The Six Day War and its Impact on the Western Wall
The Six Day War, also known as the War of 1967, was the third of a series of Arab-Israeli wars. On the second day of this war, Israeli paratroopers came into Jerusalem and took over the Temple Mount as well as the Western Wall, and by the end, as a part of their decisive victory, the Israelis captured the Old City of Jerusalem (Loewenberg). Not only was this victory important to the Israelis, but it was important for many other communities in and around Jerusalem as well.
Since 1949, the Jordanian army occupied Jerusalem and despite signing an armistice agreement in 1949 saying they would allow free access to all holy places, they decided to prevent all Jews from even approaching the Western Wall, which was considered the holiest place for prayer for Jews as they were not allowed in the other significant holy place of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount. The Israeli army brought back the allowance of free access to the Western Wall, and the first Jewish prayer service back at the Wall was said to have taken place even before the war ended. This suggests that the wall was an extremely sacred and holy location for the Jews, and it was likely confusing and conflicting to live near the Wall but not be allowed to pray there, despite their beliefs telling them that praying at this wall was so important.
Several days after the Israeli entry into the Old City of Jerusalem, they bulldozed all the houses of the Mugrabi Quarter that were near the wall and replaced them with a large plaza. The Western Wall had been a site of Jewish prayer since this was ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, but for more than 400 years that holy site was just a narrow alley that could only fit up to a few hundred people if the people were okay with being packed together tightly. Additionally, the old Western/Wailing Wall was difficult to access because many of the streets in Old Jerusalem were not paved and people had to pass through “stairs slimy with dirt, by vaulted passages, by rambling and unclean lanes,” and more just to reach their sacred space for prayer (Loewenberg). The addition of the Western Wall plaza made it much more accessible to larger groups of people, and although there have been many conflicting opinions on the laws and rules that should be implemented there such as whether or not to segregate prayer by gender, the larger and more accessible prayer space has been an excellent addition to the Old City of Jerusalem.
Overall, the Western Wall is a place of great religious significance to many people around the world, with it being especially central to Jews, and the 1967 War, although this was not the complete goal, resulted in many changes for the better to laws and access to holy sites in Jerusalem. After conducting research about the Western Wall for a while now, it was very interesting this week to learn that the War of 1967 was not only a time of change for the Western Wall, but also for the Temple Mount, as another group brought up. Although I would never consider the fact that a war took place to be a “positive” time in history, it is interesting to learn about the many impacts that this specific war had and particularly how it has led to one of the largest physical changes to the Western Wall in its thousands of years in existence.
Citations:
Loewenberg, F.M. “Is the Western Wall Judaism’s Holiest Site?” Middle East Forum, Middle East Forum, 2017, www.meforum.org/6898/is-the-western-wall-judaism-holiest-site.
Nice post about the changing status of the Western Wall amidst 20th century conflicts.
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