An estimated 25,000 people took part in a mass prayer service at the Western Wall against the Israeli government's positions at the Annapolis summit.





The prayer service was followed by a massive protest, co-sponsored by the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea and Samaria (Yesha), near the Prime Minister's residence.  The protest is entitled, "It Will Blow Up in Our Face." At the time of the Western Wall prayer vigil, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was meeting in Washington with U.S. President George Bush in preparation for the Annapolis summit on Tuesday.

We sometimes think that if we act, protest, settle the Land, teach, and do all sorts of things, that everything will be OK. But today, we are coming to the Western Wall with humility, awe, and serene faith.





Click here to see a video of the prayer service.

The front line of religious-Zionist rabbis, led by Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu, called for the public to attend the Western Wall prayers.  MK Uri Ariel (National Union party), among those who initiated the prayer service, said, "It is critical for us to offer prayer to our Father in Heaven when the Prime Minister wants to sell our national homeland.  We are here [at the Wall] to say that we trust in G-d, and that Olmert has no mandate to give up Jerusalem."

Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, a resident of the Old City, was one of the paratroopers who liberated Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation in the 1967 Six Day War.



Another organizer, Rafi Atiyah, told Arutz-7's Chizky Ezra, "The feeling of despair that has overtaken some of the public has not escaped the eyes of the rabbis who called for the prayer service.  But while this feeling can lead to a dead end and to a sense of helplessness, it can also be an opening for a new type of genuine and mature turn to G-d; to a taking of responsibility from a new, pure angle. It could be that out of this tiredness, we will come to the realization that it's not we who control the situation.  We sometimes think that if we act, protest, settle the Land, teach, and do all sorts of things, that everything will be OK. 

Center: Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu presides over the prayer service.



"But today, we are coming to the Western Wall with humility, awe, and serene faith.  We return the ball that has been repressed in our hearts for the past two-plus years, and that is threatening to choke us, to our Father in Heaven. We plead with Him that He will show us the way, and that we can be partners with Him in our Redemption.  We want to work with Him, to sanctify His Name."

 






Photos by Arutz-7 Photojournalist Josh Shamsi