Celebrating Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) at the Western Wall; the Kotel.

A small part of the western retaining wall built by Herod over 2000 years ago as support for the platform upon which stood his rebuilt and glorious Second Temple. After the Romans destoyed this wonder of the world, for almost 2000 years this fragment of wall was all the Jews had access to, and that only when the occupying rulers of the Land of Israel let them near.

At any opportunity the Jews of the Galil, the Jews of the Shphela, the Jews of the Golan, would journey to Jerusalem. Jews of the Diaspora would also consider it their sacred duty to visit. "If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, Let my right hand lose its cunning." Sometimes they would get close, sometimes they wouldn't. No wonder they wailed!

Now we don't call it the wailing wall anymore. It's the Kotel - an Aramiac word that simply means "wall" - but what a wall! A symbol far greater than its greatest stone.

Haim Guri: To Danny and Friends
View towards Kibbutz Lamed Hey from Har Soccho...
Behold, our bodies are laid in a long, long line; we do not breathe, But the wind is now on the hills, the wind breathes, Morning breaks, and the shining dew sings. We shall return again, we shall meet, shall return as scarlet flowers. You will know us at once, our silent "mountain platoon" - Then we shall blossom, when the last shot has been silenced in the hills. The 35 - "Lamed Hey" - died trying to save others, January 16th 1948