Love of the Land: A forbidden visit to the Temple Mount

A forbidden visit to the Temple Mount

David Kirshenbaum
Guest Columnist/JPost
14 January '10

The day before the recent wedding of my daughter, Sharona, I had the awesome privilege of accompanying her, together with my son, Elie, to the Temple Mount. In addition to that much-anticipated visit, we had planned on spending the morning together, strolling the streets of Jerusalem, enjoying a father-daughter brunch and tending to last-minute preparations for the wedding. Instead, our visit to the Temple Mount was abruptly cut short and Sharona and I were detained until noon in a Jerusalem police station for actions deemed dangerous to the safety of the public and state.

Only hours after we were removed from the Temple Mount did I learn what it was that the police had determined made us public menaces. During separate questioning, I was asked, "Was your daughter swaying?"

Incredulous, I asked the officer to repeat the question, thinking perhaps I hadn't heard right.

"You know," and the good officer nodded his head back and forth, explaining, in a hostile manner, how that was quite obviously a provocative action and, therefore, an unlawful movement for a Jew to make on the Temple Mount.

AS I watched this officer bobbing his head and telling me why it was so bad and dangerous, what jumped into mind were the episodes in the classic M*A*S*H television series that mercilessly mocked the intelligence and shallow thinking of army brass.

But this was not comedy or satire. It was real, and it was sad. In fact, the shameful combination of the blatant racism of the Wakf, authorized by the government to monitor every movement on the Temple Mount of any non-Muslim visitor (in practice, the authority is primarily exercised in the case of those who appear to be religious Jews) and the craven police appeasement that my daughter and I experienced on her wedding eve surpassed that which I described in these pages in two recent columns ("Intolerance on the Temple Mount," September 27; Where's the compromise over the Temple Mount?).

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Love of the Land: A forbidden visit to the Temple Mount

Love of the Land: Freedman in the Guardian: Pro-Temple Mount Also for the Jews

Freedman in the Guardian: Pro-Temple Mount Also for the Jews

Yisrael Medad

My Right Word

06 October 09

This from a avowed sympathizer of the other side:

Meting out violence against worshippers planning to pray at Judaism's holiest site, as occurred several times during the last week, is a disgraceful way to demonstrate against the Israeli authorities, and the sooner Palestinian leaders condemn the aggression, the better for all parties concerned. Letting off steam in such a fashion might soothe the sense of injured pride felt by many on the Palestinian street, as well as score cheap political points among their more incendiary leaders, but it does not mitigate the negative effects of such a base response by the rioters.

The Temple Mount is, arguably, even more important to Jews than it is to Muslims, and as such there is a heavy onus on both sides to tread carefully when attempting to share the site. Anything that sets off a spark in the tinderbox atmosphere which perennially surrounds the compound will have long-lasting ramifications that will continue well after the teargas has cleared and the rock-throwers have been dispersed. By reacting as they did, the Palestinian protesters have done immeasurable damage to their wider national cause...

Radicals from the settler movement are adept at hijacking religious occasions and turning them into highly charged, political rallies – and when such instances occur, the Israeli authorities ought to stand in their path rather than aid and abet extremists in their provocation.

However, for Palestinians to demand that Jews not be allowed to hold services on the Temple Mount, especially over the Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur period, is a step too far, and demonstrates a level of intolerance that no Israeli should have to put up with. Love or hate one another, Jews and Muslims living in Israel and the occupied territories know full well that the contentious locations of many of their holy sites necessitate at least a minimal degree of co-operation.

Did you read that?

for Palestinians to demand that Jews not be allowed to hold services on the Temple Mount, especially over the Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur period, is a step too far

And this:

...officials such as Erekat and his Jordanian counterparts play into the hands of the Israeli right, who will use the incidents as proof that not only are certain elements of Palestinian society untameable, but that their backers both at home and abroad turn a blind eye to their misdeeds and offer no hope of calming such tense standoffs whenever they occur.

Well, nice to know the Guardian is a place where the truth occasionally can be found.

Love of the Land: Freedman in the Guardian: Pro-Temple Mount Also for the Jews

Love of the Land: Who is really to blame for the tensions on the Temple Mount?

Who is really to blame for the tensions on the Temple Mount?

Avi Isaacharoff
Haaretz
05 October 09

"Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors."

Palestinian clashes with Israeli police on Sunday and on the day before Yom Kippur near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City have made foreign diplomats wonder whether Israel is enacting a new policy on the Temple Mount, which is serving to exacerbate tensions.

Media outlets and senior Palestinian Authority officials have contributed significantly to this perception after repeatedly claiming that Israel is planning to allow a group of "extremist settlers" to pray at the mosque. Even the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, has blamed Israel for implementing a dangerous policy on the Temple Mount that is liable to lead to a conflagration.

Yet, reality, as always, is a bit more complicated. The status quo in the plaza surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque has in fact not changed since 2003. The entry of Jews and tourists is permitted on the Temple Mount from 7:30 to 10 A.M., and from 12:30 to 1:30 P.M. These visits do not have to be coordinated with officials of the Waqf (Muslim trust) and take place without any interference. Indeed, last Thursday, for example, the area was totally calm. At 1 P.M., dozens of tourists could be seen wandering around the plaza.

The advent of the holiday season in Israel, combined with the desire of Palestinian politicians to win a few minutes of fame, has recently led, however, to various violent incidents.

At present, the PA is not doing enough to ease tensions, while the Islamic Movement's northern faction is apparently working in concert with a number of Palestinian figures in an effort to spark an escalation of hostilities on the mount.

In the past, revenues generated by the tourist visits there; which reached some $200,000 per month; were transferred to the Waqf, which is run by Jordanian authorities. Since the outbreak of the second intifada, however, there has been no coordination of visits with the Waqf, and in 2003, Israel unilaterally opened the Temple Mount to tourists.

Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib, the head of the Waqf, said that just before Yom Kippur, a number of Jewish groups distributed notices announcing that they planned to visit the Temple Mount on the eve of the holiday. In response, the former mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, called on Muslim worshipers to gather at Al-Aqsa Mosque last Sunday, to defend it against the Jews. His call was also taken up by Hatem Abdel Khader, the Fatah official who holds the Jerusalem portfolio, and other factions belonging to the Islamic Movement.

After morning prayers that day, some 200 people gathered at the square waiting for the Jews to enter.

"The police knew about this," Al-Khatib said. "One of the officers who is responsible for police coordination with the Waqf, called me and I warned him not to open the Temple Mount to Jewish worshipers."

At 7:30 A.M., the Mughrabim Gate was opened and a group of tourists entered the compound. Muslims began hurling stones at them and at the police officers who tried to hurry the tourists away from the scene.

Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors.

Related: Another Day In Israel
Temple Mount: 'Palestinians' Riot

Love of the Land: Who is really to blame for the tensions on the Temple Mount?

Love of the Land: Intolerance on the Temple Mount

Intolerance on the Temple Mount

David Kirshenbaum
JPost Opinion
27 September 09

(Erev Yom Kippur all Jewish visitors were turned away as Arabs rioted on Har HaBayit to prevent their ascent)

Last week, our synagogue in Beit Shemesh made its annual High Holy Day week visit to the Temple Mount. We began the tradition six years ago when the site was reopened to non-Muslims. During the first three years following the start of the September 2000 war launched against Israel by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hizbullah, the government decided to reward Arab terror by barring all non-Muslims from even setting foot on the Temple Mount.

Visiting the Temple Mount is a schizophrenic experience. When standing there, it is impossible not to be awestruck by the magnitude of where you are and the enormity of the colossal events that took place there. It is on the Temple Mount that both the First and Second Temple stood for nearly 1,000 years, where millions of Jews from all over the Land of Israel and the Diaspora made the three festival pilgrimages and where, according to Jewish belief, the Third Temple, ushering in the days of the messiah, is destined to be built. Throughout history, whenever and wherever Jews were engaged in prayer, they faced Jerusalem. And when in Jerusalem, they pray in the direction of the Temple Mount.

It boggles the mind to imagine your family tree and to consider when the last time anybody in the family line had been on the Temple Mount. Might that ancestor have been one of the survivors of the fighting that took place there prior to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE? Might it have been on Shavuot of that year, the final pilgrimage festival celebrated by the Jewish people prior to the destruction?

But now that I was standing in that holiest of places, which generations of Jews for 2,000 years could only dream of visiting, I was forbidden to pray. Simply moving my lips in whispered prayer could be grounds for removal. Why? Because I am a Jew. And only a Muslim can pray on the holiest site in Judaism. A Jew may not.

DURING THE War of Independence in 1948, the Old City of Jerusalem fell to the Jordanians. Nearly 1,500 Jews, including many women and children, were killed. While it was under Jordanian control, dozens of Jewish synagogues, many centuries old, were destroyed and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, where Jews have been buried for 2,500 years, was desecrated. For 19 years, no Jew was allowed to set foot in the Old City or pray at the Western Wall, the retaining wall of the Temple Mount closest to where the Temples stood.

In June 1967, when Egypt, Syria and Jordan embarked on a war to annihilate the Jewish state, Israel recaptured Jerusalem's Old City. One of the most stirring announcements in Jewish history was the message transmitted from the front during the Six Day War: "The Temple Mount is in our hands."

But then, in a mind-boggling display of attempted appeasement of an enemy that just days before had sought Israel's destruction, defense minister Moshe Dayan decided to allow the Muslim religious council, the Wakf, to retain administrative authority over the Temple Mount. Thus, a truly bizarre and unacceptable situation developed.

Israel has scrupulously upheld Muslim worship at the Aksa Mosque, which was built just off the supposed site of the Temples, even when the site has been used to stone Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall and sermons are delivered calling for the demise of Israel and the US. Nor have Muslim prayer services been banned even in the worst periods of Arab terror attacks. During the just-completed Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of Arabs prayed at al-Aksa and held nighttime picnics on the Temple Mount breaking their fast. The garbage and leftover food items we saw strewn over the Temple Mount during our visit was appalling.

But in glaring contrast, Israel has, for the past 43 years, failed to challenge the Muslim ban on Jewish worship on the Temple Mount. On our visit, the number of Jews allowed up at one time was severely limited, we were checked for any religious items, which cannot be brought onto the Temple Mount by a Jew, and we were warned by the police not to even whisper a prayer.

THE STATUS quo is woefully offensive and intolerable. Never mind that at no time during the lengthy Muslim control over much of the Middle East did the Muslims ever designate Jerusalem as an imperial capital or even as a provincial or subprovincial capital. Even if we choose to overlook this very relevant history, the pattern of Islamic religious imperialism, exemplified by the Wakf's contemptible conduct on the Temple Mount, must not be ignored.

The problem is not simply that the Arabs have attempted to take as their own every site in Israel holy to Judaism, whether it be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem or Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. But in doing so, they have consistently attempted to obliterate the historic Jewish connection and claim to each of those sites.

In the same manner, in the years following the Oslo Accords and Israel's withdrawal from Bethlehem, a concerted policy by the Palestinian Authority to Islamicize the city and terrorize the Christian population resulted in a reduction in the percentage of Christians living there from 60 percent to less than 15% today.

We pay a terrible price when we close our eyes to the trampling of human rights and religious freedom out of fear of enraging the Muslim world. The Temple Mount is a huge area. It is the length of nearly five football fields north to south, and nearly three football fields east to west. It is certainly large enough to accommodate the ancient call of the prophet Isaiah recited in fervent prayer by Jews on Yom Kippur: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations."

The sooner we take action to help bring this about, the better.

Love of the Land: Intolerance on the Temple Mount