The first Temple in Jerusalem was built by King Solomon on Mount Moriah in the early years of his reign (970-931 BCE). It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in 586 BCE. The second Temple began construction in 538 BCE and was completed 23 years later. Several centuries later, around 20 BCE, the second Temple was renovated and expanded by Herod the Great (73-4 BCE), who had been appointed king of Judea.

The rebuilding of the temple under Herod began with a massive expansion of Mount Moriah, which had a plateau on the northern end and declined steeply on the southern slope. Herod’s plan was to turn the entire mountain into a giant esplanade. To extend the natural plateau of the Mount, he enclosed the area between four large retaining walls and filled in the gaps. On top of this plateau, Herod virtually rebuilt the Temple, using only priests and Levites as workers. Herod’s Temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Today in Jerusalem, most of the retaining wall is hidden behind residential buildings, with the exception of the southern portion of the western side of the wall, which is visible and is known as the Western Wall, or in Hebrew, the Kotel Hamaarabi. Therefore, strictly speaking, the Kotel was not an integral part of the Temple itself, but rather of the Mount’s plateau.

The Midrash speaks of the western wall of the Temple, but it is not until the 16th century, with the Ottoman conquest of the Land of Israel and the migration of Spanish Jews to Turkish lands, that the Western Wall of the Temple Mount is mentioned in some writings as a place where Jews gathered to pray. With the expansion of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel beginning in the 19th century and the increase in visitors, the Wall’s popularity began to grow among the Jewish people. Images of the Wall began to appear in works of Jewish folk art, to be mentioned in literary works, and the first archaeological work began.

Some Jewish philanthropists, such as Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Rothchild, attempted to purchase the Wall and the adjacent neighborhood, but were unable to do so for reasons that remain unclear. The Anglo-Palestine Bank attempted to do so in the early 20th century, with similar success. After the Balfour Declaration and the recognition of a Jewish community in the Land of Israel by the British Mandate, the Western Wall began to have national significance as well as religious significance.

From the beginning of the 20th century, the Western Wall was a constant scene of conflict between Arabs and Jews. A League of Nations commission, in 1930, ruled that the Wall belonged to Muslims, but that Jews had every right to pray there, although they could not blow the shofar. From 1947 to 1967, Jews had virtually no access to the Wall, until the Six-Day War, when Old Jerusalem passed into Jewish hands. The famous photo of the first Israeli soldiers at the Kotel established the Western Wall as the most representative place of the Jewish people. The Wall is, without a doubt, the most symbolic place in Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.