A huge stone that fell from Jerusalem’s Western Wall, barely missing a worshipper, was removed Wednesday as experts took the incident as a sign from above to examine the ancient structure’s stability. Two millennia after thousands of labourers had set it in place, the fallen stone was hoisted up by an unassuming crane operator named Yossi. Roughly a metre high and wide and weighing approximately 400 kilogrammes (880 pounds), the stone fell onto a prayer platform on Monday and just missed a woman. On Wednesday, the crane gently laid the stone down on two planks of wood at a nearby zoned-off clearing. Three smaller rocks that had broken off from the stone when it dislodged were also moved. Neither professionals from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) nor rabbis from the Western Wall administration could remember such an occurrence. It took place at a less-visited part of the wall, where men and women are permitted to pray together contrary to Orthod<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A huge stone that fell from Jerusalem’s Western Wall, barely missing a worshipper, was removed Wednesday as experts took the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publications"],"yoast_head":"\n