Wailing Wall (in the modern Western tradition) - the remains of a colossal ancient foundation of the Temple Mount. Two thousand years ago there was a Biblical Temple of Jerusalem. Today, it is a sacred place for Jews all over the world.

Actually Wall - a fragment of limestone length 57 and a height of 19 meters. It is noticeable that the stones of the lower seven rows of larger - put them in the days mentioned in the Bible of King Herod.

However, under these series archaeologists discovered a much larger blocks. The most powerful of them, weighing up to 400 tons, belong to the era of King Solomon (X century BC. E.). Solomon's Temple, the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant of Moses with the tablets, in 586 BC. e. destroyed by the Babylonians. After seven decades, Jews have built and dedicated the Second Temple. In the 19th century BC. e. King Herod embarked on its reconstruction. To expand the area of ​​the sanctuary, he built a strong retaining wall, and the space inside her fall asleep ground.

In 70 the Romans destroyed the city and the temple, and in 135, after the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt, the Jews were not even allowed to visit Jerusalem. Wall - all that remains of the legendary Temple - for centuries was for the Jews scattered throughout the world, the center of spiritual attraction. Emperor Constantine I, a Christian allowed them once a year to enter the city to mourn the loss from the walls of the Temple. Islamic warrior Saladin conquered Jerusalem in 1193, settled near the walls of Moroccans - their houses were just 4 meters away from the ancient stones. The right to freely worship the shrine gave the Jews in the second half of the XVI century, Suleiman the Magnificent. Since the XIX century, they tried to buy located at the walls of the quarter, but it did not work out. The place has become a point of constant tension between Jews and Arabs.

After the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Old City was under Jordanian control. In theory, the Jews had the right to visit the Wall, in practice this was not possible. Pilgrims could only see the wall from the nearby Mount Zion. In 1967, during the Six Day War, the Israeli paratroopers along the narrow streets of the Old Town with the battle broke the wall. They cried and prayed for the lost comrades, and Rabbi Goren first time in two thousand years sounded here in a ritual shofar horn. Forty-eight hours later, Israeli army bulldozers demolished the Arab quarter, before the Wall was formed area, which can accommodate more than 400 thousand people.

There swear recruits undergo state ceremony celebrating family age children. And, of course, here in the heart of Jerusalem, every day attracts thousands of believers. Huge, creating an echo wall reigns over the square. People with closed eyes pripadaet the wall, hugging her, kissing the stones. In the crevices they leave little notes with prayer requests (more than one million each year). Faith and hope are the people to the sacred stones that biblical prophet Jeremiah foretold the destruction of the Temple of Solomon, he prophesied many centuries.