When we put this old and simple photograph up on Facebook, we didn’t anticipate that it would be “liked” more than almost any other post of ours. Apparently, the photo hit a nerve. People were interested and excited. People were reminded that the Kotel did not always look the way that it does today. As Rabbi David Golinkin demonstrates in his responsum “Is the entire Kotel plaza really a synagogue?”, there simply was no mechitzah at the Kotel until 1948. Our mission is not to tear down the mechitzah but it is to raise awareness that the Kotel has looked different in the past and could look different in the future.
Did you mean 1967?
What an amazing photograph. I’m gobsmacked to recognize that things were once so diffrent.