Tens of thousands of people filled the area in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem before sunrise to take part in a prayer to bless the sun which is said only once every 28 years.
Dressed in white prayer shawls, men, women, and children filled the plaza in front of the wall, Judaism's holiest site, and crowded on to surrounding rooftops to catch a glimpse of the rising sun..
Dressed in white prayer shawls, men, women, and children filled the plaza in front of the wall, Judaism's holiest site, and crowded on to surrounding rooftops to catch a glimpse of the rising sun..
As the sun rose the crowd chanted the Birkat Hakhama prayer, which according to Jewish tradition marks the period when the sun returns to the exact position in the sky it held when the universe was created 5,769 years ago. It returns to the spot once every 28 years.
The prayer has special significance this year because it coincides with the start of the Passover holiday, one of Judaism's most important, at sundown on Wednesday.The Wailing Wall, also called the Western Wall, sits below the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest place.
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