Hello.
Wednesday last week I went up on the Temple Mount for the first time in around four or five years.
What has changed?
1. These days there are record numbers of Jews going up on the Temple Mount. Muslim attempts at intimidation do not work.
2. The entry area for Jews has been renovated.
3. Apparently there is a police record on me. Please remember that the police seek to prevent violence between Jews and Muslims by harassing Jews and preventing them from doing anything religious on the Temple Mount, even though it is the Muslims who are violent and actually break the law—short-sighted thinking which gives the Muslims the message that they can do whatever they want, including be violent. Such rules are also a gross violation of freedom of religion.
Note: I am not the only one (still) noting or complaining about this problem. Around the time of writing this post, there were two relevant articles posted: “Jews barred from Temple Mount for Islamic holiday” and “Will Supreme Court petition end discrimination on Temple Mount?”.
Back to what happened to me: I was accused by the police of not following their (illegal) rules the last time I had ascended. I refused to admit or deny this (despite it being true). I also refused to say I would follow the police’s rules this time (as I intended, as always, to violate the rules). These rules have been expanded to include not only prayer, but also taking olives or stones from the Temple Mount. Despite my giving the police every reason to believe that I was going to be noncooperative—including arguing with them and denying that Jews actually follow their rules—they let me ascend anyway. (The fact that I am merely annoying and not interested in actually hurting anyone may have something to do with this.)
4. To the best of my knowledge, the police have never prohibited singing on the Temple Mount. However, one of the police officers felt annoyed that I kept humming “Ṣame’ah Nafshi”, a Jewish song with a verse which poetically denies Islam, and threatened to kick me off the Mount if I didn’t stop. He showed no sign of having any clue what the song is about.
5. As usual, I violated the (illegal) prohibition on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, specifically that I prayed that the music-hating police officer should collect unemployment benefits. I also took a small stone from the Temple Mount.
6. Paradoxically, the police did nothing to stop some of the other Jewish visitors from discussing visiting the Temple Mount in Jewish law.
7. I have previously documented Arabic graffiti on the Temple Mount. By now most of it has been erased, but not all of it.
8. The police regularly check the identity cards of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. They thoughtlessly did not give mine back to me before I ascended, so after I left the Temple Mount, I had to go back to get it. (One would think they would have the sense to avoid doing something pointless which gives me a good reason to complain.)
9. This tree:
I have no idea who put rocks in this tree or why.
In short, the police still suck at their jobs, though maybe a bit less than previously. If they knew what they were doing, they would be following the Muslims around everywhere on the Temple Mount and stop treating Jews with suspicion. The police can’t even get people to follow their illegal rules.
Other places visited in Yerushalyim with my girlfriend:
1. The tunnels under the City of Dawidh, to the south of the Old City. We went through the (relatively) dry tunnel, not the filled waist-deep with water.
(My pictures underground mostly came out looking oddly discolored.)
The Shiloaḥ, which was at the other end, currently is disappointingly dry.
2. The tomb of King Dawidh in the Old City. This actually struck me as being fairly small and hidden for a royal tomb, which is probably for the better.
3. The Ḥurevah Synagogue in the Old City. It has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times. It was rebuilt relatively recently, and they did an excellent job.
I might have gone crazy taking pictures if I had not been worried about draining my iPhone’s battery. The view from the roof is also fairly nice.
4. The Menorah for the Third Temple. This Menorah was created by the Temple Institute, an organization dedicated to getting everything ready for the Third Temple. The Menorah is currently on public display outside the Ḥurevah Synagogue.
5. The Chamber of the Holocaust in the Old City, near the Ḥurevah Synagogue. This place is disturbing. The place is filled with symbolic tombstones for Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust; the huge number, despite every tombstone representing a whole town or city, gives a sense of how huge the genocide really was. There is something very unsettling when places connected with one’s family and intellectual history are represented.
There were also a number of relevant artifacts, including partially destroyed ritual items. Several years ago, I heard a story about a concentration camp prisoner who found a pair of shoes, the soles of which were made from a Torah scroll. I hoped that might just be a legend. I do not think so any more.
’Aharon/Aaron