Jerusalem, Israel - For centuries, people have stuffed prayers written on scraps of paper into the ancient cracks in the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years they could fax or e-mail their prayers -- and now they can tweet them, too.
The Western Wall has its own address on the social networking service, Twitter, allowing believers around the globe to have their prayers placed between its 2,000-year-old-stones without leaving their armchairs.
The service's founder, Alon Nil, says petitioners can tweet their prayers, and they will be printed out and taken to the wall, where they will join the thousands of handwritten notes placed by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited there.
The 25-year-old economist started the Twitter page three weeks ago and has already received hundreds of prayers.
"It all started a while after the riots in Iran, and I realized the potential of Twitter," Nil said. "There are an infinite number of uses for Twitter, and I thought 'What can I do that is new and creative and might benefit the people of Israel?'"
When the Iran government shut down traditional media following the June elections and the ensuing violent demonstrations, Iranians used Twitter to share information and photos with the outside world.
Most of the prayers are sent to Twitter in private messages, but Nil encourages his followers to make their tweets public. Only a few, like one identified only as Yonatan, have chosen to do so.
"Praise Hashem for everything he has done for me, may he bless all my endeavors and guide me to wisdom and truth," he tweeted on Wednesday, using a Hebrew synonym for God.
The wall, in Jerusalem's Old City, is all that remains of the compound where the biblical temples stood.