Western Wall 'leak' prompts speculation

The wall is part of a sensitive religious complex

One of the world's most revered sacred sites - the Western Wall in Jerusalem - is the focus of fevered speculation after apparently springing a leak.

Perhaps God is opening up a path for peace and people will feel this and move towards it

Rabbi Menachem Fromann

For five days now people have been gathering to wonder at a small damp patch that has appeared on one of the giant stone slabs that mark the last remnants of the temple built by Herod the Great and destroyed by the Romans more than 1,900 years ago.

The Wall - known for centuries as the Wailing Wall because it was there that Jews bewailed the loss of their Temple - is part of the most sensitive religious complex in the world.

Above it lies the area sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount, and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif.

It was Ariel Sharon's visit there as Israeli opposition leader in September 2000 that marked the start of the latest wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The phenomenon is undeniably unnatural - it is now the height of summer in Jerusalem and there has not been a drop of rain since May.

The rabbi responsible for the Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, told the Jerusalem Post newspaper that perhaps it was weeping at the current situation in the country.

Apocalyptic

Some mystics take a more apocalyptic view of the damp patch - saying it could herald the arrival of the Jewish Messiah.

"There is a prophecy that everybody knows, that states that when water comes through the stones of the wall it presages the advent of the Messiah," Rabbi Menachem Fromann told the newspaper.

"Perhaps God is opening up a path for peace and people will feel this and move towards it."

But the mystics may be disappointed - more pragmatic observers say the water probably comes from a leaking hose in the enclosure above the Wall.

Rabbi Levi Lau of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem suggested contacting the Israeli water authority.