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The Magnetometers at the Kosel Entrance Redone
By Yechiel Sever
The Foundation for the Kosel Heritage has been working for the past two months to renew the magnetometer detectors at the entrance to the Kosel, enabling people to come on Shabbos and Yom Tov without transgression.
These detection gates are a necessary security adjunct for such a high-risk place to scan all comers by day and night and thereby to detect dangerous metallic objects. With the intervention of the rav of the Kosel, HaRav Shmuel Rabinowitz, and the cooperation of the police, the sensitivity of these detection devices has been substantially reduced to only react to large and unusual metal objects such as knives and other weapons, but not to respond to small objects like watches, belts and keys and cause any reaction from the electronic device.
The arrangements were approved by HaRav Moshe Shternbuch, ravad of the Eida Chareidis of Yerushalayim, HaRav Yehoshua Neuwirth, author of Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchosoh, HaRav Avigdor Nevenzahl, rov of the Old City. In a detailed analysis of the new setup, HaRav Yosef Efrati argued that it seems to him that according to the principles of HaRav Eliashiv shlita there is no reason that a person who was not carrying a metal object could not walk through the new gates.
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