I have been asked about my wall references. In yesterday's post about Jerusalem I was referring to the Western Wall, the remains of what used to be part of the outer wall of the Second Temple. In Hebrew the Western Wall is called the Kotel, literally "the wall", short for "HaKotel HaMa'arvi" - the Western Wall. Calling it the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall, or whatever just seems too awkward and unnatural. When you say "the Kotel", everyone knows what you are talking about, mainly because kotel is a sort of posh word for a wall. In everyday Hebrew a wall is called "keer".

In a previous post (from Wednesday, sorry archives are screwy again) I was talking about building the wall. That time I was referring to the Security Fence. Sorry about the mix up.