Israeli paper publishes Obama Western Wall prayer
Before he left Israel Sen. Barack Obama made the required religious pilgrimage to the Western Wall, unannounced in the predawn hours.
As The Ticket reported in Pool Report the other day, he prayed with a rabbi, took a few moments of meditation with his hand on the wall and then, according to custom, slipped a personal prayer note into a crack in the sacred wall.
These notes are left by the thousands and are meant to be private. But his visit to the Western Wall was a public event.
As the freshman senator headed for the airport, a young Orthodox religious student reportedly searched the Wall until he found the note and turned it over to Maariv.
The newspaper's decision to publish the prayer drew a storm of criticism in some Israeli circles, as such prayers are considered personal and revealing them makes one subject to "the indignation of God."
One might wonder, as our colleague Frank James does over at this Swamp item, at the propriety of a seminary student of all people stealing a private prayer left in a sacred wall for God. Wonder if he got paid for that.
Our Times colleague Richard Boudreaux has also blogged the full story over on the Babylon & Beyond blog here and also here.
— Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Associated Press
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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I GUESS OBAMA WON'T BE PICKING JOHN EDWARDS FOR VP AFTER GETTING CAUGHT IN THE HOTEL BY THE PRESS0
Posted by: STEPHEN | July 25, 2008 at 11:55 AM
didn't he define sins as falling short of his own expectations?
Posted by: dave | July 25, 2008 at 02:41 PM
An "orthodox Jew" took the private prayer of someone at the wailing wall and published it? The young man is not orthodox, nor is he a just man. His family, his nation, his culture have been shamed by this young man's acts. An apology is in order.
Posted by: faith | July 25, 2008 at 03:33 PM
oh yeah and Lord vote Obama the messiah.
Any news on Edwards love child yet or can we talk about that
Posted by: Mr. Evans | July 25, 2008 at 03:48 PM
It was in extremely poor taste for Maarlv to print anybody's sacred prayers. So who was it that ensured Barak Obama's prayer is reprinted in the American media? Oh Andy Malcolm, it figures. Zero class and Zero respect. He must have a relative in a high position at the Times.
Posted by: Yellow Journalism Lives | July 25, 2008 at 04:37 PM
This is truely a disgrace.
Posted by: Barb | July 26, 2008 at 01:49 PM
How disgusting! These prayers are STRICTLY between the person and God. This a the most holy place for we Jews.
Even though Sen. Obama isn't a Jew, his prayer should still been kept only for God!
This makes me sick that this man has NO privacy, not even in a pre dawn visit to the Western Wall!
Posted by: Barb Friedman | July 27, 2008 at 06:45 PM
The Israeli press is reporting that Obama's campaign leaked the prayer for publicity
Talks about disgusting!
(Actually, Ma'ariv withdrew that statement and the seminary student went on Israeli TV Tuesday and apologized.)
Posted by: John Moore | July 29, 2008 at 10:52 PM