The Wailing wall (in the modern Western tradition) – the remains of a colossal ancient foundations on the Temple mount. Two thousand years ago there stood the biblical temple in Jerusalem. Today it is a sacred place for Jews all over the world.

Actually the Wall is a fragment of limestone with a length of 57 and a height of 19 meters. It is noticeable that the stones of the bottom seven rows of larger – these were placed in the times of the biblical king Herod.

However, under these rows archaeologists have discovered a much larger units. The most powerful of them, weighing up to 400 tons, belong to the era of king Solomon (tenth century BC). The temple of Solomon, the Holy of Holies which was kept the ark of the Covenant with the tablets of Moses, in 586 BCE, was destroyed by the Babylonians. After seven decades the Jews have rebuilt and consecrated the Second Temple. In 19 BCE, Herod began its reconstruction. To expand the area of the sanctuary, he built a powerful wall, and the space inside it is covered with soil.

In the year 70 the Romans destroyed the city and temple, and a 135 year after the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt, Jews were forbidden even to visit Jerusalem. The wall is all that remains of the legendary Temple for centuries became to the Jews scattered around the world, a center of spiritual gravity. The Emperor Christian Constantine I allowed them once a year to enter the city, to mourn at the Wall loss of the Temple. The Islamic warrior Saladin, who seized Jerusalem in 1193, settled near the Wall of Moroccans is their house there was only 4 metres from the ancient stones. The liberty to worship the relic was granted to the Jews in the second half of the XVI century Suleiman the Magnificent. Since the nineteenth century, they tried to buy located at the Wall of the quarter, but it didn't work out. The place became the point of constant tension between Jews and Arabs.

After the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Old city came under the control of Jordan. In theory, the Jews were allowed to visit the Wall, in practice it was impossible. The pilgrims could only see the Wall from the nearby mount Zion. In 1967, during the six day war, Israeli paratroopers through the narrow streets of the Old town with the battle broke the Wall. They wept and prayed for the departed friends, and the Rabbi of the mountain for the first time in two thousand years has sounded here in a ritual horn shofar. After forty-eight hours, the Israeli army bulldozer demolished the Arab quarter, in front of the Wall formed a square, which can accommodate more than 400 thousand people.

Here swear recruits undergo a state ceremony, families celebrate age children. And, of course, here in the heart of Jerusalem, every day attracts thousands of believers. Huge, creating the echo Wall dominates the area. People, eyes closed, kneeling against the Wall, hugging her, kissing the stones. In the gaps they leave little notes with prayer requests (over a million each year). Faith and hope lead people to the sacred stones, which the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who predicted the destruction of Solomon's Temple, prophesied many centuries.