What Does Kotel Mean? The Western Wall Explained

The Kotel is the surviving western retaining wall of the Second Temple compound in Jerusalem, and the most significant site of Jewish prayer in the world. It has been standing for roughly two thousand years.

The names, and why there are several

The same wall is called different things depending on who is speaking, and the differences carry meaning:

• Kotel (כותל) – Hebrew for “wall”. Short for HaKotel HaMa’aravi, the Western Wall. This is what Israelis and most Jews call it.
• Kosel – the same word in Ashkenazi and Yiddish pronunciation, used widely in Orthodox and Haredi communities.
• Western Wall – the standard English name, and a literal translation.
• Wailing Wall – a nineteenth-century European name, from observing Jews mourning the destroyed Temple there. It is still widely understood in English but is not what Jews generally call it.

One practical note for anyone searching in English: Western Wall on its own is ambiguous to search engines, which also read it as American western-style decor. Pairing it with Jerusalem or Kotel is what disambiguates it. If you are looking for art and finding nothing, try a second name.

What it actually is, structurally

Here is a detail many people find surprising. The Kotel is not a wall of the Temple. It is a section of the retaining wall that held up the artificial platform the Temple stood on – the Temple Mount, expanded by Herod in the first century BCE.

The Temple itself was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The retaining walls survived because they were engineering, not sanctuary. The exposed prayer section is around 60 metres of a structure that runs far longer underground and beneath later buildings. The largest stones weigh several hundred tonnes and were cut so precisely that they still sit without mortar.

Why it became the centre of Jewish prayer

After 70 CE there was no Temple to pray in, and for most of the following two millennia Jews were barred from the Mount itself. The Kotel was the closest accessible point to where the Holy of Holies had stood, and proximity is the whole logic. Jewish prayer is directed toward Jerusalem, in Jerusalem toward the Temple Mount, and at the Mount toward that wall.

It is also a site of mourning, which is where “Wailing Wall” came from. The two things are not in tension: the same stones hold grief for what was destroyed and hope for what might be rebuilt.

The notes in the cracks

Visitors write prayers on paper and press them into the gaps between the stones. The custom is only a few centuries old, far younger than the wall, and it is now one of the most recognisable things about the site. The notes are collected periodically and buried on the Mount of Olives rather than discarded, because they contain God’s name.

Why artists keep returning to it

Painters have worked this subject for two centuries, and it is worth asking why a plain limestone wall attracts that much attention.

Part of it is the light. Jerusalem limestone is close to white, and it takes colour from whatever the sky is doing, pink at dawn, gold in late afternoon, blue-grey in rain. The same wall is a genuinely different colour four times a day.

Part of it is the surface. The courses are irregular, weathered, and enormous at the base, becoming smaller in later repairs above. That texture is why impasto suits it so well as a technique.

And part of it is the human scale. Figures at the base of those stones are very small, and almost every painting of the Kotel is doing something with that contrast, whether or not the painter says so.

Visiting, briefly

The plaza is open at all hours and there is no charge. Prayer sections are divided by gender. Modest dress is expected, men cover their heads, and photography is restricted on Shabbat and festivals. You do not need to be Jewish to visit or to leave a note.

Our own pieces are interpretations of this place rather than records of it, see how they are made, or read more about the shop and the artist.