Why the Temple Mount Belongs to Jews and Israel

tmIn Jerusalem, The Temple Mount is the historical location of the First and Second Temples, the holiest place in the world for Jews.  There has been ongoing disputes about the right of Jews to pray there – and it is absurd that anyone in the world can deny Jews the right of freedom of prayer in the State of Israel.

A week ago, American-born Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a leader of the movement encouraging Jews to pray at the Temple Mount, was shot by a Palestinian Arab assassin who objected to the idea of Jews praying on the Temple Mount.  The Palestinian Arabs continue to do all they can to deny Jews the right to live – and pray – in the Jewish State.  It is unacceptable – and Jews must have the right to pray at the Temple Mount.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the Zionist prophet, once asked, “Is a situation moral in which one side can commit any crime or murder and the other is forbidden to react?”  There must be a price for attacks upon Jews in Israel at the holiest site in Judaism – and amongst that price must be increased rights of Jews to pray. As Ricki Hollander has said,

“Jewish reverence for the Temple Mount long predates the building of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque in the 7th century CE, and even predates the construction of the first Jewish Temple by King Solomon almost 2000 years earlier.”

There are so many meaningful reasons and quotes about the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount:

*  “There is very telling Jewish teaching about the Temple Mount, and that is: whoever controls the Mount, controls the world.” Yisrael Medad

*  “[The Temple Mount] is the only place in the country where you feel you’re discriminated against because you’re Jewish.” Eli Duker

*  “I want equal rights for Jews on the Temple Mount. What Muslims do, I want to do too.” Arnon Segal

*  “There is only one meaning to giving up the Temple Mount: the end of the State of Israel.” Ronen Shoval

*  “Although other parts of the Temple Mount retaining wall remain standing, the Western Wall is especially dear, as it is the spot closest to the Holy of Holies, the central focus of the Temple.” Rabbi Shraga Simmons

*  “This compound was our Temple Mount. Here stood our Temple during ancient time, and it would be inconceivable for Jews not to be able freely to visit this holy place now that Jerusalem is under our rule.” Defense Minister Moshe Dayan

*  “Islamist exclusivity has debased the Temple Mount. It’s time to return this holy site to its original inclusivity and allow anyone who wants to pray there respectfully to do so. That is the meaning of Jewish sovereignty and human dignity.” Moshe Dann

*  “According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. It’s believed to be the biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God’s test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.” Aaron Klein

*  “But you cannot be a Zionist if you are prepared to yield the place that provides us with the moral, historic and religious right to this land – the Temple Mount.” Ronen Shoval

*  “It is the supposed site of Mt. Moriah, where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac, where the prophet Muhammad is believed to have ascended into heaven, and was the location of the first and second temples, Judaism’s most holy structures.” Jason Reuter

*  “Every Jew that goes to the Temple Mount puts another stone in the building of the Temple, and is making another step to fulfill Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount.” Moshe Feiglin

*  “Three times a day, for thousands of years, Jewish prayers from around the world have been directed toward the Temple Mount. Kabbalistic tradition says that all prayers from around the world ascend to this spot, from where they then ascend to heaven.” Rabbi Shraga Simmons

*  “We were not trying to demonstrate that it’s exclusively ours, or that we want the Muslims off, only that it’s a significant, if not the most significant Jewish site, archaeologically, historically, and religiously. This is the heart of it all.” Elli Fischer

*  “To compare the Temple Mount to Mount Olympus is to bring everything into focus.” Dr. Israel Eldad

*  “It is the Jewish root – the deepest roots that any people has. Elsewhere, we grope for insight.” Rabbi Shraga Simmons

*  “The Temple Mount has remained a focal point for Jewish services for thousands of years. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition.” Aaron Klein

*  “Jewish religious interest in the Mount is not monolithic, and includes those who merely want to visit a site of great Jewish importance, those who believe Jews should be allowed to pray there, those who believe Temple rituals, like sacrifice, should be renewed immediately, and those who support the construction of a Third Temple in place of the Islamic shrines of the Noble Sanctuary.” Matti Friedman

*  “Since Jews ascend it would not enter my mind to stop them from holding prayers services there.” Itzhak Nissim

*  “Despite the conventional wisdom that the Jewish people were banished from this holy site, the evidence suggests that Jews continued to maintain a strong connection to and frequently even a presence on the Temple Mount for the next two thousand years.” F.M. Loewenberg

As Yisrael Medad of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center has noted,

“Although the Temple Mount is important to both groups, only under Jewish rule have both religions been given access to the Temple Mount. Therefore, it must remain under Israeli rule.”

All of Jerusalem – including The Temple Mount – belongs to Israel.

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  • Eric Nepgen

    I hope that the Author does know that it is the High Rabbinate of Israel that has barred Jews from praying on the Temple Mount.

    • WillielomanIII

      That was partially true in the past, but most rabbis now approve of Jews being able to pray on the Temple Mount. The only place that is an issue is a very small piece of the Temple Mount, the Holy of Holies, and the fact is that ONLY Jews are allowed there but only under very special circumstances and only a Cohen.

      • Eric Nepgen

        The fact of the matter is, they don’t know where the Holy of Hollies is or was. That is why the Rabbinate forbade it in the first Place.

  • WillielomanIII

    Bibi has been corrupted and should resign. The idea of enforcing a policy that Jews cannot pray on the holiest site in Judaism is insane. What needs to happen is for thousands of Jews to march up to the Temple Mount and conduct a full prayer service every week

  • John Pallyswine

    Deuteronomy 20:10, 12 -14

    “When you approach a city to wage war against it, you shall propose
    peace to it.

    “ But if it does not make peace with you, and it
    wages war against you, you shall besiege it,
    and …. you shall strike
    all its males with the edge of the sword… the women, the children … and all
    that is in the city, all its spoils you shall take ”

    Any questions?

    • nopeacenow

      Sounds like the Koran and the actions of Mohammed and his followers.

    • billobillo54

      Yes I have a question. When is the last time a Jew has obeyed that “commandment?” Or, even better: Do you have any documented historical evidence that the Jewish nation ever obeyed or practiced that injunction? Now a comment: Dredging up commands from God to the Israelis around 1400 B.C. has ZERO pertinence to today’s situation regarding Islam. That’s because MUSLIMS in their CURRENT PRACTICE murder, abuse, incite, scheme and torture TODAY as their sacred texts prescribe and have consistently done so since Islam’s inception, while Jews, Christians and humanists practice restraint, tolerance, and democracy.

  • mathewsjw

    Muslims are the real “occupier” in the Middle East by Muslims occupying Temple Mount the temple of Jew since recorded history. btw full disclosure am not Jewish

  • StanleyT

    Mr. Torossian, you could have included a quote or two from some “Palestinian” leaders. I’ve been looking but haven’t been able to find the most relevant one. One Fatah leader said that if Israel loses Jerusalem, then it loses all its reasons to exist.

  • watsa46

    When it comes to the T. M., the successive IL Gvts have adopted the dhimmi attitude! Shame on them.

  • Waiting

    Human nature says: If one puts a high value on an item, others want and value it also.
    It’s the same with anything of value to Jews and Christians (and other groups to a lesser degree) in the mind of a muslim. But because of their belief that islam is greater, and has the only rights to anything, if the Jew or Christian have a high regard for something or some place, the muslms then must possess it exclusively. In their minds and way of thinking, they are the only ones who deserve to have what they value and have the exclusive right to take anything they want by lies or force, all the way to rape and murder.
    To what *heaven* does a murderer, liar, rapist, devil worshipper ascend? Simple answer: he doesn’t ascend to heaven. So the Temple Mount, or even the entire ME can’t be where the so-called *prophet* ascended to heaven.

    If the site was unimportant to the Jews, it would be unimportant for the
    muslims. The muslims just want what others want and make claims that
    are entirely fabricated in order to send the uninformed and the
    undecided on guilt trips.

  • James_IIa

    Islamists like to place their places of worship atop those of the nations they have conquered, as a symbol of dominance (or to destroy the former holy places or convert them into Islamic shrines).

  • Jacob Greenwood

    Of course the Temple Mount belong to the Jews and Israel, and it goes back even further. Finally, a cogent history of the lineage of the Jewish People and “The Nations”, researched by the appointed Lifetime Cultural Director (2003) of the Zionist Organization of Chicago (ZOC), chartered in 1895, without which there would be no modern state of Israel. In the 1920′s people like Golda Meir and others were key ZOC members. The ZOC predates the Zionist Organization of New York which became the ZOA.

    http://www.NoahIsreal.com

  • hitz

    The Pestilinians don’t like people calling it the “Temple Mount”? Really? So just why exactly did Moslems decide to build the Al-Aqsa mosque there in the first place? Guess what! It was because it was the Temple Mount and already holy for Jews. And what about the territory of the Temple Mount OUTSIDE of the Al-Aqsa mosque? It is NOT holy for Moslems. The fact is that when they pray there it is facing Mecca and with their backsides pointed towards the location of the “Holy of Holies” of the Temple and towards all the Temple Mount outside their mosque!

    Let us note that no one wishes to challenge Moslem control over the al-Aqsa Mosque. But there is no reason is the world why the REST of the Temple Mount, which is not sacred at all for Moslems, should be closed to Jews. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, the golden-domed “Dome of the Rock” is not a mosque at all and is not sacred for Moslems. They aim their backsides towards it when they pray in al-Aqsa. It should have been dismantled and reconstructed someplace else in 1967.

  • DaveGinOly

    “Is a situation moral in which one side can commit any crime or murder and the other is forbidden to react?”

    According to the Quran and the Hadith, non-Muslims must suffer the attentions of Muslims, and have no recourse. What appears to us as Israel acting in self-defense when it attacks Hamas for its rocket attacks on civilians, is seen by Muslims as an unjustifiable affront to their superiority as believers in Allah. According to Muslims, this is moral, because they are superior; inferior peoples have no right to harm Muslims, no matter what the provocation.

  • http://islesofmyst.webs.com Raibeart MacIlleathain

    Let’s be honest. Jerusalem didn’t belong to David. It belonged to the Jebusites who mocked David as being incapable of taking the city even with the blind and lame defending the walls. (David used the sewer to access the city and conquer the Jebusites.)

    And before that, the Caananites lived in the land that is now Israel.

    Israel exists only because it was taken by the sword (at God’s command).

    Would the United States have done any differently? (They didn’t, you know).

  • hamba2han

    Jews are very likely praying at the location of Fort Antonia, the citadel that was used by the Roman soldiers who destroyed their Temple some 2,000 years ago.

    For Jews to continue believing that the Haram al-Sharif is the site of the Temple Mount, then the archaeological evidence uncovered so far needs to support this view.

    However, the fact of the matter is that after almost 50 years of the most extensive archaeological excavations at the site by Israeli scientists using the most modern and sophisticated tools and instruments available, all of these excavations have failed to turn up any tangible evidence whatsoever that there was ever an ancient Jewish temple there.

    And considering the size of the Temple and it’s surrounding walls, why are the Israeli scientists who have been diligently excavating and examining the area around the Dome of the Rock, unable to outline the boundaries of the Temple and in particular the location of Gihon Spring which was an integral feature of the Temple?

    The following is an excerpt from a web-page:

    [[ The Temple was a slaughterhouse and hundred of animals were killed daily. Water was a vital necessity for the priests who had to wash constantly. The water was brought up and stored in huge lavers or cisterns.

    "The edifice looks toward the EAST, and its back is to the west. The entire floor is paved with stones and sloped downward to the appropriate places, to admit of flushing with water in order to wash away the blood of the sacrifices; for many myriads of beasts are offered on the days of the festivals. The water supply is inexhaustible, for an abundant natural Spring pours forth within the Temple area, and there are furthermore marvelous underground reservoirs passing description. . ." (Letter of Aristeas, p.135, an eye-witness account written about 300 B.C.)

    It contained an inexhaustible spring (Tacitus)

    ... there has never been a natural water spring within the Haram al-Sharif. That fact alone disqualifies the area around the Dome of the Rock from being the site of the former Temples... ]]

    Therefore, the logical and sensible thing for the Jews to do now would be to finally acknowledge the fact that the Haram al-Sharif is simply NOT the site of the Temple Mount and for them to continue their search for the location of the lost Temples elsewhere.

    And a big fat shame on virtually all of the major news organizations for continuing to spread such a brazenly intentional untruth by the Zionists without even bothering to ask basic questions as to whether or not there is any real evidence to support their claim that the site is the location of their lost Temples.