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For decades, archaeologists have been unearthing historic finds hundreds and thousands of years old in the Kotel (Western Wall) tunnels (pictured) in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from Israel and abroad have come to see the site, but wheelchair-bound visitors were unable to access much of it - until Sunday.
Realizing the importance that the Kotel tunnels have for Jews in Israel and worldwide, the Yad Sarah organization, which lends out medical equipment, determined to find a way to allow Jews in wheelchairs to view the tunnels and the history they contain.
Handicapped access at the site was restricted due to the fact that in some parts the tunnels are narrower than the width of a standard wheelchair. Yad Sarah's challenge was to find a wheelchair narrow enough to enter the narrow parts of the tunnel, while still wide enough to comfortably seat an adult.
At the request of Yad Sarah founder and former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, the group's volunteers searched and managed to find an appropriate chair. They then added some safety features before turning the chairs over to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which will loan them out as needed.
The Kotel Tunnels allow visitors to see structures that are nearly 2,000 years old, and were built in Herodian times, as well as more recent construction from various time periods.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From Israel National News:
