Western Wall

Rabbi Yehuda Meir Getz, the first and only Israeli rabbi to preside over the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, has died of a heart attack. He was 71. Getz, who died Sunday, was to be buried on Jerusalem's Mt. of Olives, said Ofer Amar, a spokesman for the Religious Affairs Ministry. Born in Tunis, Tunisia, Getz immigrated to Israel as a child and pursued an army career.

Gerda Mathan sees the light in the people and places she photographs. Whether pictures of a woman praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem or the foliage in a courtyard in Cordova, Spain, they beam with a radiant energy. "Light turns me on," said Mathan, who is based in Berkeley. "You see a view and it comes to you that something is great about it. I can't plan it. It just happens."

In an unprecedented move, Israeli police on Friday closed the plaza in front of Judaism's holiest site--the Western Wall of the Jews' ancient temple--fearing Palestinians from the neighboring Al Aqsa Mosque would attack Jewish worshipers in revenge for the massacre of Muslims at a mosque in Hebron last week.

People who want to plant notes to God on the Western Wall can now do it by fax. Every day, hundreds of notes seeking divine intervention are stuffed into cracks in Jerusalem's Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine. Faxes sent to a number the national telephone company has set up will be delivered to the wall, a company spokesman said this week. The number is 011-972-2-612222. It is not toll-free.

I enjoyed the Dec. 20 article "On Holy Ground" by Jim Schachter. Just a week earlier I had spent two days wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem. It was my second visit and I agree with Schachter that it is a historically exciting and spiritually inspiring city. However, I believe Schachter made a significant error when he referred to the Western Wall as "the sole remnant of the Herodian Second Temple of the Jews, destroyed by the Roman emperor Vespasian in the year 70." The Western Wall is part of the retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount and was never actually part of the temple itself.

The tour began in an ancient donkey stable, out a rear arch marked "Secret Passageway" and down an ancient stairway 800 years into the past.

"The Quiet Palestinian" (by Daniel Williams, June 7), profiling Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini, misrepresented the Temple Mount incident of Oct. 8, 1990. Williams states that "incited by a sudden release of police tear gas, the anxious Palestinians threw rocks on the scattering Jewish worshipers below the mosque at the Western Wall." Three major reports--by the Village Voice, by "60 Minutes" and by an Israeli government investigating commission--contradict Williams' account.

Most of the world's most famous walls have outlived their original purposes of keeping people in or out. Now they've found new life as tourist attractions, archeological sites and challenges to adventurers determined to "walk a wall." A pilgrim to the Old City of Jerusalem tries to wedge her written prayer into a crack between the ancient stones of the Western Wall, perhaps the most actively used wall today.