The Western Wall, as most people know, is the only remaining part of the Second Temple. It’s in the Temple Mount complex, and also includes Robinson’s Arch and Wilson’s Arch, where non-Orthodox Jews gather for mixed services. The rest of the Western Wall is in the Muslim Quarter. Most is an underground tunnel, but a small portion, the Little Western Wall, is near the Iron Gate of the Temple Mount.
The term “Wailing Wall” is almost exclusively Christian, and only began appearing in the 19th century. Jews don’t use that term. The only other name we call it is the Kotel, which means “wall” in Hebrew.
Though the Kotel is under Orthodox auspices now, with sex-segregated prayer, there was no enforced separation until 1967, when the Six-Day War reunified Jerusalem and recaptured our holy sites from Jordan’s illegal occupation. Photos from the mid-19th century onwards show men and women praying together, which presumably was the custom pre-photography too.
After the Roman destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE and sent most of us into Diaspora, the Kotel was off-limits. We were forbidden from going there or even living in Jerusalem for centuries. After the Roman Empire turned Christian, we were permitted to go there only on Tisha B’Av to mourn for the loss of the Temple.
In 361, the occupying Byzantines let us live in our own holiest city in our own indigenous homeland again. By 614, the Jewish population had increased to such an extent there was a revolt against the Byzantines, in which we joined forces with the Persians. Sadly, it was put down, and Byzantines carried out a brutal massacre. Survivors fled the city.
We returned after the Islamic conquest of 638, which granted freedom of worship (along with second-class dhimmi status). Many people went to the Kotel to pray, which was noted by writers and diarists of the era. Then the Crusaders came to town in 1099 and massacred most of the Jewish population.
Though high-profile Jews visited the Kotel in the years afterwards (e.g., travel writer Benjamin of Tudela, scholar Maimonides, poet Yehudah HaLevi), only in 1187, under the rule of the renowned Sultan Saladin, were Jews allowed to live in Jerusalem again. However, our numbers remained sparse.
The Ottoman occupation, which began in 1516, placed more restrictions on Jewish residents, such as installing permanent fixtures and putting furniture like tables at the Kotel. On Purim 1625, Jews were forbidden from praying on the Temple Mount. In 1840, paving a pathway to the Kotel was forbidden, as were keeping prayerbooks there and praying too loudly.
The number of worshippers began steadily increasing as more Jews returned from Diaspora and began transforming the deserts and swamps into fertile farms and modern cities. During the centuries of Ottoman rule, Pre-State Israel was by and large a desolate, sparsely-populated wasteland with lots of absentee landowners (despite the ahistorical nonsense spewed by antisemites).
Shamefully, on Yom Kippur 1928, British cops beat women trying to prevent the removal of a mechitza (divider between the sexes), using the broken wood as clubs. Chairs were also yanked from under old people. This disgusting desecration made world news, and no one sided with the British.
The cops defended themselves by saying the mechitza violated pre-existing Ottoman rules, and that the Supreme Muslim Council demanded it be removed. The antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who later became buddies with Hitler, got British permission to build new mosques above and next to the Kotel, to assert Arab dominance.
He continued complaining to the British about benches, tables, and lamps being installed, and in the summer of 1929, he created a new opening at the southern end of the alley to the Kotel. Because mules often went through this alley, it was soon littered with feces.
In 1929, a violent wave of pogroms swept the land. One of the many victims was historian and Hebrew literature professor Yosef Klausner, who was trying to formalize the right to Jewish worship at the Kotel and install a mechitza. His house in Jerusalem was also destroyed.
In 1931, blowing shofar by the Kotel was outlawed. Offenders were charged £50 (£2,819.48, or $3,563.02, in 2024), sent to jail for six months, or both. However, many people defiantly blew the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur.
In 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, Jordan (which was created from 75% of the British Mandate) illegally occupied Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem. All Jews were ethnically cleansed from those places and forbidden to set foot in them. Even Muslim citizens of Israel were forbidden to go there. Many houses of worship and cemeteries were destroyed or fell into disrepair. The graves on the Mount of Olives were used as a staircase.
The colonial term “West Bank” comes from this period of Jordanian occupation. The proper name for that area is Judea and Samaria (Yehudah and Shomron).
After the miraculous victory in the Six-Day War, on 10 June 1967, the Old City was freed from Jordanian occupation, Jerusalem was reunified, and the Kotel was back under Jewish sovereignty. Three days later, the narrow 12th century Moroccan Quarter was razed to widen the alley leading to the Kotel and create the Western Wall Plaza.
The Kotel came under protection in the 1967 Law of the Conservation of Holy Places. All the other newly-liberated religious sites were also protected, repaired, and restored to public access by people of all faiths.
I personally don’t mind the Kotel is under Orthodox auspices, since I’ve grown to prefer praying behind a mechitza. However, I condemn the fanatics who throw rocks, diapers, and chairs at the Women of the Wall.
It’s customary to walk backwards away from the Kotel, since it’s rude to turn one’s back on the Divine Presence.
I’m always overcome with emotion by the Kotel, and feel so humbled. It’s hard to describe the feeling of putting my hands and forehead against it as I offer up the deepest prayers of my heart. I’ve cried against those ancient stones.
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