“…They entered the cave, and reached a large chamber resting upon pillars of marble overlaid with silver and gold. In front was a table of gold and a sceptre and crown. This was the sepulchre of King David. On the left thereof in like fashion was the sepulchre of King Solomon; then followed the sepulchres of all the kings of Judah that were buried there. Closed coffers were also there, the contents of which no man knows…These are the sepulchres of the House of David; they belong to the kings of Judah, and on the morrow let us enter, I and you and these men, and find out what is there.” And on the morrow they sent for the two men, and found each of them lying on his bed in terror, and the men said: “We will not enter there, for the Lord doth not desire to show it to any man.” Then the Patriarch gave orders that the place should be closed up and hidden from the sight of man unto this day. These things were told me by the said Rabbi Abraham.” (Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 24–5/38–41)
When the Arabs turned King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion into a Mosque they called it Nabi Dawood (Prophet David)
by Ezequiel Doiny
Jews have streamed to the Tomb of King David on Mount Zion for centuries to pray and recite the Psalms. Christians believe it is the site where Jesus’ last meal was held. Bargil Pixner wrote “…the Superior of the Franciscans carries the title Custos Sancti Montis Sion, “Custodian of Holy Mt. Zion.”
The Franciscan friars repaired the roof of the cenacle (the Upper Room) in the 14th century, strengthening it with a gothic rib vaulting. South of the cenacle they built their new monastery (Mt. Zion Monastery) in the center of which was an open court surrounded on three sides by the cloister. It can still be seen today.
Apparently the Franciscans were never able to occupy the tomb of David on the ground floor, however. There Moslem holy men had made their abode. Indeed, local Moslems pleaded with the authorities to remove the infidels from the upper floor of the tomb of Nabi Dawood (the prophet David). These pressures became even more intense during the Turkish period. By the middle of the 16th century, the Franciscans were violently forced to abandon Mt. Zion completely.”
http://centuryone.org/apostles.html
“In order to hinder their return, both David’s tomb and the cenacle were declared mosques. A prayer niche (mihrab) was inserted in the wall indicating the direction of prayer toward Mecca…”
http://centuryone.org/apostles.html
(It was exactly opposite the orientation of the niche of the first century synagogue, which pointed toward Temple Mount)
Since 1948 Israel’s Department of Religious Affairs administers both floors of the building. The bottom floor, where King David’s tomb is functions as a synagogue, the top floor is open for visitors.
Dr. Annabel Wharton, William B. Hamilton Chair of Art History at Duke University, published an paper in 2013 in which she wrote “A Roman building constructed some time after 70 ce
has proved the most generative locus of aura on “Mount
Zion.” This hall was later incorporated into a succession
of religious complexes. Built at least in part with reused
Herodian ashlars, it was about 34½ feet (10.5 meters)
in length and of an indeterminable width. A photograph
of the east side of the surviving structure and Louis-
Hugues Vincent’s drawing of the same wall show original
masonry rising to a height of more than 23 feet (7 meters),
suggesting that the original structure may have been
two-storied, at least at its east end (Figures 2 and 3). An
interior apsidal niche was sunk high into the eastern end
of the north wall of the lower floor…
The physical instantiations of biblical events associated
with the Church of Zion continued to be recorded by
pilgrims through the Middle Ages. The textual attestations
of pilgrims’ accounts are the most familiar means of
accessing the sacred thingness of past epiphanies. But
other media also document a pre-modern insistence
on the material manifestation of sacred narratives. For
example, the miniatures of an early Middle Byzantine
manuscript provide further evidence of the persistent
association of holy happenings with Zion. The Chludov
Psalter (Moscow, Historical Museum, cod. 129) is dated
by various scholars to between the middle of the ninth and
the early tenth century; its generally accepted provenance
is Constantinople (Corrigan 1992: 124–34). Folio 51r of
the codex is ornamented with an elaborately rendered
church. The structure is composed of a tower, a galleried
basilica and a distinct, arcaded, lower level emphasized
by its gilded columns and vermillion intercolumniations,
as well as by the steep stairway that leads up to its
entrance (Figure 6).6 This miniature has been persuasively
identified as a representation of the basilica on Mount Zion
(Grabar 1965).7 Overlooked in art-historical assessments,
however, is the possible significance of reading the base
stratum, not as city walls or an atrium as heretofore, but
rather as a foundation level, undercroft or lower church.
Thus interpreted, the miniature expresses the building’s
most iconographically significant feature: a double-storied
program of the upper and lower levels.
The setting of the Chludov Psalter miniature confirms
the church’s biblical associations and their importance
for a Christian audience. A blue marker in the left margin
of the page indicates the passage in the text that the
miniature illustrates, the Septuagint Psalm 50, which
is read as the Orthros antiphon at Pentecost (Mateos
1963: 2.136–7). A second blue mark, painted above the
church, points across the page to the painting of Jesus
washing the Apostles’ feet in the left margin of folio 50v,
thus alluding also to the Last Supper, to which the Foot
Washing is inevitably attached. The ability of a building,
even a painted one, to reify the events it commemorates is
fully exploited: the text accrues meaning from the image.
But, of course, the image also acquires meaning from
the text: King David, author of the Psalms and founder of
biblical Zion, is rendered below the church in conversation
with “the Holy City.”8 The miniature exhibits the special
faculty of powerful medieval images—vacillation between
the mimetic and the metonymic. King David is rendered as
a physical presence at the church.
The painting illustrates one way in which a sacred
space materialized physical proofs of its auratic
associations: the image of Zion generated the body of the
King. The same thing happened on the faux Mount Zion.
The identification of King David’s body with Zion, visually
expressed in the Chludov Psalter, begins to be literalized
in pilgrimage texts. Most accounts make no mention
of King David on Mount Zion, but from the time of the
Crusades, descriptions of the Holy Land start to associate
King David’s burial with the site occupied by the Mother
of All Churches.
…from the time of the Crusades, descriptions of the Holy Land start to associate King David’s burial with the site occupied by the Mother of All Churches. An anonymous traveler of the twelfth century, for example, observes that “In Mount Zion David and Solomon and other kings of Jerusalem are said to be buried,”… (Wilkinson 1988: 202; for the Latin, Anonymous 1860: 428). A much more detailed reference to the indeterminacy of David’s burial on Mount Zion is made in the mid-twelfth century by the formidable Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela:
In front of Jerusalem is Mount Zion, on which there is no building, except a place of worship belonging to the Christians. Facing Jerusalem for a distance of three miles are the cemeteries belonging to the Israelites, who in the days of old buried their dead in caves, and upon each sepulchre is a dated inscription, but the Christians destroy the sepulchres, employing the stones thereof in building their houses. These sepulchres reach as far as Zelzah in the territory of Benjamin. Around Jerusalem are high mountains. On Mount Zion are the sepulchres of the House of David and the sepulchres of the kings that ruled after him. The exact place cannot be identified, inasmuch as fifteen years ago a wall of the church of Mount Zion fell in. The Patriarch commanded the overseer to take the stones of the old walls and restore therewith the church. He did so, and hired workmen at fixed wages; and there were twenty men who brought the stones from the base of the wall of Zion. Among these men there were two who were sworn friends. On a certain day the one entertained the other; after their meal they returned to their work, when the overseer said to them, “Why have you tarried to-day?” They answered, “Why need you complain? When our fellow workmen go to their meal we will do our work.” When the dinner-time arrived, and the other workmen had gone to their meal, they examined the stones, and raised a certain stone which formed the entrance to a cave. Thereupon one said to the other, “Let us go in and see if any money is to be found there.” They entered the cave, and reached a large chamber resting upon pillars of marble overlaid with silver and gold. In front was a table of gold and a sceptre and crown. This was the sepulchre of King David. On the left thereof in like fashion was the sepulchre of King Solomon; then followed the sepulchres of all the kings of Judah that were buried there. Closed coffers were also there, the contents of which no man knows. The two men essayed to enter the chamber, when a fierce wind came forth from the entrance of the cave and smote them, and they fell to the ground like dead men, and there they lay until evening. And there came forth a wind like a man’s voice, crying out: “Arise and go forth from this place!” So the men rushed forth in terror, and they came unto the Patriarch, and related these things to him. Thereupon the Patriarch sent for Rabbi Abraham el Constantini, the pious recluse, who was one of the mourners of Jerusalem, and to him he related all these things according to the report of the two men who had come forth. Then Rabbi Abraham replied, “These are the sepulchres of the House of David; they belong to the kings of Judah, and on the morrow let us enter, I and you and these men, and find out what is there.” And on the morrow they sent for the two men, and found each of them lying on his bed in terror, and the men said: “We will not enter there, for the Lord doth not desire to show it to any man.” Then the Patriarch gave orders that the place should be closed up and hidden from the sight of man unto this day. These things were told me by the said Rabbi Abraham.” (Benjamin of Tudela 1907: 24–5/38–41)
Benjamin of Tudela. 1907. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary, trans. Marcus Nathan Adler. London: Philipp Feldheim.
…In 1957, the Roman-era hall, housing the Cenacle above
and Tomb of David below, was investigated by the
archaeologist, Jakob Pinkerfeld. Pinkerfeld, a Jewish
scholar, worked on the site at the direction of the Israeli
Ministry of Religious Affairs in preparation for repairs
necessitated by bomb damage incurred during the
1948 war (Pinkerfeld 1960). Pinkerfeld remains, so far
as I am aware, the only archaeologist to be permitted
to undertake a serious investigation of the structure’s
fabric whose findings have been published. Pinkerfeld
dated the building’s origins to the first or second century
ce and described the three distinct pavement levels that
he found as evidence of Roman, Late Roman/Byzantine
and Crusader occupation. Pinkerfeld concluded that
the structure originally functioned as a Late Ancient
synagogue…”
https://sites.duke.edu/annabelwharton/files/2015/08/WhartonJerusalemsZions.pdf
Part 2
(the picture shows Arab warriors waging Jihad)
Al-Aqsa was built on Temple Mount because Muslims wanted to become heirs of Jewish Sanctity
by Ezequiel Doiny
Eyewitnesstohistory.com describes the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple by the Romans “In the year 66 AD the Jews of Judea rebelled against their Roman masters. In response, the Emperor Nero dispatched an army under the generalship of Vespasian to restore order. By the year 68, resistance in the northern part of the province had been eradicated and the Romans turned their full attention to the subjugation of Jerusalem. That same year, the Emperor Nero died by his own hand, creating a power vacuum in Rome. In the resultant chaos, Vespasian was declared Emperor and returned to the Imperial City. It fell to his son, Titus, to lead the remaining army in the assault on Jerusalem.
Roman Centurian
The Roman legions surrounded the city and began to slowly squeeze the life out of the Jewish stronghold. By the year 70, the attackers had breached Jerusalem’s outer walls and began a systematic ransacking of the city. The assault culminated in the burning and destruction of the Temple that served as the center of Judaism.
In victory, the Romans slaughtered thousands. Of those sparred from death: thousands more were enslaved and sent to toil in the mines of Egypt, others were dispersed to arenas throughout the Empire to be butchered for the amusement of the public. The Temple’s sacred relics were taken to Rome where they were displayed in celebration of the victory.
The rebellion sputtered on for another three years and was finally extinguished in 73 AD with the fall of the various pockets of resistance including the stronghold at Masada.
“…the Jews let out a shout of dismay that matched the tragedy.”
Our only first-hand account of the Roman assault on the Temple comes from the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. Josephus was a former leader of the Jewish Revolt who had surrendered to the Romans and had won favor from Vespasian. In gratitude, Josephus took on Vespasian’s family name – Flavius – as his own. We join his account as the Romans fight their way into the inner sanctum of the Temple:
“…the rebels shortly after attacked the Romans again, and a clash followed between the guards of the sanctuary and the troops who were putting out the fire inside the inner court; the latter routed the Jews and followed in hot pursuit right up to the Temple itself. Then one of the soldiers, without awaiting any orders and with no dread of so momentous a deed, but urged on by some supernatural force, snatched a blazing piece of wood and, climbing on another soldier’s back, hurled the flaming brand through a low golden window that gave access, on the north side, to the rooms that surrounded the sanctuary. As the flames shot up, the Jews let out a shout of dismay that matched the tragedy; they flocked to the rescue, with no thought of sparing their lives or husbanding their strength; for the sacred structure that they had constantly guarded with such devotion was vanishing before their very eyes.
…No exhortation or threat could now restrain the impetuosity of the legions; for passion was in supreme command. Crowded together around the entrances, many were trampled down by their companions; others, stumbling on the smoldering and smoked-filled ruins of the porticoes, died as miserably as the defeated. As they drew closer to the Temple, they pretended not even to hear Caesar’s orders, but urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands. The rebels were powerless to help; carnage and flight spread throughout.
Most of the slain were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, and they were butchered where they were caught. The heap of corpses mounted higher and higher about the altar; a stream of blood flowed down the Temple’s steps, and the bodies of those slain at the top slipped to the bottom.
When Caesar failed to restrain the fury of his frenzied soldiers, and the fire could not be checked, he entered the building with his generals and looked at the holy place of the sanctuary and all its furnishings, which exceeded by far the accounts current in foreign lands and fully justified their splendid repute in our own.
As the flames had not yet penetrated to the inner sanctum, but were consuming the chambers that surrounded the sanctuary, Titus assumed correctly that there was still time to save the structure; he ran out and by personal appeals he endeavored to persuade his men to put out the fire, instructing Liberalius, a centurion of his bodyguard of lancers, to club any of the men who disobeyed his orders. But their respect for Caesar and their fear of the centurion’s staff who was trying to check them were overpowered by their rage, their detestation of the Jews, and an utterly uncontrolled lust for battle.
Most of them were spurred on, moreover, by the expectation of loot, convinced that the interior was full of money and dazzled by observing that everything around them was made of gold. But they were forestalled by one of those who had entered into the building, and who, when Caesar dashed out to restrain the troops, pushed a firebrand, in the darkness, into the hinges of the gate Then, when the flames suddenly shot up from the interior, Caesar and his generals withdrew, and no one was left to prevent those outside from kindling the blaze. Thus, in defiance of Caesar’s wishes, the Temple was set on fire.
While the Temple was ablaze, the attackers plundered it, and countless people who were caught by them were slaughtered. There was no pity for age and no regard was accorded rank; children and old men, laymen and priests, alike were butchered; every class was pursued and crushed in the grip of war, whether they cried out for mercy or offered resistance.
Through the roar of the flames streaming far and wide, the groans of the falling victims were heard; such was the height of the hill and the magnitude of the blazing pile that the entire city seemed to be ablaze; and the noise – nothing more deafening and frightening could be imagined.
There were the war cries of the Roman legions as they swept onwards en masse, the yells of the rebels encircled by fire and sword, the panic of the people who, cut off above, fled into the arms of the enemy, and their shrieks as they met their fate. The cries on the hill blended with those of the multitudes in the city below; and now many people who were exhausted and tongue-tied as a result of hunger, when they beheld the Temple on fire, found strength once more to lament and wail. Peraea and the surrounding hills, added their echoes to the deafening din. But more horrifying than the din were the sufferings.
The Temple Mount, everywhere enveloped in flames, seemed to be boiling over from its base; yet the blood seemed more abundant than the flames and the numbers of the slain greater than those of the slayers. The soldiers climbed over heaps of bodies as they chased the fugitives.”
References:
Josephus’ account appears in: Cornfield, Gaalya ed., Josephus, The Jewish War (1982); Duruy, Victor, History of Rome vol. V (1883).
“The Romans Destroy the Temple at Jerusalem, 70 AD,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2005).
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jewishtemple.htm
The Jewish Virtual Library describes the Bar Kochba revolt “The Bar Kokhba revolt marked a time of high hopes followed by violent despair. The Jews were handed expectations of a homeland and a Holy Temple, but in the end were persecuted and sold into slavery. During the revolt itself, the Jews gained enormous amounts of land, only to be pushed back and crushed in the final battle of Bethar.
When Hadrian first became the Roman emperor in 118 C.E., he was sympathetic to the Jews. He allowed them to return to Jerusalem and granted permission for the rebuilding of their Holy Temple. The Jews’ expectations rose as they made organizational and financial preparations to rebuild the temple. Hadrian quickly went back on his word, however, and requested that the site of the Temple be moved from its original location. He also began deporting Jews to North Africa.
The Jews prepared to rebel until Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah calmed them. The Jews then satisfied themselves with preparing secretly in case a rebellion would later become necessary. They built hideouts in caves and did shoddy work building weapons so that the Romans would reject the weapons and return them to the Jews.
The Jews organized guerilla forces and, in 123 C.E., began launching surprise attacks against the Romans. From that point on, life only got worse for the Jews. Hadrian brought an extra army legion, the “Sixth Ferrata,” into Judea to deal with the terrorism. Hadrian hated “foreign” religions and forbade the Jews to perform circumcisions. He appointed Tinneius Rufus governor of Judea. Rufus was a harsh ruler who took advantage of Jewish women. In approximately 132 C.E., Hadrian began to establish a city in Jerusalem called Aelia Capitolina, the name being a combination of his own name and that of the Roman god Jupiter Capitolinus. He started to build a temple to Jupiter in place of the Jewish Holy Temple.
As long as Hadrian remained near Judea, the Jews stayed relatively quiet. When he left in 132, the Jews began their rebellion on a large scale. They seized towns and fortified them with walls and subterranean passages. Under the strong leadership of Shimon Bar-Kokhba, the Jews captured approximately 50 strongholds in Judea and 985 undefended towns and villages, including Jerusalem. Jews from other countries, and even some gentiles, volunteered to join their crusade. The Jews minted coins with slogans such as “The freedom of Israel” written in Hebrew. Hadrian dispatched General Publus Marcellus, governor of Syria, to help Rufus, but the Jews defeated both Roman leaders. The Jews then invaded the coastal region and the Romans began sea battles against them.
The turning point of the war came when Hadrian sent into Judea one of his best generals from Britain, Julius Severus, along with former governor of Germania, Hadrianus Quintus Lollius Urbicus. By that time, there were 12 army legions from Egypt, Britain, Syria and other areas in Judea. Due to the large number of Jewish rebels, instead of waging open war, Severus besieged Jewish fortresses and held back food until the Jews grew weak. Only then did his attack escalate into outright war. The Romans demolished all 50 Jewish fortresses and 985 villages. The main conflicts took place in Judea, the Shephela, the mountains and the Judean desert, though fighting also spread to Northern Israel. The Romans suffered heavy casualties as well and Hadrian did not send his usual message to the Senate that “I and my army are well.”
The final battle of the war took place in Bethar, Bar-Kokhba’s headquarters, which housed both the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Court) and the home of the Nasi (leader). Bethar was a vital military stronghold because of its strategic location on a mountain ridge overlooking both the Valley of Sorek and the important Jerusalem-Bet Guvrin Road. Thousands of Jewish refugees fled to Bethar during the war. In 135 C.E., Hadrian’s army besieged Bethar and on the 9th of Av, the Jewish fast day commemorating the destruction of the first and second Holy Temples, the walls of Bethar fell. After a fierce battle, every Jew in Bethar was killed. Six days passed before the Romans allowed the Jews to bury their dead.
Following the battle of Bethar, there were a few small skirmishes in the Judean Desert Caves, but the war was essentially over and Judean independence was lost. The Romans plowed Jerusalem with a yoke of oxen. Jews were sold into slavery and many were transported to Egypt. Judean settlements were not rebuilt. Jerusalem was turned into a pagan city called Aelia Capitolina and the Jews were forbidden to live there. They were permitted to enter only on the 9th of Av to mourn their losses in the revolt. Hadrian changed the country’s name from Judea to Syria Palestina.
In the years following the revolt, Hadrian discriminated against all Judeo-Christian sects, but the worst persecution was directed against religious Jews. He made anti-religious decrees forbidding Torah study, Sabbath observance, circumcision, Jewish courts, meeting in synagogues and other ritual practices. Many Jews assimilated and many sages and prominent men were martyred including Rabbi Akiva and the rest of the Asara Harugei Malchut (ten martyrs). This age of persecution lasted throughout the remainder of Hadrian’s reign, until 138 C.E.”
Sources: Encyclopedia Judaica. “Bar Kokhba”. Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem.
H.H. Ben Sasson, Editor. A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969.
History Until 1880: Israel Pocket Library. Keter Publishing House Ltd., Jerusalem, 1973.
The Jewish Encyclopedia. “Bar Kokba and Bar Kokba War.” Funk and Wagnalls Co. London, 1902.
Kantor, Morris. The Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia. Jason Aronson Inc., New Jersey, 1989.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/revolt1.html
Simon Sebag Montefiore describes, in his book “Jerusalem”, the Arab Conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire (Chapter 16, page 166) “In 518, aged thirty-five, Justinian found himself the real ruler of the Eastern empire when his uncle Justin was raised to the throne…Justinian demoted judaism from a permited religion and banned Passover if it fell before Easter, converted synagogues into churches, forcibly baptized Jews, and commandeered Jewish History: in 537, when Justinian dedicated his breathtaking Church of Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”) in Constantinople, he is said to have reflected “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” Then he turned to Jerusalem to trump Solomon’s Temple. In 543 Justinian and Theodora started to build a basilica, the Nea Church of St.Mary Mother of God, almost 400 feet long and 187 feet high, with walls 16 feet thick, facing away from the Temple Mount and designed to overpower Solomon’s site…The Holy City was ruled by the rituals of Orthodox Christianity…The city was set up to host thousands of pilgrims: the grandees stayed with the patriarch; the poor pilgrims in the dormitories of Justinian’s hospices which had beds for 3,000; and ascetics in caves, often old Jewish tombs, in the surrounding hills…
…Heraclitus seized power (of the Bizantine Empire) in 610…Constantinople was besieged by the Persians ( then Zoroastrians)…(Heraclitus) outmanoeuvred the Persian forces …then defeated their main army…
…In 632 Muhammad, aged about sixty-two, died (in Saudi Arabia) and was succeeded by his father in law, Abu Bakr…Abu Bakr managed to pacify Arabia. Then he turned to the Bizantine and Persian empires, which Muslims regarded as evanescent, sinful and corrupt. The Commander dispatched contingent of warriors on camels to raid Iraq and Palestine…in Mecca, Abu Bakr died and was succeeded by Omar…
…Heraclitus dispatched an army to stop the Arabs…After months of skirmishing, the Arabs finally lured the Byzantines to battle amidst the impenetrable gorges of the Yarmuk river between today’s Jordan, Syria and Israeli Golan…and on August 636… Khalid cut of their retreat and by the end of the battle, the Christians were so exhausted that the Arabs found them lying down in their cloaks, ripe for the slaughter. Even the emperor’s brother was killed and Heraclitus himself never recovered from this defeat, one of the decisive battles in history, that lost Syria and Palestine. Byzantine rule, weakened by the Persian war, seems to have collapsed like a house of cards…The Arabs converged on the city which they called Ilya (Aelia, the Roman name (for Jerusalem))…Omar offered Jerusalem a Covenant – dhimma- of Surrender that promised religious tolerance to the Christians in return for payment of jizya tax of submission. Once this was agreed, Omar set out for Jerusalem…Omar knew that Muhammad had revered David and Solomon. “Take me to the sanctuary of David,” he ordered Sophronius (Jerusalem’s Christian Patriarch). He and his warriors entered Temple Mount, probably through the Prophet’s Gate in the south, and found it contaminated by “a dingheap which the Christians had put there to offend the Jews.”
Omar asked to be shown the Holy of Holies. A Jewish convert, Kaab al Ahbar, known as the Rabbi, replied that if the Commander preserved “the wall” (perhaps referring to the last Herodian remains, including the Western Wall), “I will reveal to him where are the ruins of the Temple.” Kaab showed Omar the foundation stone of the Temple, the rock which the Arabs called the Sakhra.
Aided by his troops, Omar began to clear the debris to create somewhere to pray. Kaab sugested he place this north of the foundation stone “so you will face make two qiblas, that of Moses and that of Muhammad.” “You still lean towards the Jews,” Omar supposedly told Kaab, placing his first prayer house south of the rock, roughly where the al-Aqsa Mosque stands today, so that it clearly faced Mecca. Omar had followed Muhammad’s wish to reach past Christianity to restore and co-opt this place of ancient holiness, to make Muslims the legitimate heirs of Jewish sanctity and outflank the Christians.”
(Simon Sebag Montefiore “Jerusalem” page 166-184)
Part 3
The Temple Mount is to Jews as Mecca is to Muslims
by Ezequiel Doiny
(first published in Arutz 7 in 2014)
Last week Haaretz published a document that listed the EUs red lines for Israel among which is a warning not to “harm the status-quo at Temple Mount”. The fact that the EU chose to include the Temple Mount in the list of red-lines shows that they will likely support Palestinian demands for sovereignty over the site.
The Europeans claim that Temple Mount has to be in ‘Palestine’ because the Jewish Temple is no longer there while the Al-Aqsa Mosque is there now. This argument is wrong for three reasons:
1. There are more Muslims in Israel than in the ‘West Bank’, Israeli Arabs have the same claim to Al-Aqsa as ‘West Bank’ Arabs.
2. Israel preserves Muslim Holy sites while Arabs destroy Jewish Holy sites if given a chance. Israel has not destroyed Al-Aqsa or the Dome of the Rock from 1967 till now, 2014, under Israeli sovereignty. The Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s Tomb and illegally excavated and destroyed Jewish Archaeological remains from Solomon’s Temple and would destroy much more if given sovereignty.
3. The area of the Temple Mount is the holiest site for Judaism even without the Temple there.
The Al Aqsa mosque was built on top of the ruins of the Jewish Temple after the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 709 CE.
The Temple Mount was the site where the two Jewish Temples were located. King David blessed the Temple Mount before King Solomon built the First Temple in 957 BCE. The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians. The Second Temple was built in 538 BCE and destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans. The Al Aqsa mosque was built on top of the ruins of the Jewish Temple after the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 709 CE.
This is an excerpt from Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” describing his visit to the Mosque of Omar and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1867:
“Everywhere about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble – the precious remains of Solomon’s Temple…see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple…the designs wrought upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar…one meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, specially in the neighboring mosque Al Aqsa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are carefully built for preservation. These pieces of stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations – camels laden with spices and treasure – beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon’s harem – a long cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors – and Sheba’s Queen in the van of this prison of Oriental Magnificence. These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the place of wailing can ever have for the heedless sinner.
“Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and oranges trees that flourish in the court of the great mosque , is a wilderness of pillars – remains of the ancient Temple, they supported it. There are ponderous archways down there…we never dreamed we might see portions of the actual Temple of Solomon…”
Deliberate Destruction by the Waqf
The Jewish Temple was not only destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago, it continues being destroyed by the Arabs today. If the Palestinians assume responsibility over the site they will have freedom to destroy much more.
Journalist Ilan Ben Zion reported in December 2012: “The Muslim authority managing the Temple Mount on Sunday dumped tons of unexamined earth and stones excavated from the holy site into a municipal dump, in violation of a High Court injunction, Maariv (Hebrew Daily, ed.) reported on Monday.”
Israel’s top court in September 2004 prohibited removal of earth from the Temple Mount and ruled that, should it be necessary [to do so], the Antiquities Authority must be notified a month in advance so it may examine the earth for artifacts.
Jews regard the Temple Mount as their holiest site, where the First and Second Temple were located. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary and regard it as their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. According to the existing arrangement, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, or trust, administers the Temple Mount complex.
Despite the High Court of Justice’s ruling, the Waqf has reportedly removed large piles of dirt from the Temple Mount in recent years and dumped them in the valley east of the Old City walls, provoking an outcry from biblical archaeologists and Jewish groups.
Tzachi Dvira, the archaeologist managing the team that sifts through soil excavated from the Temple Mount, told Maariv that mounds of earth containing historic relics were carted off and dumped on Sunday without notification and before archaeologists could investigate them.
Police claimed the removal of the soil was coordinated in advance. Dvira, however, said there were no Antiquities Authority officials on site, and the one police officer monitoring the operation had no idea of its significance.
Dvira claimed Waqf workers exploited a permit for removing construction waste from renovations done at the al-Aqsa Mosque on the site, which also contains the Dome of the Rock, in order to cart off artifact-laden earth from the Temple Mount.
He stated that official oversight of earth removal from the Temple Mount has grown lax in recent years, and said that “the fact that no one has succeeded in stopping the Waqf’s destructive actions raises many doubts about the role of the government in this matter.”
Soil from the Temple Mount that had been removed by the Waqf to the Kidron Valley in recent years has yielded “tens of thousands of finds, including signet rings from the First Temple era, painted floor tiles from the Second Temple era, ancient gold coins, and horseshoe nails and arrowheads belonging to the Knights Templar, who stabled their horses in Solomon’s Stables,” Dvira said.
Suzanne Singer, a contributing editor to the Biblical Archeological Review reported about Palestinian destruction of Jewish Archaeological remains in Temple Mount in September 2000: “Large-scale illegal construction on the Temple Mount and wholesale dumping of earth in the nearby Kidron Valley resumed this spring…”
“… The Temple Mount is, of course, sacred to three great Western faiths and is part of the world’s cultural patrimony. Here may lie remnants from the time of the First Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple built by Herod, the Byzantine period and the early Islamic eras. Israeli excavations around the exterior of the Temple Mount since 1967 have found remains from all these periods, but the Mount itself has been terra incognita, protected by an understanding between Israel and the Waqf that says no construction will take place there…
” …Last November, we reported that the Waqf, in the dead of night, had dumped hundreds of truckloads of earth from the Temple Mount into the Kidron Valley and municipal garbage dumps. About 6,000 tons of earth were removed …Despite the flagrant disregard by the Waqf of the requirement for IAA supervision, there was no serious response by Israeli authorities. Today the dumped earth is unprotected and is being covered with garbage, making it unlikely that the IAA will ever act on its announced intention to salvage artifacts by sifting through the piles.”
“…This spring and early summer, trucks and tractors returned to the Temple Mount, bringing building materials in and carting earth away through the Lions’ Gate, just north of the Temple Mount. For 200 yards along the inside of the Temple Mount’s eastern wall, from the al-Marawani Mosque’s new entrance to somewhat south of the Golden Gate, lie stacks of paving stones, scaffolding, wood and iron materials, along with large architectural fragments, such as pieces of ancient columns…
” …The construction on the Temple Mount is only the latest, albeit perhaps the most egregious, example of the Waqf’s disregard for the protection of antiquities. In 1993 Israel’s Supreme Court found that the Waqf had violated the country’s antiquities laws no less than 35 times, with many of the violations causing the irreversible destruction of archaeological remains.
” …Due to Prime Minister Barak’s concern for negotiations with the Palestinians, no effective archaeological oversight is taking place on the Temple Mount. No one halts the work so that potential damage can be assessed and prevented; as a result, heavy equipment is free to move about the Mount for projects that are neither approved nor supervised. The frequently heard view is that a tough stance by Israel will enflame the Palestinians and set back the peace talks…”
While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites.
While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites. In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s tomb.
Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times “Oct. 8: Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place! Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life?”
“It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction.”
The Temple Mount Area Has Always Been Holy to Jews
The Temple Mount was holy to the Jews even before the Temples existed because there is a special connection with God at the site:
? According to the Torah (Bereshit [Genesis] 22:1-14), God told Abraham to bring his son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice there.
? It was also at Temple Mount that Ya’akov (Jacob) had his famous dream where he saw angels going and coming from heaven on a ladder.
“Ya’akov was fleeing from his brother Esau. Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva and went towards Charan. He came across the place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took some of the stones of the place and placed them around his head, and he lay down to sleep in that place.
“He dreamt, and – look! – a ladder was wedged in the ground and its top reached to heaven, and – look!- angels of God were going up and down on it.
“Suddenly, God was standing over him, and He said, “I am God, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be as the dust of the earth, and you will be strong to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. Look, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not abandon you until I have carried out what I have spoken for you.””
“Ya’akov woke up from his sleep and he said. ‘God is truly in this place, and I didn’t realize.’
He felt frightened. He said, ‘How awesome this place is! This is none other than the house of God, this is the Gate of Heaven.
“Ya’akov arose early in the morning. He took the stone that he had placed at his head, set it up as a monument, and poured oil on top of it… Ya’akov made a vow saying ‘If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then God shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house’.” (Bereshit 28:20-22)
? While the Jewish Temples existed it was believed that the Schechina (God’s Presence) rested in the Holy of Holies, the part of the Temple where the Holy Ark (with Moses’ tablets) was. Now that the Temple is no longer in place, even with the Mosque there, Temple Mount continues being the Holiest Site for Judaism, a place where God’s presence is closer.
The Europeans believe that because the Jewish Temple was destroyed and there is a Mosque on the Temple Mount, the Palestinians have a stronger claim to the site: This shows a great ignorance about Judaism. Jews around the world face the Temple Mount when they pray. Muslims face Mecca even when they pray on or near the Temple Mount.
Even without the Temple, the Temple Mount is the Holiest Site for Judaism. The Holiest site for Islam is the Ka’ba in Mecca. Taking away Temple Mount from the Jews would be like taking the Ka’ba in Mecca from the Arabs.
One of Maimonides 13 principles of the Jewish faith, for which Jews pray three times a day, is the belief in the resurrection of the death and the coming of Messiah, the descendant of King David. When Messiah comes, the Temple will be rebuilt – on the Temple Mount.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15915
