The Arabs destroyed all our synagogues and holy places at the end of the War of Independence besides killing the local Jewish inhabitants and driving the rest out of Jerusalem during the war. We on the other hand wiped the floor with them in the ’67 War only to give them the keys to the Temple Mount as a show of magnaminity. They repaid the kindness by preventing us from going there and our government makes it a crime to do so. As victor we should dictate the terms. But no, the leftist sickness continues. Ted Belman
By: Yori Yanover, JEWISH PRESS
Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, the 78 year old founder of the Temple Institute and a former Israeli paratrooper who took part in Israel’s liberation of Temple Mount in 1967, has been banned from entering the holiest Jewish site by Israeli Police.
Ariel was informed of the ban last week after attempting to visit the site. Although an official reason was not given at the time, the Rabbi was told by police officers that he was banned indefinitely.
A spokesman for the Jerusalem Police told the Jewish Press that the rabbi conducted himself in a manner which is not in compliance with the law and a criminal investigation has been launched against him.
Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, wrote an email in response to a Jewish Press inquiry, saying: “The Israel Police’s recent shift of policy towards Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount is a throwback to the dark ages of totalitarian rule. The draconian, illegal suppression of Jewish presence, prayer and identification is a stain on this great country’s record of democracy. While on the one hand, the State of Israel champions human rights and pluralism, the treatment of Jews on the Temple Mount bespeaks utter contempt, insensitivity to religious feelings, and a brutal quashing of the most basic human rights.”
Rabbi Chaim Richman added that “it is inconceivable that Jews are treated as criminals for expressing a desire to pray at their holiest site. It is equally unconscionable that Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who served with the paratroopers that liberated the Temple Mount in the 1967 Six Day War, risking his life and burying his comrades for the sake of the Jewish sovereignty of the Temple Mount, should be served with an order distancing him from the Temple Mount indefinitely. His ‘crime’ was giving thanks to God, in that very spot – for the return of the site to the Jewish people. Has it indeed returned to the Jewish people? Is the Temple Mount ‘in our hands?’ Every day that this situation is allowed to continue is a step backwards for the State of Israel.”
Rabbi Ariel (the bearded paratrooper on the left) bringing his teachers The Nazir and Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook to the Kotel soon after its liberation.
The harsh police move is thought by a source at the Temple Institute to be related to a You Tube video showing a large group of Jews who ascended the mount with Rabbi Ariel on Jerusalem Day, to celebrate 45 years since the liberation of the site.
In addition to Rabbi Ariel, a number of other Jewish worshipers that visited the site on Jerusalem day and are seen in the video have also been banned.
The video shows a large gathering of Jews who were able to pray, sing and say blessings while on the Temple Mount, for the first time in many years, unhindered by nearby police. The contingency of Jewish worshipers was led by Knesset members Michael Ben Ari and Uri Ariel, as well as by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute, and other prominent rabbis and public figures.
On the video, Rabbi Ariel can be heard saying, “I have waited forty five years to be able to say the Shehechianu (lit. “He who has kept us alive,” a blessing of thanksgiving) here on the Temple Mount.”
His prayer of thanks is then followed by a memorial prayer for his fallen comrades who lost their lives in the mission to liberate Temple Mount during the Six Day War. The group was accompanied by journalists and cameramen from Israel’s major news outlets. The worshipers exited the Mount singing. No violence or protest occurred.
Here is the video that is thought to have led to Rabbi Ariel’s ban:
<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/crgzrgHRNH0?feature=player_embedded” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
In response to the ban, Likud MK Tzippy Hotovely released a statement today calling for the convening of an urgent Interior Committee meeting in the Knesset to discuss freedom of Jewish prayer on Temple Mount. “This is a fatal blow to freedom of worship, and has no place in the state of Israel,” MK Hotovely said.
I agree with Frances Drake!!
Frances Drake Said:
@ Frances Drake:
I agree with Frances Drake
@ Samuel Fistel:
EZEKIEL 37 tells us about THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES which is an important passage concerning THE SPIRITUAL DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE NATION of ISRAEL. Today, we have returned to our LAND, CULTURE, HERITAGE….and yes, even the Sanhedrin has re-convened! But though the once-dead, dry bones of Israel have been alive since May 14, 1948, there is yet no spiritual breath within her. The Ruach ha-Kodesh will come upon Israel
when the war of Ezekiel 38-39 occurs and G-d Himself supernaturally defeats Gog & Magog upon the hills of Jerusalem. THEN will Israel finally turn and acknowledge their Holy One of Israel once more….and He will again call them “My people.” THEN will Israel clamor to rebuild the Temple!
Great comments and analysis. But not conductive to addressing the terrible sickness.
I am prepared to join with others to organize a massive march on Jerusalem to engage up front the unJewish system wielding the power to assault Jews and help the Jewish people enemies. The combina MUST be torn down!
Forget about “va’adot messadrot” as that circus attempting to change the Tal Law. How do they want to do it?
By harming Torah students and producing waivers to support Islamic beasts.
Granted that some “students” are in reality draft dodgers by then again, we DEMAND to know how many of the “elite” families kids end up in “special” placements or never serve at all. Lets dig up the IDF records once and for all.
Any purported Jew that does not care about Temple Mount and Heritage is not a JEW. It, it is an unJew.
Hungry, thirsty, in the barrenness of the desert. Would you have done different?
I cannot begin to comprehend His will…except, to look around and see what is. Which doesn’t help much.
If it’s “love” it isn’t on a paradigm of any human expression of it. [‘I buried a million of your children alive because I wanted to make you ready for the Land I promised…’]
@ Georg von Starkermann:
Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.
Exodus 32:9 “I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people”
Exodus 33:5 For the LORD had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.'”
2 Kings 17:14 But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the LORD their God.
I think G-d loves the Jewish people above all others is because we are so rebellious (stiff necked). Our history is a love hate relationship with our creator. Time after time we rebel, are punished then brought back from he brink, repent and the whole process begins anew.
@ rongrand:
I also agree with Fistel. That said, compare our situation to an abscessed tooth ache. As long as there is little or no pain most people ignore it or delay a visit to the dentist. Only when the pain is severe or unbearable does everyone relent and head for the dentist.
“As I live, saith the L-rd, G-d, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, will I be king over you. And I will bring you out from the peoples… with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm and fury poured out.” (Ezekiel 20)
“Fury poured out.” Heaven help us!
There will soon be a Great Awakening in Israel, the like of which has not been seen in thousands of years. God made a Covenant with Abraham. He cannot lie and He does not break His promises. Whether or not some sects believe that He is there is immaterial. He is working on His timetable, and there is a Law of the Universe: There are no atheists in foxholes. God protect Israel and open her eyes.
I am glad that God made the Jews the smartest people on earth. Now what did they do with all that smartness, except fight among each other. It’s the Golden Calf time once again.,
@ Samuel Fistel:
Sam, no truer words have been spoken.
The very reason G-d returned His people to the Holy Land.
Time for Israelis to remove the secular progressives from the government.
Most Jews don’t want the Temple Mount. What does that say about Judaism?
“Jewish” Israeli leftists believe that Judaism is a man-made superstition, and that the Temple Mount is a “mound of garbage”. Reform Jews do also. Conservative Jews are “horrified” by the prospect of animal sacrifice there. Secular Israeli Jews are afraid to antagonize both the Jew-hating muslims, as well as the Jew-hating “international community”. They prefer the “wailing wall” to the actual Temple Mount.
Among the believing Jews, the “ultra-orthodox” still maintain the mentality of the ghettoes of Europe (destroyed by the christian europeans), and are still fighting against the atheistic “Jewish enlightenment” of a hundred years ago. The ultra-orthodox hold (on shaky talmudic grounds) that the Jews may not return to Israel until HaShem sends a super-human Jewish messiah to rescue them, and that the Third Temple will then miraculously fall out of heaven, fully built, and replace the mosques.
That leaves the Religious Zionists in Israel (supported by the “Modern Orthodox” in America, who pretend that they are not obligated to make aliya). But they are not yet strong enough to assert the Jewish right to the Temple Mount.
However, Jewish Israel is still a work in progress. And it is becoming more truly Jewish by default, since, if Judaism is a man-made superstition, then there is no need for the existence of a “Jewish and democratic” Israel in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, one world government.
But if we believe that HaShem did indeed create the universe, gave the Jews the Torah, and the land of Israel as their inheritance, then we are obligated to make aliya if we can, support the Religious Zionists and help them take power, make Israel a Torah-state, restore the Sanhedrin, and rebuild our Holy Temple. And as always, this time we should try to learn from our mistakes and finally get it right.
And for the record, the “wailing wall” has only minor holiness, if any. The one and only true holy site is the Temple Mount, yet we currently help the Jew-hating muslims to prevent real Jews from going there and praying (at our one true holy site, and the center of our eternal capital Yerushalayim).
This is the video link, http://www.youtube.com/embed/crgzrgHRNH0?feature=player_embedded%E2%80%9D
Rav Ariel was Head of the Yamit Yeshiva and the rabbi of Yamit. He was also #2 on the Kach list for the Knesset.
He was my rebbe and is a Tzadik, A Brilliant mind and a real Mensch!
He more than most is a modern throwback to Rabbinical leaders who were also fighting leaders from Joshua to Akiva.
Of all of the constituent arms of government here, the Israeli (fascist) Police are the most anti Jewish. But they get their orders and directives in this case from Lieberman’s appointee to the post of homeland security to which the police are an integral part.
Before those who see Lieberman as a better replacement for BB think again. Arab Bashing and support of non Jewish Slavic rights in our Jewish state does not make a good Jew, maybe a good wannabe Nazi but not a Jew.