See also:
Hebrew language
Jerusalem
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Western Wall is a retaining wall in Jerusalem that dates from the time of the Jewish Second Temple (516 BCE - 70 CE). It is sometimes referred to as the Wailing Wall (Arabic: il-Mabka), referring to Jews mourning the destruction of the Temple, but this name is becoming less common. The Western Wall is part of the bigger religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem called Har ha-Bayit (the Temple Mount) to Jews and Christians, or Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims. The Western Wall derives its holiness due to its proximity to the sacred Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount, which is the Most Holy Place in Judaism. This makes the Western Wall the holiest location in Judaism which is currently generally accessible to the Jewish people for prayer.
Jewish men and women can be found praying at the wall at every hour, though a mechitza, or divider, separates the men's section of the wall from the women's section. B'nai Mitzvah celebrations can also be held here, and some people of different ages travel from all over the world to have their ceremonies at the Kotel. It is also a tradition to deposit a slip of paper with wishes or prayers on it into the cracks of the wall. Looking closely, one can see hundreds of tiny, folded papers stuffed inside the grooves.
The Temple in Jerusalem was the most sacred building in Judaism. Herod the Great built vast retaining walls around Mount Moriah, expanding the small, quasi-natural plateau on which the First and Second Temples stood into the wide open spaces of the Temple Mount seen today.
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Jews praying by the Western Wall
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