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Your email address will not be published. What is the Western Wall? Both of these beliefs are incorrect. So what is the significance of the Western Wall? In order to understand what the Western Wall is, you have to go back three thousand years. Thanks to the Wall and the Temple, Jerusalem has become and maintained a pivotal importance for Jewish people. Jerusalem is mentioned times in the Tanakh, which is the Jewish Bible. Despite the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temple, Jews believe that the presence of God has never left the place.
For thousands of years, Jews have gathered at the wall to pray and connect to the holiness at the site. Visiting the Wall is a unique experience for people of every background. He built the wall as the supporting western wall of the Second Holy Temple. Herod also renovated the temple, and made Jerusalem the capital city.
According to Sages, one who has not seen the Temple and the Wall has never seen a beautiful building in his life. The Western Wall is composed of three different types of Jerusalem stones. Each type of stones come from a different time period. Another interesting fact is that half of the stones are underground and invisible. The first seven layers above ground are enormous stones, weighing between two and seven tons.
The next section consists of significantly smaller rocks which date back to the Muslim period in the eight century. The earliest clear use of ha-kotel ha-ma'aravi in the sense of today's "Western Wall" is by the 11th-century Italian Hebrew poet Ahima'az ben Paltiel. This, too, though, may predate the actual use of the wall by Jews for prayer, since it is not until the 16th century that we hear of the wall being used for that purpose.
The English term "Wailing Wall" or its equivalent in other languages dates from much later. In fact despite its hoary sound, "Wailing Wall" is a strictly 20th-century English usage introduced by the British after their conquest of Jerusalem from the Turks in In the 19th century, when European travelers first began visiting Palestine in sufficient numbers to notice the Jews there at all, the Western Wall was commonly referred to as "the Wailing Place," as in the following passage from Samuel Manning's "Those Holy Fields" :.
A little further along the western [retaining] wall we come to the Wailing-place of the Jews Here the Jews assemble every Friday to mourn over their fallen state Some press their lips against crevices in the masonry as though imploring an answer from some unseen presence within, others utter loud cries of anguish.
The "Wailing-place" was a translation of El-Mabka, or "the Place of Weeping," the traditional Arabic term for the wall. Within a short time after the commencement of the British Mandate, however, "Wailing Wall" became the standard English term, nor did Jews have any compunctions about using it.
After the establishment of Israel in and the War of Independence, the eastern portion of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, came under Jordanian rule and Jews were unable to pray there.
But during the Six-Day War , Israel reunified the city and recaptured the wall. Since then, Israel greatly expanded the area for prayer at the wall and the surrounding plaza, but the site has been a consistent source of controversy.
Violence has broken out there over the years, with Muslim worshippers occasionally hurling rocks and other projectiles from the mount above on Jewish worshippers below.
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