The Wailing Wall

The Wailing Wall

Introduction

Jerusalem, Israel is a flourishing town that serves both as the capital of an unaligned territory and the crucial center of adoration for three world religions.  It has been venerated for centuries as a Holy City by Jews, Christians and Muslims.  Among all of the Holy sites in the town, the article of the Wailing Wall and its annals is furthermore the article of the labour of the Jewish people.  Today the partition stands in the vintage town of Jerusalem as a location of plea sacred to the Jewish people. “Jews from round the world visit these pebbles to weep over the Temple's decimation and to search God's favor.”(Fisher1).

Discussion

Many of today's examples for conflict over places are centered on the interpretation of an area's past. This would certainly include Jerusalem in Israel, where the origins of conflict lie in the areas religious history. Jerusalem is the holy city of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Situated in the Judaean Hills, 35 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. The growth of the city may be attributed to its location along a pass through the Judean Hills on an ancient trade route, and to its religious importance. (www.idolphin.org/psalm2) Christians, Jews and Muslims see Jerusalem as important in defining their religion and its origin. For Jews, Jerusalem is the focus of their religious longing, the site of their ancient Temple, and their historical capital; for Christians, the city is the site of many of the events in the life of Jesus Christ; for Muslims, the city is their third holiest as the site from which Muhammad is said to have risen to heaven and the site of important mosques.

The different ways in which Jerusalem can be interpreted by different religions can lead to potential conflict and unease if ones interpretation is challenged. Whether it is Americans converging on Plymouth Rock or the British celebrating at the ruins of Stonehenge, the idea of connecting modern population to the symbols of the past is a common impulse, especially in Jerusalem. But in the Middle East, few of the region's modern states have existed much more than 70 years and most are the product of borders drawn up by colonial powers. The decline in Arab nationalism over the recent years, with its exclusive focus on the region's Arab past, has resulted in today's leaders increasingly looking for inspiration and roots in an even earlier time, to the ancient empires and peoples described in the Bible. (www.jqf-jerusalem.org)

These pebbles of the Wailing Wall are all that stay of the First and Second Temples of the Jewish persons and their weeping and lamenting at the partition give it its name.  The pebbles “represent almost four 1000 years of Jewish annals that started with Abraham the Hebrew.”(Fisher 1). 

Abraham was in the land of Canaan, now Israel, and made an affirmation with God that he and his descendents would adoration only Him. To verify his belief, Abraham took his child Isaac to Mount Moriah to be ...