A moving ceremony took place today at the Western Wall Plaza as a group of Holocaust survivors from the Israeli cities Haifa and Kiryat Shmona belatedly marked their bar and bat mitzvahs. This initiative of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation is conducted with the cooperation of Minister Gila Gamliel, the Ministry for Social Equality, and various municipalities around Israel. The project gathers groups of elderly people who survived the horrors of the Shoah during their bar and bat mitzvah years and who were not able to mark the occasion due to the tragic times and circumstances. Decades later, they are being brought to the Western Wall, accompanied by family members, where the survivors participate in a moving prayer ceremony, share their stories, celebrate their resilience, and in an extremely moving gesture they are saluted by current soldiers of the Israel Defense Force.
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation is proud to be a part of a program that is the ultimate expression of Am Yisrael Chai The Jewish Nation Lives!
Prayers to the Western Wall from 140 countries: “For My House shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, in keeping with tradition: Prayer notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall over the past six months have been removed and transferred for ritual burial.
25 Elul 5786
September 7, 2026
