Photo Every Day 2026

I have so many photos from my recent trip to Israel. I’ll be sharing many of them throughout the month of November. This photo was taken at the Western Wall.

Standing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, you’re looking at massive limestone blocks from the Second Temple period—many of them Herodian, still visible after two thousand years. This wall was part of the massive platform Herod built to expand the Temple Mount. Exactly as Jesus predicted, the actual Temple that stood above it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

For centuries after the Second Temple was destroyed, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount was the nearest place Jews could come to the site of the Temple. Still today, millions of people come to pray, leave handwritten notes in the cracks, and mark life-cycle events. The plaza is divided into men’s and women’s sections. The stones in the lower courses are the oldest and largest; higher courses are later additions.

The site has been a continuous place of Jewish prayer for generations and became freely accessible to all after the 1967 Six-Day War. Today it remains one of the most visited and photographed places in the world—part archaeological remnant, part living house of prayer.