Israel: Part XII--The Western Wall

In front of the Western Wall is the entrance to the controversial Hasmonian Tunnel. Here archeologists have dug out a 2000-year-old street leading along the rim of the Temple Mount. The Arabs have always feared that the tunneling was a Zionist plot to get under the Temple Mount and blow up the mosques, even though excavations are not actually under Haram esh-Sharif.

Pictures of the excavations, which have revealed the remains of palatial buildings and purification baths from Temple times:

We visited the Western Wall on a Thursday, which is when they conduct Bar Mitzvahs at the wall. There is a man-made divider which serves to separate the men from the women. Both are allowed to pray at the wall, just not together. People stand facing the wall with their scriptures, bobbing back and forth and praying. The little pieces of paper shoved into the crevices are written prayers that people have left there. When a boy is "Bar Mitvah'd" the female members of his family stand at the divider and take pictures, and then they throw candy at him, like at a parade.

This man is holding a Torah scroll.

Note the little pieces of prayers, and then above there is a boy reading from the unrolled Torah scroll. Note the men wearing their phylacteries on their heads and their prayer shawls. All men at the wall have to wear a head covering, so when John went in, he had to wear a paper skull cap.

These people are bringing in a kid, waiting in line to go through the security checkpoint. They play music and clap and parade the kid in. See the guy on the left blowing the ram's horn. It's called a shofar, and it's really loud. John bought one to bring home. It stinks! I think the horn just fell off the animal and no one cleaned it.