Prayer Notes Removed from Kotel Cracks in Advance of Rosh Hashanah
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Jerusalem’s Western Wall on Sunday was cleared of notes sent to God by worshippers, making room for new pleads-on-paper to be put into the cracks of the ancient stones.
Millions of people a year visit the Western Wall and leave written prayers on pieces of paper which they wedge into the cracks of the wall.
Shmuel Rabinowitz, chief Rabbi of the Western Wall, says it is important to make sure there’s always room for future notes.
“As you can see there are millions of letters that are wedged inside the Western Wall. These letters are prayers from Jews and non-Jews, this is a holy place, a place of prayer for everyone,” Rabinowitz told Reuters Television.
The contents of the letter are never read or fully counted by those who collect them, he says, but estimate that in each collection there are enough to fill about 100 shopping bags, each with thousands of notes.
The notes are later buried in Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, he said.
“We are taking out these letters from the Western Wall so that people can be able to make new ones. We protect the privacy of these letters, and we bury them in the ground,” Rabinowitz said.
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
