Religious officials in Jerusalem remove hundreds of thousands of letters from the Western Wall, making room for new entreaties to God.
By REUTERSHaredim and soldiers at western wall(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Worshippers line up against Jerusalem's 2000-year-old Western Wall.Millions of people from different faiths come here every year to pray - and leave notes to God.
But all those notes take up space.So on Sunday, religious officials carried out a semi-annual house cleaning of Judaism's holiest site.They pried hundreds of thousands of notes from the crevices of the wall - enough to fill over 100 shopping bags.The tidying up means future worshipers - who include large numbers of Christians - will be able to leave notes, says the rabbi in charge of the wall.The structure is a remnant of the Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 AD.It sits on ground considered holy by Jews, Christians and Muslims.
