Posted on 09/16/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Unknown vandals have been defacing siddurim, Jewish prayer books, at the Western Wall in recent months. Over the last week, the vandals have written messages calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, Ynet reported.
One message read, "The land of Israel is holy, the people of Israel are holy, the State of Israel must be erased." Another stated, "The Devil's state will be erased for eternity."
At least dozens of prayer books have been subject to similar vandalism, as well as the tearing out of pages such as those containing the prayers for the wellfare of the State of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF.
Rabbi Levi Nahum, the leader of the Libyan Jewish community in Jerusalem, said that a large number of the 70 siddurim he brought to the Western Wall for public use were vandalized and called for the examination of security footage to identify and stop the vandals before they strike again.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation said in a statement that it "strongly condemns any act of vandalism against prayer books and is making every effort to eradicate this phenomenon."
While the Temple Mount is the actual holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall is the holiest site for which there is universal agreement among rabbinic authorities that Jews may visit, making it the most significant prayer site for Jews in the world. Every day, many visitors to the site, both Jewish and non-Jewish, put notes containing their prayers into the cracks in the two-millennia-old retaining wall.