Jews may also not eat or drink on the Temple Mount since this would require them to say a blessing, which the Waqf guard forbids, the report said.
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Michael Satlow, a Brown University professor of Judaic and religious studies, wrote that he was “riled” by the New York Times piece which he called “so misleading and confused that it really got my goat”.
“The question of the existence and location of two successive temples on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is not almost as contested as the article suggests”, Magness wrote.
What annoyed Satlow and others who vented their frustrations on social media was that – at least in the original version of the article – it glossed over evidence that two ancient Jewish temples stood on the Temple Mount.
Members of the Cry for Zion, a movement of Christian Zionists from all over the world, recently gathered during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles) at the United Nations headquarters in Jerusalem overlooking Mount Zion to call for freedom of religion amid worldwide pressure to maintain the status quo on the holy site, Breaking Israel News reported.
There is a certain irony here: while there is no doubt about the historical fact that the ancient Jewish temples stood on Temple Mount, it is certainly open to debate whether the Muslims’ claim to Temple Mount is historically valid. What the Secretary has said and stands by is that we want to see the status quo restored, the status quo arrangement there on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount, and for both sides to take actions to de-escalate the tensions.
Did a Jewish temple stand on the present day Temple Mount? Yes. People notice stuff like that.
Recall that the Times quoted Wendy Pullan saying that “the sources for the first temple are exclusively biblical, and no substantial archaeological remains have been verified”. Archaeologists agree that far more information exists to corroborate the existence of the second temple at the site than the first. When Jews returned from Babylonia to rebuild the temple, were they careful to find the site of the old structure, clear the rubble, and build it on the same exact spot? Thus the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is unlikely to be associated with Mohammed’s night journey. It is possible that the precise spot did not matter very much to the Israelites at this time.
In simple terms: the Mishna offers testimony that during the First Temple, aka Solomon’s Temple, which was sanctioned in 832 BCE and destroyed in 587 BCE, the Holy Ark, complete with the Ten Commandments, stood on the Foundation Stone.
“Israelis do not feel safe walking down the street, they avoid taking the bus to work, and they fear for the lives of their children every time they walk out the door”, he added. They were built there precisely because this was the site of the Jewish Temples. That incident led to the formation of the apolitical Israeli Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which aims to prevent further destruction of ancient artifacts by ongoing renovations.
In 2007, the Waqf used a tractor to dig a 4-foot-deep trench on the northern end of the Temple Mount, allegedly to replace old electric cables.
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“An earlier version of this article misstated the question that many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered concerning the two ancient Jewish temples”, it states.
