From the Jerusalem Post:

Visitors no longer have to hold cardboard kippot on their heads when visiting the Kotel: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has received a donation of 1 million nylon yarmulkes.
According to a statement Wednesday from the office of the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, the distinct and sometimes awkward cardboard head coverings that have been offered to male visitors to the site for 40 years have been replaced.
The white cloth yarmulkes, which were apparently made in China to cut costs, were given to the foundation on Sunday and are now available for use at the entrance to the Kotel area.
Though this is not the first time new yarmulkes have been donated to the Kotel, said the rabbi’s assistant on Wednesday, this is the first time there has been a large enough number to accommodate the more than eight million people who visit the site each year.
[. . .]
The new yarmulkes, like the cardboard ones, are considered “disposable” – people are allowed to take them home. But the old ones may become a collector’s item: Some are being sold on ebay for $6.

The full story is here. You can buy a cardboard kippah on ebay here.  If you’re wondering why it’s sometimes called a kippah and why sometimes yarmulke or even what one is and why they’re so important, this Wikipedia article has some good information.

First-time tourists excited to see the walls of the Old City may be a bit disappointed in 2010.  Scaffolding has been erected along sections of the western and southern walls in an effort to restore the Turkish wall built in 1540.  From Haaretz:

Three years ago a stone from the Old City wall in Jerusalem fell into a church school yard next door. Fears that the wall was crumbling spawned a complex project to restore its stones while preserving traces of history left by inscriptions, shells and animals.
It turned out later that the stone had fallen from a Jordanian support column rather than the Ottoman wall. But by then the NIS 15 million renovation project was already on its way.
[…]
As elsewhere in the world, Jerusalem’s wall consists of two stone walls with earth in between. The greatest threat is from water penetrating the stone layers, causing the stones to shift and topple. The renovators must seal the cracks without changing the wall’s facade. In some cases they have no choice but to replace a flawed stone at the cost of changing its original color or appearance.
“We don’t clean the stones completely,” says Mashiah. “The wall doesn’t have to look like a new building. It should remain ancient.”
[…]
The wall’s renovation is due to be completed in about a year, except for the section surrounding the Temple Mount, where the Muslim Waqf trust refused to allow restoration work. The owners of various sections of the interior wall also refused the renovators access.
The Zion Gate, ravaged by thousands of shells in the War of Independence and by exhaust fumes and countless car collisions, has been painstakingly renovated. The memorial stone for the Harel Brigade combatants, which blocked one of the gate’s lattices, has been moved.

Read the full story here.

HT: Joe Lauer

360 degree views in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher – if you didn’t want to stand in the long line to enter the tomb, this gives you a perfect view without the crowds, noise, or fragrances.

360 degree views in the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque – if you’re not Muslim, you can’t stand in a line long enough.  One other 360 degree view is the Western Wall, but these photos are less unique.  The entry point to all three sites is here.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov presented his ministry’s three-year plan to boost tourism at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The plan, which aims to bring in an additional one million foreign tourists by 2012, focuses mostly on attracting tourists who come to Israel for religious, historical and cultural purposes. According to Misezhnikov, the boost in numbers will garner NIS 4.5 billion in income and create 40,000 new jobs, especially in Jerusalem and the periphery. "The Tourism Ministry is an economic portfolio," he said. "As such, it is measured according to two main parameters: creating jobs and balancing income with expenses. For every 100,000 tourists, 4,000 jobs are created and NIS 450 million are invested in the Israeli economy." The plan calls for the branding of Israel as a destination for dahat tourism, a Hebrew acronym for religion, history and culture. Misezhnikov said his office had identified Israel’s central role in Judaism and Christianity and its rich historic and cultural legacy as the main attraction for tourists. "We have no relative advantage over other countries in terms of vistas, beaches or leisure," he said. "On the contrary, we are at a disadvantage compared to some of our neighbors because of our troublesome security situation, our relatively high prices and our image of being inhospitable to tourists." [. . .] The US was the largest country of origin for incoming tourism, with 550,000 visitors, or 21% of all incoming tourism. Russia was second, with 400,000 visitors; France was third, with 260,000; followed by the UK, with 170,000; and Germany, with Thirty-nine percent of incoming tourists were Jewish, 54% Christian and the remainder either from other religions or with no religious affiliation. Nearly half of the tourists were visiting Israel for the first time. Nearly a quarter of the tourists said the purpose of their visit was for holiday and leisure, 31% for pilgrimage and 6% for touring and sightseeing. The average foreign tourist expenditure in Israel in 2009 was $1,083, including overseas expenses. The average daily expenditure was about $100.

The full story is here.