 Six-Day War, the Western Wall came under Israeli control. Brigadier Rabbi Shlomo Goren proclaimed after its capture that “Israel would never again relinquish the Wall”, which was supported by Israeli Minister for Defense Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff General Yitzhak Rabin. In the 48 hours after this liberation, the military – without explicit governmental orders – demolished the entire Moroccan Quarter as well as a mosque near the Kotel, all in order to make way for the Western Wall Plaza. The plaza expanded the narrow sidewalk in front of the Kotel from accommodating a maximum of 12,000 people to accommodate more than 400,000 people.

Israeli rule 1967–present

The new plaza created in 1967 is used for worship and public gatherings, including Bar mitzvah celebrations and the swearing-in ceremonies of newly full-fledged soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces. Tens of thousands of Jews flock to the wall on the Jewish holidays, and particularly on the fast of Tisha B’Av (the 9^th of the Hebrew month of Av) which marks the destruction of both Temples, and on Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 and the delivery of the Wall into Jewish hands.

Conflicts over prayer at the national monument began little more than a year after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, once again made accessible to Jews, on the issue of separating the area into a section for men and a section for women, as the Ministry of Religious Affairs requested. The Knesset committee on internal affairs backed the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The Kotel Today

Today, several areas of the Western Wall provide accommodations for different religious observances, in order to hold different types of services and activities. These include Robinson’s Arch and Wilson’s Arch.

Robinson’s Arch

At the southern end of the Western Wall, Robinson’s Arch along with a row of vaults once supported stairs ascending from the street to the Temple Mount. Because it does not come under the direct control of the Rabbi of the Wall or the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the site has been opened to religious groups that hold worship services that would not be approved by the Rabbi or the Ministry in the major men’s and women’s prayer areas against the Wall.

Wilson’s Arch

In 2005, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation initiated a major renovation effort under Rabbi-of-the-Wall Shmuel Rabinovitch. Its goal was to renovate and restore the area within Wilson’s Arch, the covered area to the left of worshipers facing the Wall in the open prayer plaza, in order to increase access for visitors and for prayer.

The restoration to the men’s section included a Torah ark that can house over 100 Torah scrolls, in addition to new bookshelves, a library, heating for the winter, and air conditioning for the summer. A new room was also built for the scribes who maintain and preserve the Torah scrolls used at the Wall. New construction also included a women’s section, overlooking the men’s prayer area, so that women could use this separate area to “take part in the services held inside under the Arch” for the first time.

Muslims

In December 1973, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia stated that “Only Muslims and Christians have holy places and rights in Jerusalem”. The Jews, he maintained, had no rights there at all. As for the Western Wall, he said, “Another wall can be built for them. They can pray against that. Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel wrote that:

“The Western Wall – all its various parts, structures and gates – are an inseparable part of the al-Aqsa compound…The Western Wall is part of Al-Aqsa’s western tower, which the Israeli establishment fallaciously and sneakily calls the ‘Wailing Wall’. The wall is part of the holy al-Aqsa Mosque PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, believes that the Wall belongs to the Muslims alone. In 2000 he related that “No stone of the Al-Buraq wall has any relation to Judaism. The Jews began praying at this wall only in the nineteenth century, when they began to develop [national] aspirations.” A year later, he stated:

“There is not a single stone in the Wailing Wall relating to Jewish History. The Jews cannot legitimately claim this wall, neither religiously nor historically. The Committee of the League of Nations recommended in 1930, to allow the Jews to pray there, in order to keep them quiet. But by no means did it acknowledge that the wall belongs to them.”

As we saw from the history above, these claims are not true.

In November 2010, an official paper published by the PA Ministry of Information denied Jewish rights to the Wall. It stated that “Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of Al-Aksa Mosque” and that Jews had only started using the site for worship after the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

As we saw in the history above, Jews longed to come and worship at the Wall since the time they were expelled from the Land but were not permitted by the different conquerors, including the Muslims.