Gallery: Kotel undergoes spring clean for Pessah

During its bi-annual face-lift, Western Wall employees remove millions of handwritten notes, faxes from between ancient stones.

By JONAH MANDEL, MARC ISRAEL SELLEM
Cleaning notes at Kotel 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Cleaning notes at Kotel 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Armed with wooden poles, Western Wall employees on Wednesday removed millions of handwritten notes, faxes and email printouts from between the ancient stones. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which gives the Kotel such a face-lift twice a year - before the upcoming Passover and ahead of the Jewish New Year – are considering a third annual clean-up, due to the growing influx of requests and notes.

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Halacha expert slams ban on visiting Kotel on ShabbatThe notes will be placed in a repository in accordance with Jewish law, with the laborers – working under the supervision of Western Wall and Holy Sites Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz – taking care to not read their content.Engineers will also be conducting test to determine the stability of the stones so that none are in the risk of falling on the worshipers below.