History of the Wailing or Western Wall

History of the Wailing or Western Wall The Wailing Wall, also referred to as the Kotel, the Western Wall or Solomons Wall, and whose lower sections date to about the second century B.C.E., is located in the Old Quarter of East Jerusalem in Israel. Built of thick, corroded limestone, it is about 60 feet (20 meters) high and close to 160 feet (50 meters) long, though most of it is engulfed in other structures.   A Sacred Jewish Site The wall is believed by devout Jews to be the Western Wall of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.), the only surviving structure of the Herodian Temple. The temples original location is in dispute, leading some Arabs to dispute the claim that the wall belongs to the temple, arguing instead that it is part of the structure of Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. The structures description as the Wailing Wall derives from its Arabic identification as el-Mabka, or place of weeping, frequently repeated by European - and particularly French - travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th century as le mur des lamentations.  Jewish devotions believe that the divine presence never departs from the Western Wall. The Wailing Wall is one of the great Arab-Israeli struggles. Jews and Arabs dispute who is in control of the wall and who has access to it, and many Muslims maintain that the Wailing Wall has no relation to ancient Judaism at all. Sectarian and ideological claims aside, the Wailing Wall remains a sacred place for Jews and others who often pray - or perhaps  wail - and sometimes slip prayers written on paper through the walls welcoming fissures. In July 2009, Alon Nil launched a free service allowing people around the world to Twitter their prayers, which are then taken in printed form to the Wailing Wall. Israels Annexation of the Wall After the war of 1948 and the Arab capture of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, Jews were generally banned from praying at the Wailing Wall, which was at times defaced by political posters. Israel annexed Arab East Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 Six Day War and claimed ownership of the citys religious sites. Incensed - and fearing that the tunnel the Israelis began digging, starting from the Wailing Wall and under the Temple Mount, shortly after the war was over was designed to undermine the foundations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islams third holiest site after the mosques in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia - Palestinians and other Muslims rioted, triggering a clash with Israeli forces that left five Arabs dead and hundreds wounded. In January 2016, the Israeli government  approved the first space where non-Orthodox Jews of both sexes can pray side by side, and the first Reform prayer service of both men and women took place in February 2016 in a section of the wall known as Robinsons Arch.