Western Wall

The Western Wall stands in Jerusalem's Old City and forms the western face of the retaining wall constructed around the expanded Temple Mount compound during Herod's rebuilding project.[2] The wall extends approximately 490 meters from the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount to its northwestern corner, though much of its length lies underground or is otherwise inaccessible.[3] Of the total length, approximately 140 meters are exposed above ground: roughly 60 meters lie within the main open-air prayer plaza, and approximately 80 meters are visible in the archaeological park to the south.[3] A further section of approximately 350 meters runs beneath the streets and buildings of the Old City and was excavated beginning in 1968 in the project now known as the Western Wall Tunnel.[5]

The best-known portion — the prayer plaza section — is described in one academic source as approximately 187 feet (roughly 57 meters) long and 62 feet high, while the full retaining wall runs approximately 1,601 feet in total.[6] The Herodian stones that make up the wall are massive: individual stones range from roughly 2.6 to 44.6 feet in length, average approximately 15 feet in thickness, and weigh between 50 and 80 tons each.[6] The largest single stone described in the tunnel measures approximately 13.6 meters long, 3.3 meters high, and between 3.5 and 4.6 meters deep, with an estimated weight of around 600 tons.[5] The stones were fitted without mortar, cement, or any adhesive, with each successive course set slightly inward to enhance structural stability.[6]

A separate, shorter section of the western retaining wall known as the Kotel haKatan, or Small Wall, measuring approximately 95 feet, is located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.[6] The Western Wall Tunnel project, begun in 1968 and completed in 1985, exposed additional Herodian courses of the wall along with Roman- and Muslim-period vaults, a bridge over the Tyropoeon Valley, and Wilson's Arch.[5]

The Western Wall is not the western wall of the Temple building itself but rather one of four massive retaining walls built to support the enlarged Temple Mount platform.[2] Herod began demolishing and rebuilding the Second Temple around 20 BCE and inaugurated the replacement temple in 19 BCE, filling surrounding ravines with tens of thousands of tons of earth and more than doubling the Temple Mount's area — from approximately 62.5 dunams (about 15.6 acres) to some 144 dunams (roughly 36 acres).[2] Early Jewish sages who referred to a western wall may originally have meant the western wall of the Temple building rather than the present retaining wall.[7]

Archaeological excavations beneath Jerusalem's ancient street near Robinson's Arch revealed that an earlier residential neighborhood containing cisterns, ritual baths, and cellars existed on the site before Herod's expansion.[8] One sealed ritual bath was filled in when construction began, and the first course of the Western Wall was built directly above it.[8] Excavation of that sealed bath produced three first-century CE clay oil lamps and seventeen bronze coins; the four latest coins were struck by the Roman procurator of Judea, Valerius Gratus, in 17 or 18 CE.[8] This finding indicates that at least the Robinson's Arch portion of the wall — and possibly a longer section — was constructed after that date, more than twenty years after Herod's commonly accepted death date of 4 BCE.[8]

Construction of the Temple Mount walls and Robinson's Arch was therefore not completed during Herod's lifetime and lasted for several decades afterward.[8] The archaeological source connects this to Josephus's account that the work was finally completed during the reign of Agrippa II, Herod's great-grandson, after which between 8,000 and 10,000 workers in Jerusalem were reportedly left without employment.[8] After the Six-Day War, excavations led by Benjamin Mazar and assisted by Meir Ben-Dov exposed the first 262 feet of the wall south of the prayer plaza; this area became an archaeological park rather than a prayer site.[6]

The Second Temple was destroyed by Roman forces in 70 CE.[9] The wall's upper courses were destroyed in that destruction, though the southern and eastern retaining walls suffered comparatively limited damage.[6] The question of which wall survived and why has been addressed differently by various sources: one account holds that the Romans left the outer retaining wall standing because it was not part of the Temple itself; another emphasizes that it is a Herodian retaining wall whose presence reflects the scope of Roman destruction of the Temple building above it.[9][7]

The earliest datable reference to Jewish mourning at a wall associated with the Temple appears in the itinerary of a Christian pilgrim from Bordeaux who visited Jerusalem in 333 CE. Jews who had been barred from living in Jerusalem under Emperor Constantine were permitted to enter the city briefly on Tisha B'Av, where they anointed a wall, lamented, tore their clothing, and departed.[6] Medieval sources include an 11th-century Cairo Genizah reference to prayer farther north along the Temple Mount and a 12th-century account by Benjamin of Tudela describing Jews praying at the Western Wall — which he called the "Gates of Mercy" — when he visited Jerusalem in 1167.[10] The Chronicle of Ahimaaz, concerning Governor Paltiel, who died in 976 CE, and his son Shmuel, records that they sent money for oil to light candles at the Western Wall, representing an early testimony to active Jewish devotion at or near the wall.[10]

Accounts differ on when prayer at today's specific prayer alley became established. One account associates use of the location with the 16th century but dates regular prayer there only to the late 19th or early 20th century; another academic account says the Wall became increasingly important after the Jewish Quarter moved during the later Mamluk period.[9][6] A major earthquake on January 14, 1546, destroyed structures built against the western face of the wall and cleared a narrow open area at its foot.[10] Sultan Suleyman subsequently ordered rubble from adjacent homes cleared to create a Jewish prayer site and issued a firman granting Jews the right to pray there permanently; his successors honored this arrangement for more than 400 years.[9]

During the Mamluk period (1291–1516), the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem moved to its current location, and the wall gradually became a more important site of Jewish worship.[6] Nevertheless, one academic source notes that the Western Wall was not always Judaism's central sacred site: it was almost unknown and generally unvisited among Jews until the fifteenth century, with earlier Jewish pilgrims more commonly viewing the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives and praying for the Temple's rebuilding.[6]

The custom of placing written prayers in the crevices was documented in Samuel Manning's 1873 description and remains widespread. Cleaning teams now remove tens of thousands of notes from the crevices twice a year and bury them on the Mount of Olives.[7][9]

The Hebrew name HaKotel HaMa'aravi means simply "the Western Wall," and the site is most often called the Kotel in everyday Hebrew usage.[7] The earliest clearly identified use of that expression specifically for today's Western Wall is attributed to the 11th-century Italian Hebrew poet Ahima'az ben Paltiel.[7] The wall is also sometimes called the "Remnant of the Temple," a name that reflects Jewish tradition linking the surviving stone to divine presence and historic memory.[10]

In English, the designation "Wailing Wall" became standard usage during the British Mandate period, reflecting the practice of Jewish mourning and lamentation at the site.[7] An 1873 description by Samuel Manning captured the scene: "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."[7] After 1967, "Western Wall" progressively replaced "Wailing Wall" in Jewish usage, reflecting both national pride in the site's recapture and a conscious rejection of a term that many Jews felt emphasized defeat and exile.[7]

The wall also carries a Muslim name: the Buraq Wall, referring to the winged horse that Islamic tradition holds Muhammad rode from Mecca to al-Aqsa Mosque and tethered at this spot before his ascent to heaven.[11] Muslim authorities generally regard the wall as part of the al-Aqsa compound, the third-holiest site in Islam.[11] During the Ottoman period, Jews were permitted to pray near the wall under Muslim and Waqf jurisdiction, even as Muslim religious claims to the surrounding area remained formally asserted.[11]

The British Mandate period brought intensifying conflict over Jewish worship at the Wall. Mandate authorities imposed restrictions on Jewish practice, including prohibitions or limitations on benches, bookcases, sinks, Torah-reading equipment, a mechitza separating men and women, and the blowing of the shofar.[10] The Wall's symbolic importance sharpened as Zionist sentiment grew: until the early twentieth century it had been commonly called the "Jews' Wailing Place," and early Zionists often viewed it as a symbol of exile and outdated religious practice, but after World War I and especially in the wake of the 1929 riots, the site was increasingly adopted as a central Zionist symbol — described by some as the "Wall of Heroes" — and recast as an all-Jewish religio-national monument associated with sacred heroism.[12]

The 1929 violence grew out of sustained disputes over furniture, prayer screens, and Jewish ritual at the Wall, amid Muslim accusations that Jewish prayer threatened the mosques on the Temple Mount.[11] On August 15, 1929, following Tisha B'Av, several hundred right-wing Jewish marchers, many associated with Betar, raised a Jewish flag and sang Hatikva at the Wall.[11] A subsequent demonstration organized by the Supreme Muslim Council was followed by widespread violence across the country, in which 133 Jews were killed and hundreds more injured in attacks in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and elsewhere.[10] In 1930, Moshe Zvi Segal blew the shofar at the Wall at the end of Yom Kippur and was arrested.[10]

The 1930 Commission on the Rights and Claims of Muslims and Jews in Regard to the Western Wall, appointed by the British government with League of Nations approval, determined that the Wall was Muslim property under the Waqf while Jews possessed a right to use it for prayer — a ruling that satisfied neither community and left the underlying tensions unresolved.[10]

From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, including the Old City, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall, while Israel held western Jerusalem.[4] During those nineteen years, Jews were unable to pray at the Wall.[1] The April 3, 1949 Israel–Jordan Armistice Agreement guaranteed Israeli visits to the Wall, but Israelis were denied access throughout the period of Jordanian control.[10] A U.S. Senate resolution has recorded that Israeli citizens of all faiths and Jews of all nationalities were denied access to holy sites in eastern Jerusalem throughout those years.[13]

On June 7, 1967, during the Six-Day War, the IDF General Staff ordered the liberation of Jerusalem's Old City.[4] Israeli paratroopers entered through the Lions' Gate and raised the Israeli flag over the Western Wall.[4] Company commander Zamush tied a flag to two protruding iron spikes above the wall; the flag had been given to him by the Cohen family and was identified as the same flag that an elderly member of the family had brought from the defeated Jewish Quarter nineteen years earlier.[4] As a breeze spread the flag, the paratroopers cheered and fired a volley in its honor.[4] General Mordechai Gur announced by radio, "the Kotel is in our hands," and Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the Israeli military's chief rabbi, blew the shofar at the Wall.[1]

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan arrived at the Wall and promised full religious freedom and rights to Christian and Muslim citizens, declaring that Israel had not come to Jerusalem to interfere with other faiths but to safeguard the city and live there together with others.[14] After reunification, Jews returned to the Western Wall and other holy sites, while Israeli Muslims and Christians were allowed to visit sacred places in eastern Jerusalem from which they had been barred since 1948.[14]

Within days, the Israeli government cleared the Mughrabi Quarter, a dense residential neighborhood that stood immediately in front of the Wall, to create the large open-air prayer plaza that exists today. Sources record differing estimates of the scale of the demolition: more than 100 buildings in one account and 135 in another, with the former population estimated variously at between 600 and 1,500 people.[11] The demolition began on the night of June 10, 1967; one resident, Rasmiya Abu Aghayl, was killed when a bulldozer demolished her house while she was inside.[11] Three days after the neighborhood was cleared, approximately 250,000 Jews gathered at the newly created plaza for the Shavuot holiday.[10] The pre-1967 prayer alley had been approximately 28 meters long and less than 4 meters wide, capable of accommodating only a few hundred worshippers; the enlarged prayer section was extended to 57 meters and made approximately 40 meters wide, with an upper plaza of roughly 20,000 square meters designed for large holiday gatherings and military ceremonies.[10]

After Israel captured the Temple Mount in 1967, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan established an arrangement under which the Muslim Waqf retained internal civilian management of the Temple Mount, while Israeli security forces assumed responsibility for public order and security.[2] Under this arrangement, Muslims were permitted to pray on the Temple Mount and non-Muslims were permitted to visit but not to pray there.[2] Israeli Ministerial Committee Resolution 761 of August 16, 1967, directed security forces to send Jewish worshippers who ascended the Temple Mount to the Western Wall instead.[2]

The prevailing Jewish legal opinion identifies the elevated area surrounding the Dome of the Rock as the location of the Temple's Holy of Holies and the Foundation Stone, and all rabbinical authorities — including those who permit entry into some outer sections of the Temple Mount — prohibit Jews from entering that elevated area.[2] The Western Wall thus became the central focus of Jewish prayer and national commemoration, while the Temple Mount itself remained under a complex dual arrangement.[3] The Mughrabi Gate became the only entrance through which non-Muslims could enter the Temple Mount compound, while Muslims used other gates.[10]

A section of the Wall measuring 143.72 meters long and 4.5 meters high was registered as property of the State of Israel.[10] The main Western Wall Plaza is administered by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, described by the U.S. Department of State as an ultra-Orthodox governmental body.[15] The government's five-year plan begun in 2022 allocated 110 million shekels (approximately $30.4 million) for Western Wall infrastructure and visitation improvements; the plan did not include the egalitarian prayer plaza.[15]

The Protection of Holy Places Law of 1967 and Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, protect holy places from desecration and guarantee freedom of access for members of different religions.[3] The statutory provision specifies that anyone violating freedom of access to places sacred to various religions may be imprisoned for up to five years.[3]

The Western Wall is described by an Israeli government advisory report as the central place of worship for the Jewish people — a site of unique historic, national, religious, and cultural importance.[3] Its religious significance in Jewish tradition rests on its proximity to the presumed location of the Holy of Holies within the Temple compound, and on traditions concerning the Divine Presence's connection to the site.[10] The Temple Mount is identified in Jewish tradition as the site of the First Temple built by Solomon and the later temples, including Herod's temple, which was destroyed by Rome in 70 CE.[2]

The Wall is used for individual prayer, pilgrimage, holiday observance, public ceremonies, and national commemorations.[16] Tisha B'Av — the fast day commemorating the destruction of both Temples — is among the most fundamental observances at the Kotel, and the Wall serves as a setting where religious memory and national events converge: Israeli Independence Day celebrations, Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies, and military induction and graduation ceremonies all take place in the plaza.[16] The main Western Wall Plaza is divided into separate men's and women's sections, operating according to Orthodox Jewish custom and Jewish law as followed by Israel's Chief Rabbinate, with the men's section considerably larger than the women's section.[3]

Among the most distinctive popular practices is the insertion of written prayers into the crevices between the ancient stones. The practice was documented in Samuel Manning's 1873 description and is now widespread; cleaning teams remove tens of thousands of notes twice a year and bury them on the Mount of Olives.[7][9] Manning's description of worshippers pressing their lips to crevices "as though imploring an answer from some unseen presence within" captures the devotional intensity he observed at the Wall in the nineteenth century.[7]

Since 1967, the Western Wall's governance has been a source of sustained controversy among Orthodox authorities, liberal Jewish movements, Women of the Wall, and the Israeli state. The main prayer plaza operates according to Orthodox practice; authorities prohibit mixed-gender Jewish prayer services under a rule barring religious ceremonies considered inconsistent with the customs of the place or harmful to public feelings.[15]

Women of the Wall began in December 1988, when approximately 70 women gathered at the Wall, established a prayer space with a folding table and Torah scroll, and encountered verbal and physical opposition.[17] The group sought recognition of women's right to wear prayer shawls, pray aloud, and read from the Torah collectively in the women's section.[17] Its first Supreme Court petition followed in 1989 after police refused to protect the group from violence.[17] The group continued conducting monthly prayers at the Wall on most subsequent Rosh Chodesh observances.[3]

The Supreme Court's handling of the issue produced a series of competing legal arrangements over the following decades. In May 2000, the Court recognized women's right to pray according to their custom, while subsequent proceedings directed non-Orthodox services toward Robinson's Arch at the Wall's southern end.[17] A 2013 Jerusalem District Court ruling by Judge Moshe Sobel held that "local custom" should include the customs of people who had prayed at the Wall and should reflect a pluralistic and tolerant approach.[17] Authorities continued to prohibit visitors from bringing private Torah scrolls into the main plaza, prevented women from accessing public Torah scrolls or giving priestly blessings there, and maintained more than 100 Torah scrolls exclusively in the men's section.[15] Women were permitted under the 2013 ruling to pray with tefillin and prayer shawls, as arresting or fining women for those practices was declared illegal.[15]

On January 31, 2016, the Israeli cabinet approved, by a vote of 15 to 5, a plan for a third, egalitarian prayer section — Ezrat Yisrael — at the southern end of the Wall complex near Robinson's Arch.[17] The proposed section was to include Torah scrolls, prayerbooks, a portable divider, a single entrance serving all three sections, approximately 9,700 square feet of space, a 31-foot segment of the Wall, and capacity for approximately 1,200 people.[17] The first Reform mixed-gender service in the new Robinson's Arch space took place on February 25, 2016.[9] The Supreme Court rebuked the state on September 12, 2016, for failing to implement the broader plan.[17] The government placed the agreement on hold in 2017 under pressure from haredi political parties, and implementation remained pending at the end of 2023.[15] In February 2026, the High Court of Justice instructed the state and Jerusalem Municipality to advance steps to upgrade and restore the Ezrat Yisrael area.[9]

Repeated confrontations at the Wall have accompanied these legal and political disputes. Women of the Wall members have faced verbal abuse, spitting, pushing, and the use of whistles by ultra-Orthodox protesters.[15] In March 2023, two teenagers were arrested for setting fire to Women of the Wall prayer books at the site.[15] The proposed southern prayer section adjoins an archaeological park whose remains carry, in the words of the advisory report, "the utmost cultural, scientific, historic, and national importance," and physical adaptation of the area requires Israel Antiquities Authority approval where applicable.[3]

The Western Wall has been the subject of competing religious and political claims throughout the modern era. Jewish sources and Israeli institutions identify it as a retaining wall of the Temple Mount with profound Jewish religious significance, while Muslim authorities refer to it as the Buraq Wall and regard it as part of the al-Aqsa compound.[10][11] During the Ottoman period, Jews prayed near the wall under Muslim and Waqf jurisdiction, and their access was governed by a framework that formally acknowledged Muslim ownership of the site while permitting Jewish worship.[11]

The 1929 riots transformed the Wall into a flashpoint not only between Jews and Arabs but also within the Jewish community itself, as Zionist and religious factions contested who had the right to define the site's meaning and conduct.[12] A Jerusalem Center account states that the subsequent British commission found the Wall to be Muslim property under the Waqf while recognizing a Jewish right to pray there; Jewish leaders rejected the determination.[10]

After 1967, the competing claims did not disappear. The arrangement giving the Waqf civilian management over the Temple Mount while Israel administered the Western Wall plaza created a durable but fragile status quo that has been the subject of repeated crises.[2] The U.S. Department of State describes the Western Wall as the place of Jewish worship nearest the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, acknowledging both the Jewish and Islamic identifications of the area.[15] A Palestinian historian, Aref al-Aref, is noted in one source as having described the Wall historically as the retaining wall of the Temple Mount built by Herod and as a place Jews visited especially on Tisha B'Av — an acknowledgment that has been cited in discussions of the site's contested historical record.[10]