JERUSALEM — Barack Obama's visit to the Western Wall was a public event. The handwritten prayer the presidential candidate left there was meant to be private.
But as soon as he doffed the requisite skullcap and left, a snoop pulled a folded piece of paper from a crevice in the ancient wall and offered it to the mass-circulation daily Maariv. The Hebrew-language newspaper’s decision to publish it Friday, under the headline "Obama's note," provoked a storm of criticism in Israel over an intrusion into his relationship with God.
"Lord -- Protect my family and me," the unsigned note said. "Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki, traveling with the candidate in London, declined to confirm or deny the note was the senator's. The Associated Press reported, however, that the handwriting in the photograph published by Maariv appeared to match Obama's inscription Wednesday in the guest book at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial.
The note was written on stationery of the King David Hotel, where Obama stayed during his visit this week.
Shmuel Rabinovitz, the rabbi who manages Judaism's holiest site, was furious at the snoop and Maariv.
"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker," he told Army Radio. "It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them."
The publication, he added, "damages the Western Wall and damages the deep, personal part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves."
More than 100 readers talked back to Maariv's website, most of them to lecture the newspaper about ethics. Some noted that a millennium-old Jewish religious law specifically forbids spying on private mail. One reader wondered how much money the letter would fetch on EBay.
"Chutzpah!" exclaimed a Maariv reader who identified herself only as Hasia.
"Shame on you," wrote Hezi Leder. "This is the lowest you have sunk so far."
Maariv's brief report said the prayer was provided by a student at an Orthodox Jewish seminary. It did not identify him or say whether he had been paid for the "scoop."
The newspaper's chief rival, Yediot Aharonot, claimed that it too had been offered the note and had declined to publish it out of respect for Obama's privacy.
