The History of the Western Wall Before the Six-Day War

Chapter 1 The History of the Western Wall before the Six-Day War

Before addressing the post-Six-Day War period, it is imperative that we gain a deeper understanding of the Western Wall’s history from its early days until 1967. The post-war years (1967–2000) may feel as if they are entirely discon- nected from the site’s earlier history. The disturbance in continued Jewish presence at the site during the nineteen years of Jerusalem’s division (between the War of Independence in 1948 and the Six-Day War in 1967), and the development at the Wall which commenced immediately afterwards, meant that a “new” Western Wall was born after June 1967, restoring the sense of connection between the site’s early and late history. Yet, in fact, the centuries during which this specific portion of the Western Wall developed as the most prominent prayer site for Jews the world over are crucial. It was these years that shaped, to a large extent, the approach towards the Wall in the years following the Six-Day War. The site’s historical memory, its holiness, the religious ceremonies and events that took place there before 1948 – including its transformation into both a religious-Jewish and a Zionist symbol – shaped the attitude towards the Wall in the days, months, and years that followed the 1967 war. In the first section of this chapter, we discuss the process of the Wall’s con- secration during the early period of Jerusalem’s history. The turning point in this process was the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, which led to the Jews’ departure from Jerusalem; the city then evolved into a distant site of longing for Jewish pilgrims. The establishment of a Jewish community in Jerusalem in later generations, and the increase in the number of visitors to the city, led to the sanctification of the retaining wall and its transformation into Judaism’s most important holy site. The chapter’s central section addresses the changes that occurred in the status of the Western Wall in the modern era, first under Ottoman rule and later under the British Mandate, imposed after 1917. In these years the number of visitors to the site – both worshippers and tourists – increased, and the Western Wall became a focus of national conflict between the local Jewish and Arab communities. The chapter’s final section addresses the period between 1948 and 1967, when free access to the site was denied Israeli Jews. During this period, a sense of yearning and the site’s sanc- tity, which had now taken on mythic proportions, filled the hearts of many.

1 The Development of the Western Wall as a Holy Place

According to Jewish tradition, the First Temple was built by King Solomon. His father, King David, brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, installing it on the threshing floor (goren in Hebrew) of Arauna the Jebusite – traditionally believed to be the site of the Binding of Isaac. While it appears that at first the Temple served primarily the Davidic dynasty, it gradually became a pilgrimage destination for the Jews of the Land of Israel. In the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, following the destruction of other places of worship in the region, the status of Jerusalem as a destination for pilgrims was even more clearly estab- lished. The Temple became the central and almost exclusive focus of worship for the land’s Jews.1 The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Two or three generations later, following the return of some Jews from the Babylonian Exile, the Temple was rebuilt. At its inauguration in 516 BCE it was admittedly somewhat modest, but in later generations it gradually developed and expanded in size. In the late Second Temple period, under the rule of King Herod the Great, the area underwent a major transformation. The Temple, built by the returnees to Zion and expanded significantly during the Hasmonean era (in the second and first centuries BCE), was too small to accommodate the growing needs of the Jews of the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. To allow the further expansion of the plaza surrounding the temple, King Herod built massive walls dozens of meters in height; this created a wide, elevated esplanade at the center of which stood the renovated temple. One of the walls built during this period, and the most impressive among them, was the Western Wall – the retaining wall of the external western wall surrounding the temple.2 Although a number of gates opened in other walls also led pilgrims to the holy esplanade and the temple itself, the western side contained four such gates, emphasizing the im- portance of the Western Wall relative to the temple’s other borders. In the last stages of the Great Revolt (the First Jewish-Roman War, 66–70 CE), following a siege that lasted several months, the Romans succeeded in break- ing through the walls of Jerusalem; in the Jewish month of Av (August), 70 CE,

1 Avigdor Horovitz, “The Temple of Solomon,” in The History of Jerusalem: The Biblical Period, eds. Amihai Mazar and Shmuel Ahituv (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2000, Hebrew), 131–155; Ze’ev Herzog, “The Temple of Solomon: its Plan and Archaeological Background,” in The History of Jerusalem: The Biblical Period, eds. Shmuel Ahituvand and Amihai Mazar (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 2000, Hebrew), 155–174. 2 Ronny Reich and Yuval Baruch, “On Expansion of the Temple Mount in the Late Second Temple Period,” Cathedra 164 (2017): 7–24 (Hebrew).