When Barack Obama visited Israel during his recent foreign trip, like most visitors to the country he stopped at the Western Wall. Following a traditional custom, Obama left a note containing a personal prayer in one of the crevices in the Wall. Friday's Los Angeles Times reports, however, that in a breach of tradition, a young Orthodox Jewish student searched the Wall once Obama left and found his note. Obama's prayer for protection, wisdom and forgiveness, written on note paper from the King David Hotel, was turned over to the Israeli paper Maariv that then published it. The LA Times article contains a photo of the note.
UPDATE: Maariv's publication of Obama's note sparked outrage, and calls for a boycott of the paper and for a police investigation. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, who supervises the Western Wall, said the unauthorized removal of the note was a sacrilege. However Maariv said that Obama had submitted a copy of his note to media outlets when he left his Jerusalem hotel. (Haaretz). Meanwhile JTA reported on Sunday that the student who removed the note from the Wall went on Israel's Channel 2 television to apologize. Channel 2's religious affairs correspondent took the note and transmitted it to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which in turn placed it back in the Wall. [Thanks to Joel Katz for the lead.]
