Jerusalem's Western Wall gets a clean up

Religious officials in Jerusalem remove hundreds of thousands of letters from the Western Wall, making room for new entreaties to God.

Haredim and soldiers at western wall (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Haredim and soldiers at western wall
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Worshippers line up against Jerusalem's 2000-year-old Western Wall.
Millions of people from different faiths come here every year to pray - and leave notes to God.
But all those notes take up space.
So on Sunday, religious officials carried out a semi-annual house cleaning of Judaism's holiest site.
They pried hundreds of thousands of notes from the crevices of the wall - enough to fill over 100 shopping bags.
The tidying up means future worshipers - who include large numbers of Christians - will be able to leave notes, says the rabbi in charge of the wall.
The structure is a remnant of the Second Temple, which was destroyed in 70 AD.
It sits on ground considered holy by Jews, Christians and Muslims.