wailingplace jews

1 definition found

wailingplace jews - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Wailing-place, Jews'
  a section of the western wall of the temple area, where the Jews
  assemble every Friday afternoon to bewail their desolate
  condition (Ps. 79:1, 4, 5). The stones in this part of the wall
  are of great size, and were placed, as is generally believed, in
  the position in which they are now found in the time of Solomon.
  "The congregation at the wailing-place is one of the most solemn
  gatherings left to the Jewish Church, and as the writer gazed at
  the motley concourse he experienced a feeling of sorrow that the
  remnants of the chosen race should be heartlessly thrust outside
  the sacred enclosure of their fathers' holy temple by men of an
  alien race and an alien creed. Many of the elders, seated on the
  ground, with their backs against the wall, on the west side of
  the area, and with their faces turned toward the eternal house,
  read out of their well-thumbed Hebrew books passages from the
  prophetic writings, such as Isa. 64:9-12" (King's Recent
  Discoveries, etc.). The wailing-place of the Jews, viewed in its
  past spiritual and historic relations, is indeed "the saddest
  nook in this vale of tears." (See LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF.)