VIDEO: ‘Many more prayers’ placed in Western Wall during pandemic year

Many more notes than usual were placed between the ancient stones of the Western Wall in the year of the coronavirus, according to officials who look after the sacred monument.

Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, said Jews and non-Jews alike had brought their prayers and requests since the outbreak of the pandemic.

He was speaking this week as workers took part in the twice-yearly cleanout of notes placed in the cracks of the wall by visitors.

The notes are removed twice a year with wooden tools.

They are then taken to the nearby Mount of Olives, where they are buried.

“We can say that this year there was an increase of notes sent by the Western Wall website, over 70,000 notes that were sent from countries all over the world,” Yohanna Bisraor, from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, told AP.

“We expect, hopefully, that next year people could come and put the notes here by themselves at the Western Wall.”