Israel Matzav

Friday, January 18, 2013

Image: The Kotel (Western Wall) in 1968

I thought you would all like to see this image of the Kotel (Western Wall) form 1968 (Hat Tip: Sunlight).

I had never seen a picture from this period before - I only saw pictures from before 1967 or from 1972, when I first visited Israel myself (we were supposed to come in 1970, but my grandfather passed away ten days before we were supposed to leave the US).

When Israel liberated the Old City in 1967, the Arabs had built houses until a few feet away from the Wall. Those houses were torn down, and the plaza was cleared to look more like it does today.

Over the years, the level of the plaza has been lowered in order to separate a prayer area from a more general congregating area in the back.

When I lived in the Old City for a year (1978-79), most of the construction near the Wall itself had been finished (until they decided to lower the plaza level again), but there was still a lot of construction in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. In 1972, the entire Jewish quarter was under construction....

Labels: Jewish Quarter, Kotel plaza, Old City of Jerusalem, Western Wall

Friday, July 08, 2011

From where do all these people come?

Sorry to have been away so long.

Since I last wrote, I have spent an hour studying Talmud with son #3 child #6 (who will be 12 next month), spent another hour with him listening to one of Bnei Brak's most popular rabbis speak about R. Michael Yehuda Lefkowitz, took Mrs. Carl to dinner in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, and then went to pray the evening service at the Western Wall.

I know it's the summer and it's Thursday night, but I cannot ever remember seeing the Jewish Quarter so crowded at 10:00 on an ordinary weeknight as it was tonight.

It is perhaps indicative of our present state that both Mrs. Carl and I fell deeply asleep in the taxi coming home (you do all remember that our car died and we are in the process of buying another one, right?).

I should be awake long enough to post some more tonight.

Labels: Jerusalem, Jewish Quarter, Old City of Jerusalem, Western Wall