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50 free Western Wall trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Western Wall trivia quiz covers the Kotel, the holiest place where Jews are permitted to pray, from Herod the Great's expansion of the Temple Mount around 19 BCE to the disputes over egalitarian prayer in the 2020s. The first questions deal with the wall itself: how long it really is, how many of its courses lie underground, where the enormous stones were quarried, and which of them weighs as much as 300 tonnes. It then explains the names: why Christians called it the Wailing Wall, why the Islamic world calls it the Buraq Wall, and who first wrote 'ha-kotel ha-ma'aravi'. The middle of the quiz follows the wall through history: the Roman ban on Jews, the Byzantine empress who let them return, Saladin's son and the Moroccan Quarter, Suleiman's rosewater legend, the Ottoman firmans, Rothschild's plan to buy the quarter, the British Mandate, the 1928 screen incident and the 1929 riots, Jordanian rule and the moment paratroopers reached the stones in June 1967. The last questions cover the plaza, the tunnel and its 1996 riots, Wilson's and Robinson's arches, the million prayer notes a year and what happens to them, papal visits, the Rabbi of the Wall and Women of the Wall. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the Western Wall, its tunnel and plaza and the custom of placing notes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In its broadest sense, how long is the entire western retaining wall of the Temple Mount?
488 m
The famous prayer section is only about 57 metres of it; most of the rest is hidden behind medieval houses in the Muslim Quarter.
Q 02Which ruler is thought to have begun the wall while expanding the Temple Mount around 19 BCE?
Herod the Great
Coins found under the foundations in 2011 suggest the wall was not finished in his lifetime, matching Josephus's account that work ended under his great-grandson Agrippa II.
Q 03How many of the wall's 45 stone courses at the plaza lie below street level?
17
The full height from foundation is about 32 metres, of which some 19 metres stand above ground.
Q 04The medium-sized stones above the Herodian courses were added during which period?
Umayyad
The small stones at the very top are more recent, many from the Ottoman period.
Q 05The wall's huge blocks are of what kind of stone?
Meleke limestone
They were possibly quarried at Zedekiah's Cave under the Muslim Quarter or at Ramat Shlomo, four kilometres away.
Q 06The single largest stone in the wall, north of Wilson's Arch, is estimated to weigh how much?
250–300 tonnes
It is 13.55 metres long and ranks among the heaviest objects ever lifted without powered machinery; most of the other blocks weigh two to eight tons.
Q 07Why is the wall the holiest place at which Jews are permitted to pray?
The presumed Holy of Holies lies just above and behind it
Entry restrictions keep Jewish prayer off the Temple Mount platform itself; a smaller exposed stretch, the Little Western Wall, is thought to be closer still.
Q 08Which 11th-century poet made the earliest known Jewish use of the Hebrew term 'ha-kotel ha-ma'aravi'?
Ahimaaz ben Paltiel
Earlier texts spoke of a 'western wall of the Temple', but it is unclear whether they meant the retaining wall or the Temple building's own wall.
Q 09The name 'Wailing Wall' has historically been used mainly by whom?
Christians
It described the Jewish practice of mourning the Temple at the site; French used Mur des Lamentations and German Klagemauer.
Q 10In the Islamic world the wall is named after Buraq. What was Buraq?
Muhammad's winged steed
Tradition holds that Muhammad tethered the mount there on his Night Journey before ascending to heaven; the first likely mention of the tradition dates from the 14th century.
Q 11Under Christian Roman rule Jews were barred from Jerusalem except on which day, when they lamented the Temple?
Tisha B'Av
The Bordeaux Pilgrim wrote in 333 CE that the Jews came once a year to anoint a stone, 'bewail themselves with groans, rend their garments, and so depart'.
Q 12Which Byzantine empress let Galilee's Jews pray at the Temple ruins and resettle in Jerusalem in 425?
Aelia Eudocia
Jews had been banned from the city since the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE.
Q 13In 1193 Saladin's son al-Afdal made the land beside the wall a charitable trust named after which mystic?
Abu Madyan
The waqf served Maghrebi pilgrims and scholars, whose houses stood only about four metres from the wall.
Q 21How many Jews were killed in the Arab riots of August 1929 that began at the wall and spread to Hebron?
133
A further 110 Arabs were killed by British police quelling the riots; it was the deadliest attack on Jews under the Mandate.
Q 22The 1930 international commission ruled the wall belonged to whom?
The Muslim waqf
It confirmed Jews' right of free access for devotions but banned the blowing of the shofar there.
Q 23Which country controlled the Old City from 1948 to 1967, when Jews were barred from the wall?
Jordan
Jews were expelled from the Jewish Quarter and a ceramic sign reading 'Al-Buraq (Wailing Wall) Rd' was fixed to the stones.
Q 14Folktales say Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the wall washed with what upon its discovery?
Rosewater
His father Selim I had taken Jerusalem from the Mamluks in 1517, and Suleiman built the city walls that still stand.
Q 15Which traveller wrote in 1488 that the wall's stones were larger than any in Rome?
Obadiah of Bertinoro
Benjamin of Tudela had described Jews praying at a western wall in 1170, though he may have meant the Eastern Wall and its Gate of Mercy.
Q 16An 1840 firman from Ibrahim Pasha forbade the Jews from doing what in front of the wall?
Paving the passageway
It also warned them against 'raising their voices and displaying their books there', while allowing visits 'as of old'.
Q 17Which Jewish philanthropist planned in 1887 to buy and demolish the Moroccan Quarter?
Baron Rothschild
The Ottoman governor and the mufti approved, but the deal collapsed over conditions that only trees could be planted on the cleared land.
Q 18Which British general captured Jerusalem in December 1917?
Edmund Allenby
In 1919 Chaim Weizmann offered up to £100,000 to buy the area at the foot of the wall, but Muslim opposition ended the talks.
Q 19On the Day of Atonement in 1928, British police forcibly removed what from the prayer area?
A screen separating men and women
Women who resisted were beaten with pieces of the broken frame; the incident made international news and inflamed tensions.
Q 20In summer 1929 the Mufti opened the alley by the wall into a thoroughfare, and what was herded through it?
Mules
The animals' droppings and other provocations led to protests, and the riots that August killed 133 Jews and 116 Arabs.
Q 24For how many years was Jewish prayer at the wall effectively banned before June 1967?
19
Israeli control began on 10 June 1967, three days before the Moroccan Quarter was bulldozed to create the plaza.
Q 25Which brigadier rabbi proclaimed in 1967 that 'Israel would never again relinquish the Wall'?
Shlomo Goren
Yitzhak Rabin later called the paratroopers' arrival at the stones the one moment that symbolised the whole victory.
Q 26How many Arab families were ordered out of the Moroccan Quarter before it was demolished in June 1967?
106
About 650 people were told to leave at night; the military acted without an explicit government order so the plaza would be ready for Shavuot.
Q 27After the 1969 demolitions, the prayer section was extended from 28 metres to how long?
60 m
The space in front of the wall grew from 4 metres to 40 metres, forming today's plaza.
Q 28Roughly how many visitors can the 10,000-square-metre plaza accommodate per day?
400,000
It hosts bar mitzvahs and the swearing-in of new IDF soldiers, and a record 1.5 million people came during Tishrei 2009.
Q 29Which Jewish fast day marking the Temples' destruction draws especially large crowds to the wall?
Tisha B'Av
Over 100,000 gathered on that day in 2007; Jerusalem Day, marking the 1967 reunification, is the other great gathering.
Q 30Who was the first Rabbi of the Kotel, appointed after 1967?
Yehuda Meir Getz
He gave permission for the Chabad tefillin stand, at which an estimated 400,000 Jews performed the ritual in the months after the war.