The Rav of the Kosel, Rav Shmuel Rabinowitz, supervised the removal of the notes placed between the Kosel stones in the past six months on Sunday morning.

The process was carried out according to halachic guides using gloves and disposable wooden utensils.

The notes were collected in sacks and will be buried as sheimos in a genizah.

The minhag of placing notes between the Kosel stones was mentioned by the Ohr Chayim HaKadosh about 300 years ago.

“An average of about 3,000 notes are sent every month through the website of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation in addition to the hundreds of thousands of notes personally placed by visitors,” the foundation stated.

“In the last year, about 100,000 notes were sent through the website alone, an increase of 30% in relation to this period last year from countries around the world, including the US, Slovakia, Brazil, South America, Colombia, Germany, Holland, Canada, UK, Russia, Venezuela, Ukraine, India, Mexico, Argentina, and Taiwan.

The ten countries that sent the most notes are the US, Brazil, Colombia, Russia, Canada, Slovakia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the UK.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)