Jerusalem: The Western Wall

"And many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, old men who had seen the First Temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundations of this [the Second] Temple...." (Ezra 3:12)

Following the suppression of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome in 135, Jews were forbidden to live in Jerusalem, which was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian and renamed Aelia Capitolina. Even so, there is evidence in the Talmud and other writings that Jewish pilgrimage continued, if only to mourn the destroyed Temple.

The Emperor Constantine and his Christian successors continued the Hadrianic edict prohibiting Jews to live in the city. They did, however, allow Jews to go up to the Temple Mount each year on the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av, the day of the destruction of the Temple, to mourn on its ruins (which the Byzantines deliberately left desolate). This is mentioned by a Christian visitor, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, in 333.

References in rabbinical writings of the period indicate that Jews were praying at the present Western Wall (Hakotel Hamaaravi), a remnant of the Herodian retaining wall of the Temple Mount platform. This custom continued after the Muslim Conquest in 640, when Jews were allowed once more to live in the city, but were excluded from the Temple Mount, which had been made a Muslim precinct (the Haram esh-Sharif).

Jewish presence in Jerusalem was again interrupted in 1099 by the Crusader conquest of the city and the ensuing massacre of the Jewish and Muslim communities. Only in the late Crusader period were Jews once more allowed to reside in the city. According to the Jewish traveler Binyamin of Tudela, visiting in 1163, some 200 Jews were living near the "Tower of David, working as tanners, in payment of a fee to the king". He also records that in front of the Templo Domino one could see "the western wall... and all Jews resort thither to say their prayers near the wall of the courtyard".

Since the 12th century, except for the 19-year period between 1948 and 1967 (when the Old City was under Jordanian rule), the Western Wall has been the most revered place where Jews offer their prayers. When, during the 1967 Six Day War, Israel Radio broadcast the announcement:"Har Habayit beyadeinu" ("the Temple Mount is in our hands"), Jews throughout the world rejoiced.

As was the Temple in ancient days, the Western Wall is also a place of pilgrimage during the three major festivals of the Jewish religious year: Pessah (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost, the "Festival of Weeks") and Sukkot (Tabernacles).

In accordance with traditional Jewish custom, there are separate areas of prayer at the Wall for men and women.

   - Map of Jerusalem