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Sunday, April 27, 2008

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: More on the repairs needed on the Western Wall:
Jerusalem's Wailing Wall at risk of collapse

By Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem (The Telegraph)
Last Updated: 12:26am BST 27/04/2008

For thousands of years it has withstood fires, floods and earthquakes. But now a portion of one of Judaism's holiest sites, Jerusalem's Western Wall, is crumbling.

The rabbi charged with watching over the structure, which the faith believes to be the last remnants of a retaining wall from the ancient Second Temple, has warned that a section repaired more than a century ago is again at risk of falling.

A young Jew prays at Jerusalem's Western Wall
Mourning prayer: a young Jew at Jerusalem's Western Wall which is losing its mortar to the rain

Because the weakened stonework is high on the 60ft wall, the danger from any falling fragment to the crowds who pray at its foot each day is particularly acute.

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