Prayers make it to the Western Wall via Twitter

Throughout the ages, people have been writing prayers on pieces of paper and placing them in crevices in the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Eventually, those who couldn't make the journey, had other options: They could fax or e-mail their prayers to be placed in the 2,000-year-old crevices in the wall. Now, there's another method for those who can't make the trip: They can tweet their prayers.

In July, Alon Nil, an economics student from Tel Aviv, started a Twitter feed, @TheKotel, to enable people to send 140-character prayers to God, which are then placed in the Western Wall.  Since then, it's been his mission to transcribe the tweets and cut them into individual strips of paper and deliver them himself.

Mr. Nil, who delivers these messages free of charge, decided to create the website, Tweet Your Prayers, after seeing how Twitter was used as an effective communication tool after the Iranian elections earlier this year. He is currently accepting donations and is looking for sponsors to help with the operation costs of his Website and free service.

In the meantime, he's having a difficult time keeping up with all the tweeted prayers. Within three weeks of launching the service, around 1,000 tweets had been submitted to his Twitter feed.

"I'm swamped. I can't keep up with all the tweets," he told The Associated Press. "I can't keep maintaining it by myself. But I'm determined to not lose even one prayer."

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