Christian Message Boards: Is the Wall wailing?

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Posted by barrykind (Member # 35) on :

Is the Wall wailing?

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Etgar Lefkovits Jul. 3, 2002

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In a highly unnatural phenomenon, water has begun dripping from the midst of a stone in Jerusalem's Western Wall.

The water leak, which was first noticed Saturday by worshippers at the Wall, continued yesterday for the fourth straight day, Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall, said yesterday.

On Sunday, Antiquities Authority director-general Shuka Dorfman and Jon Seligman, its Jerusalem regional archeologist, were rushed to the scene to examine the dripping, which has so far dampened a 10 by 40 centimeter section of the Wall.

The drops of water are coming from a mid-level stone on the right edge of the men's side, near the division with the women's side.

Antiquities Authority spokeswoman Osnat Gouez said yesterday that the authority officials who visited the site on Sunday decided to wait a couple days to see if the problem would continue before contacting officials from the Wakf, which is in charge of maintenance at the Temple Mount, just above the Wall.

However, informed sources say that as the drip has persisted for at least 96 hours, Wakf officials have since been alerted to the drip, which may be coming from a hose or pipe they have installed.

Fearing renewed Palestinian violence, police have barred non-Muslims, including archeologists, from entering the Temple Mount since then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site in September 2000, leaving Judaism's holiest site without any archeological supervision.

The 22-months since has been the longest the site has been closed to non-Muslims since the unification of Jerusalem in 1967.

The drip has also proved to be of immense interest to Jewish mystics, who see it as a sign of upcoming redemption.

Rabinovitch said that his priority is to stop the dripping, which he termed "highly unusual." Referring to a symbolic name given to the Wall the Wailing Wall by European observers because Jews for centuries came there to bewail the loss of the temples, Rabinovitch said: "Maybe the Wall is indeed crying because of the current situation in the country."