ABSTRACT
The Western or Wailing Wall (Kotel Ha’Maravi in Hebrew) was the most contested religious site in the world during the 1920s, and became ground zero for the Arab-Jewish conflict. Jews revere the Wall as their holiest and most sacred place, the only surviving remnant of their ancient Temple, the place where Jews believe the Shekhinah or divine spirit continues to be felt most palpably. Muslims, who ruled Jerusalem for hundreds of years prior to the end of World War I, also regard the Wall as a holy place, known to them by the Arabic term al-Buraq, named for the Prophet Mohammed’s steed who the Angel Gabriel tethered to the Wall at the end of the celestial journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. When Britain took control of Palestine in late 1917 it pledged to maintain the Status Quo at the Wall, keeping in place the prior Ottoman restrictions on Jewish rights of access and prayer. Tensions flared at the Wall throughout the 1920s as the Jews sought to expand those rights and the Muslims feared Jewish designs on the Haram al-Sharif. Violence broke out in August 1929, culminating in massacres of Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, and elsewhere in Palestine.
