Jerusalem, Israel – People from around the world place their prayers in Jerusalem’s Western Wall or mail them to “God, Jerusalem”. It’s Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz who clears them up.
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Millions of people a year visit the Western Wall — one of Judaism’s holiest sites –and leave a written prayer on pieces of paper wedged into the cracks of the ancient stones.
As Rabbi of the Western Wall, it is up to Rabinowitz to make sure there’s room for future paper wishes. Twice a year his team collects hundreds of thousands of notes and buries them on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. Rabinowitz and a dozen workers sweep the wall with wooden sticks in order to reach up high to snare the notes closest to the heavens.
They never read them and have never counted the number of scripted prayers, but in each collection there are enough to fill about 100 shopping bags, each with thousands of notes, Rabinowitz said.
The rabbi’s office, which manages the site, estimates that more than 5 million people visited the Western Wall in 2006. Israel’s Tourism Ministry said that about 1.5 million of them were foreign tourists. [reuters]