Did Jews Abandon the Temple Mount? by F.M. Loewenberg

Did Jews Abandon
the Temple Mount?
by F.M. Loewenberg
The claim that no Jewish temple ever existed in Jerusalem and that Jews have no
rights whatsoever on the Temple Mount is part of the “temple denial” doctrine
that has been increasingly internalized in Palestinian academic, religious, and
political circles since the 1967 Six-Day War.1 Others, both Jews and non-Jews, believe
that a temple did exist but indicate that the Jews abandoned the area soon after the
destruction of the Second Temple nearly two thousand years ago. From that time onward,
Jews lost all direct contact with the Temple Mount and relocated their central
worship site to other locations, such as the Mount of Olives and later the Western Wall.2
The facts do not support either of these claims. The destruction of the Second
Temple in the year 70 C.E. did not spell the end of Jewish activities on the Temple Mount.
For many centuries, Jews continued their attachment to the site by maintaining a physical
presence on the mountain. And when they were prevented from doing so, they prayed
three times a day for the speedy renewal of the sacrificial service in a restored temple.
Both the first and second temples were located in a mountainous portion of Jerusalem
that Jewish tradition identified with the biblical Mount Moriah, site of Abraham’s
attempted sacrifice of Isaac.3 Over time, the site was referred to as the Temple Mount
(Har Habayit), and it was here that Herod (r. 37-4 B.C.E.) transformed a relatively small
structure into a wonder of the ancient world. However, the magnificent edifice he built
stood for less than a hundred years; it was destroyed in 70 C.E., three years after a
Jewish rebellion against Roman rule broke out.
The Jewish people’s response to this cataclysmic event is in some sense the entire
post-70 history of the Jews as they built institutions and created an entire culture that
kept the people alive for millennia. But what role did the actual Temple Mount play in
their lives after its physical destruction? 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
F. M. Loewenberg is a professor emeritus at Bar-
Ilan-University.
1 David Barnett, “The Mounting Problem of Temple Denial,”
Meria Journal, June 2011.
2 Eli Schiller, Kipat ha-Sela Even Hash’tiya (Jerusalem: Ariel,
1976), pp. 19-28.
3 Rashi’s comment on the Babylonian Talmud (hereafter, BT),
Pesachim 88a.
the next two thousand years. Even when
they were physically prevented from ascending
the site, their attachment to Har
Habayit remained strong and vibrant.
38 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
ROMAN RULE (70-300)
Once the Jewish revolt had been put down,
Jews were again permitted to visit the site of the
former temple since the Romans generally did
not object to the worship of local gods. As far as
they were concerned, once the rebellion was
suppressed, there was no longer any impediment
to Jewish worship on the mount. Many
stories in the Talmud testify to the fact that leading
rabbis continued to pray on the now desolate
Temple Mount.4
Ascent to the Temple Mount was not limited
to rabbis; the people’s attachment
to the former
sanctuary also remained
very strong. One story
relates that “Ben Zoma
once saw a [large] crowd
on one of the steps of the
Temple Mount.”5
The people continued
to bring sacrifices
that were offered on a
Temple Mount altar that
had survived the destructive
fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a
central code of Jewish law codified in the early
third century C.E., states that “one may offer
sacrifices [on the place where the temple used
to stand] even though there is no house [i.e.,
temple].”6 Some rabbis held that the sacrificial
services continued almost without interruption
for sixty-five years following the temple’s destruction
while others suggest that sacrificial
services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for
the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled
Jerusalem.7
Not only did the Jews continue to offer sacrifices
and prayer on the mount, but at least once
in the half-century following the temple’s destruction,
they began to build a new edifice for a
third temple. Emperor Hadrian (76-138), eager to
gain the cooperation of the Jews, granted them
permission to rebuild their temple. The Jews
started to make the necessary preparations, but
before long, Hadrian, at the instigation of the
Samaritans, went back on his word and the
project was stopped.8
Following the defeat of the Bar Kochba rebellion
in 135 C.E., Jews were barred for the first
time from the Temple Mount. The victorious and
vindictive Emperor Hadrian ordered that the
Temple Mount be ploughed under and issued
strict orders prohibiting Jews from living in
Jerusalem and from praying on the Temple
Mount. As an alternative, Jews assembled for
prayer on the Mount of Olives from whence they
had an unobstructed view of the temple ruins.
While this prohibition was strictly enforced during
Hadrian’s lifetime, Jews did pray on the
Temple Mount at various times during the second
and the third centuries because the prohibition
was not always fully enforced. Some scholars
question whether Hadrian’s decree was ever
legally formulated, but all agree that a policy of
prohibiting Jews in Jerusalem and on the Temple
Mount was in effect.9
BYZANTINE PERIOD
(300-618)
The transformation of the pagan Roman Empire
into a Christian realm early in the fourth century
marked a decisive turning point in the history
of the Western world. Under pagan rule,
Jerusalem had become a relatively insignificant
provincial city, but now it attracted many pilgrims
who came to worship at Christian holy
4 See BT, Makkot 24b; BT, Shabbat 15a; BT, Rosh Hashanah
31a; BT, Sanhedrin 11b; BT, Avoda Zara 20a.
5 BT, Berakhot 58a; see also Mordechai Fogelman, Beit Mordechai
(Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2009), p. 205.
6 Mishnah (M) Eduyot 8.6; see also Maimonides, Hilkhot Bet
Ha-bechira 6.15.
7 M Eduyot 8.6; Maimonides, Hilkhot Bet Ha-bechira 6.15;
Ha’emek Davar commentary on Leviticus 26.31.
Emperor
Constantine
allowed Jews
access to the
Temple Mount
once a year on
Tisha b’Av.
8 Genesis Rabba 64.10.
9 Oded Irshai, “Ha-issur shehetil Konstantinus Hagadol al
k’nissat Yehudim Lirushalayim,” Zion, 60 (1996), pp. 129-78;
J. Rendel Harris, “Hadrian’s decree of expulsion of the Jews from
Jerusalem,” Harvard Theological Review, 19 (1926), pp. 199-
206.
/ 39
sites. A new church, the Basilica
of the Holy Sepulcher, was built
on the purported site of Jesus’
crucifixion and became the city’s
central religious site. Until the
Crusader conquest of the city
eight centuries later, the importance
of the Temple Mount was
deliberately de-emphasized.
Though many churches and other
religious buildings were erected
throughout the city at sites associated
with the life of Jesus, only
one or two were built on the
Temple Mount. Until recently, it
was widely believed that in the
Byzantine period the Temple
Mount was deliberately abandoned
by Christians and turned
into the local garbage dump10 in
order to fulfill the New Testament
prediction that the temple would
be totally destroyed and “not one
stone will be left here upon another.”
11 These views were challenged
by the recent publication
of suppressed archeological findings. The excavations,
the only ones ever permitted on the
Temple Mount by the Muslim waqf in modern
times, were conducted by British archeologists
in the 1930s. Under al-Aqsa mosque, they found
evidence of a mosaic floor, dated to the fifth to
seventh centuries, that was quite similar to floors
of churches found in Bethlehem. Most likely
they are remnants of a Byzantine church that
was built on the Temple Mount—contrary to
the accepted theories.12
Emperor Constantine (272-357) renewed the
laws that prohibited Jews from living in or even
visiting Christian Jerusalem, allowing access to
the Temple Mount once a year on Tisha b’Av
(the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary
of the day the temples were destroyed).13
In 333, the anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux described
in some detail the desolate Temple
Mount, noting a “perforated stone” (perhaps
today’s Foundation Stone found in the Dome of
the Rock), which the Jews anointed with oil once
a year on Tisha b’Av. On this day, he heard the
Jews recite the Book of Lamentations on the
Temple Mount and saw them tear their clothes
as a sign of mourning.14 Later Byzantine writers,
Loewenberg: The Temple Mount
Stones from the destroyed temple can be seen here. Contrary
to what many believe, Jews did not abandon the Temple
Mount after the temple’s actual destruction in 70 C.E. There
is even evidence that sacrifices continued for some time on
a surviving altar. It was only after the Bar Kochba revolt
(132-35 C.E.) that Jews were barred from the site and from
Jerusalem by the victorious and vindictive Emperor
Hadrian.
10 Galyn Wiemers, “Jerusalem 101: An introduction to the city
of Jerusalem,” Generation Word, West Des Moines, Iowa., accessed
Apr. 24, 2013.
11 Matthew 24:2, Mark 13:2, Luke 21:6.
12 Etgar Lefkovits, “Was the Aksa Mosque built over the
remains of a Byzantine church?” Jerusalem Post, Nov. 16, 2008;
Leen Ritmeyer, “Third Jewish Mikveh and a Byzantine Mosaic
Floor Discovered on the Temple Mount,” Ritmeyer Archeological
Design, Nov. 17, 2008; Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv), June 29,
2012.
13 Irshai, “Ha-issur shehetil Konstantinus Hagadol al k’nissat
Yehudim Lirushalayim,” pp. 129-78.
14 Michael Avi-Yonah, The Jews of Palestine: A Political History
from the Bar Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1984), p. 81; Menachem Elon, Temple Mount
Faithful-Amutah et al v. Attorney-General, et al., in the Supreme
Court Sitting as the High Court of Justice, Sept. 23, 1993, in
Catholic University Law Review, Spring 1996, pp. 890-2.
40 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
including Jerome, corroborate that Jews continued
these mourning practices on the actual
Temple Mount.15
Constantine’s nephew Julian, who became
emperor in 361 C.E., turned his back on Christianity
and issued an edict of universal religious
toleration for all—pagans, Jews, and Christians.
He reversed the ban against Jews in Jerusalem
early in his reign.
In 363 C.E., Julian promised to help rebuild
the temple in Jerusalem; among Diaspora Jews,
his pledge was greeted with great enthusiasm16
although some rabbis were apprehensive
about the undertaking, hesitating to engage
in building the Third Temple prior to the arrival
of the messiah.17 Julian, nonetheless,
went ahead with the project and ordered the
imperial treasury to make available large sums
of money and building materials. Many Jews
came to Jerusalem to assist the skilled craftsmen
and masons in the removal of the existing
foundation, the first step in the rebuilding
project.
Christian residents of the city were vigorous
in their opposition to any attempt to
rebuild the temple. Many gathered in the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher to pray for the
termination of the project. It would seem their
prayers were answered since all work halted
abruptly in the summer of 363; whether this
was due to arson, an earthquake, or merely
Julian’s death on the Persian front is a matter
of some dispute. Julian’s successor, a devout
Christian, immediately canceled the temple-rebuilding
effort.18
By the latter part of the fourth century,
the Temple Mount had disappeared completely
from the landscape of Christian Jerusalem.
The pilgrim Egeria who visited Jerusalem
in the early 380s provided a detailed description
of the city in letters to her friends, but she
made no mention of the Temple Mount.19 Similarly,
the mosaic world map of Medaba from
the mid-sixth century depicts Jerusalem in
great detail but omits the Temple Mount altogether
as does a seventh-century Armenian account
of the city’s holy places.20
Despite vocal claims about the importance
and sanctity of the Haram al-Sharif, the site
was not a major religious center for Muslims
during many periods as seen by the weeds
growing between the paving stones in this
nineteenth-century photograph. Nonetheless,
Jews continued to pray in this direction three
times a day and, under occasional lax Muslim
rule, to visit their holy site.
15 Jerome’s commentary on Zephaniah 1.6.
16 Ephraem the Syrian, Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, A. Rücker,
trans., 20 (1919), First Song, p. 16; Gregory of Nazianzus,
Oratio V contra Julianum, 4 (GCS 35), c. 668.
17 Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, Joseph Bidez, ed. (Berlin:
Winkelman and Friedhelm, 1972), p. 297.
18 Avi-Yonah, The Jews of Palestine, pp. 196-200; Gunter
Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land—Palestine in
the Fourth Century (Edinburgh: Clark, 2000), p. 208; Robert
Panella, “The Emperor Julian and the God of the Jews,” Koinonia,
23 (1999), pp. 15-31; Kenneth W. Russell, “The Earthquake of
May 19, AD 363,” The Bulletin of the American Schools of
Oriental Research, Spring 1980, pp. 47-64; David B. Levenson,
“The ancient and medieval sources for the Emperor Julian’s
attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple,” The Journal for the
Study of Judaism, 4 (2004), pp. 409-60.
19 M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe, ed. and trans., The Pilgrimage
of Etheria (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1919).
/ 41
Jews, on the other hand, never forgot the
Temple Mount even when none of the original
temple buildings remained standing. Wherever
they lived, they faced Jerusalem three times every
day and prayed for the restoration of the
temple and the renewal of the sacrificial service.
21 Furthermore, there are indications that
despite imperial bans, some Jews continued to
pray on the Temple Mount. The late fourth-century
sage Rabbi Bibi offered instructions to
those who went to the Temple Mount to ensure
their behavior would not degrade the holiness
of the place.22 A sixth-century aggadic work,
Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabba, includes an instruction
for Jews everywhere to face in the direction
of the Temple Mount when praying,
adding that “and those who pray on the Temple
Mount should turn to the Holy of Holies,”23 an
injunction that only makes sense if the ban was
not strictly enforced.
The Jewish people’s continued attachment
to the Temple Mount is exemplified by an event
that occurred during the reign of the Roman
Empress Eudocia (401-60). When she went on a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 438, she was
greeted warmly by Jews everywhere, probably
as a result of her policy of supporting non-Christians.
When the leading rabbis asked her for
permission to once again ascend the Temple
Mount, she immediately agreed. Great excitement
gripped the local Jewish leaders who sent letters
to other communities throughout the world
informing them of the good news and asking
them to come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the
coming Sukkot festival. More than 100,000 Jews
came to Jerusalem that year, but once again,
Jerusalem’s Christians launched a violent protest
and blocked access to the mountain.24
For almost two centuries after this incident,
Jews were forbidden to live in Jerusalem. Until
the Persian conquest in 618, Jerusalem was officially
a city without Jews. This would change
dramatically under the
brief period of Persian
rule and the subsequent,
and far lengthier, era of
Muslim hegemony.
For centuries, Persian
and Roman (later
Byzantine) armies had
battled each other over
the fringes of their respective
empires. The invasion
of Palestine by
King Khosru II of Persia
in 613-14 C.E. succeeded
in briefly wresting control
of Jerusalem from Constantinople. Khosru
was aided by Babylonian Jewry who supplied
30,000 Jewish soldiers in return for a promise
that they would participate in the capture of
Jerusalem and that a Jewish governor would be
appointed to rule over the city.25 Once the city
was captured, the Persians appointed Nehemiah
ben Hushiel as governor, and the new governor
lost no time in reestablishing the sacrificial service
on the Temple Mount.
Rabbi Elazer Kalir, one of the earliest and
most prolific of Jewish liturgical poets, confirms
the restoration:
When Assyria [Persia] came to the city …
and pitched his tents there / the holy people
[Jews] were a bit relieved / because he permitted
the reestablishment of the Temple /
and they built there the holy altar / and offered
upon it holy sacrifices / but they did
not manage to build the Temple / because the
Messiah had not yet come.26
Loewenberg: The Temple Mount
An Umayyad
political strategy
designed to
compete
with Mecca
transformed the
Temple Mount
into a Muslim
holy site.
20 E. W. Brooks, “An Armenian Visitor to Jerusalem in the
Seventh Century,” English Historical Review, 11(1896), pp. 93-
7.
21 JT, Berakhot 2.4(17a), Midrash Tanchuma Ki Tavo 1.
22 BT, Berakhot 62b.
23 Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabba 4.
24 Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have
Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Empire (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005), p. 246; Kenneth Holum,
Theodosian Empresses (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989), p. 217.
25 Some scholars question the existence of this treaty. See,
Elisabeth Campagner, “Eine jüdische Apokalypse des 7.
Jahrhunderts? Kaiser Heraklius als Antichrist?” Internet Zeitschrift
fur Kulturwissenschaft, Sept. 5, 2002, pp. 1-43.
26 Ezra Fleischer, “L’pitaron sh’elat z’mano u’makom p’ulato
shel R’ Elazar Biribi Kilir,” Tarbiz, 54 (1985), p. 401.
42 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
But once again, this return to the Temple
Mount was short-lived. Nehemiah was soon executed
either out of fear of his messianic pretensions
or because the support of the city’s larger
Christian population was preferred over that of
the smaller number of Jews. In any event, in 629,
only ten years after the conquest, the Persians
lost control of the city to the Byzantines who
were subsequently defeated by victorious Arab
forces sweeping out of the desert.
EARLY MUSLIM RULE
(638-1099)
Jerusalem was conquered by Arab forces in
May 638, an accomplishment ascribed by Muslim
sources to the Caliph Umar. In return for assistance
in the taking of the city, the Jews received
the right to reside
in Jerusalem and to pray
on the Temple Mount
without interference.27
In 680, fifty years
after Umar’s conquest of
Jerusalem, the Damascus-
based Umayyad
dynasty engaged in a
struggle for control of
the Muslim world with a
rebel dynasty based in
Mecca. The Umayyads
opted to fight the rebels
by damaging Mecca’s economy, which was
based almost entirely on revenues from Muslim
pilgrims. Their secret weapon was to create a
competing pilgrimage site by building a magnificent
edifice, the Dome of the Rock, on the site of
the destroyed Jewish temple and hoping that
this mosque would weaken Mecca’s economy
by siphoning off pilgrims from Mecca. Thus, a
political strategy designed to fight mutineers in
far-off Mecca transformed Jerusalem’s Temple
Mount into a Muslim holy site with far-reaching
implications to this day.
But the metamorphosis of the Temple
Mount into Islam’s third holiest site did not result
in a total exclusion of Jews from the location.
Soon after the Muslim conquest, Jews received
permission to build a synagogue on the
Temple Mount. Perhaps the wooden structure
that was built over the Foundation Stone was
first intended for a synagogue, but even before
it was completed, the site was expropriated by
the city’s rulers. The Jews received another site
on the mount for a synagogue in compensation
for the expropriated building.28 Most probably
there was an active synagogue on the Temple
Mount during most of the early Muslim period.29
Solomon ben Jeroham, a Karaite (a medieval Jewish
sectarian) exegete who lived in Jerusalem
between 940 and 960, affirmed that Jews were
permitted to pray on the Temple Mount, noting
that “the courtyards of the Temple were turned
over to them and they prayed there [on the
Temple Mount] for many years.”30
Al-Aqsa Mosque (the Furthest Mosque),
the second mosque on the Temple Mount, was
built in 715 and was linked to a Muslim legend,
based on an ambiguous verse in the Qur’an concerning
Muhammad’s night journey to heaven.31
In this way, the Umayyads cleverly associated
Muhammad’s life with Jerusalem even though
the prophet died years before the city’s capture
by the Muslims. This construction further cemented
the site’s holiness to Islam. Nonethe-
The mount was
declared offlimits
to non-
Christians and
was the center of
religious and civil
life in Crusader
Jerusalem.
27 Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the
Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 1920),
vol. 2, pp. 188-9; Ben-Zion Dinor (Dinaburg), “Bet Tefila
u’midrash l’yehudim al har habayit bi’mey ha’aravim,” Zion, 3
(1929), pp. 54-87.
28 “The riddle of the Dome of the Rock: Was it built as a Jewish
place of prayer?” The Voice of the Temple Mount Faithful (Jerusalem),
Summer 2001; Abraham Benisch, trans., Travels of Rabbi
Petachia of Ratisbon (London: The Jewish Chronicle Office,
1856); Robert Bedrosian, trans., Sebeos’ History of Armenia
(New York: Sources of the Armenian Tradition, 1985), chap. 31.
29 Dinor, “Bet Tefila u’midrash l’yehudim al har habayit bi’mey
ha’aravim,” pp. 54-87; for another view, see Jacob Mann, Texts
and Studies in Jewish History and Literature (New York: Ktav
Publisher, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 313-5.
30 Solomon ben Jeroham, comment on Psalm 30, cited by
Shlomo Goren, Sefer Har Habayit, rev. ed. (Jerusalem: Ha-idra
Rabba, 2004), p. 314.
31 Qur. 17.1.
/ 43
less, during this first phase of Islamic governance,
Muslim rulers were generally tolerant of
Jewish activities on the mountain. Whenever a
more intolerant ruler assumed control of the city,
Jews were forbidden from praying on the mount
but instead worshipped at one of the many
Temple Mount gates; an eleventh-century document
found in the geniza or storeroom of a Cairo
synagogue describes the circuit followed by the
pilgrims and the prayers they recited at each of
the gates.32
After the conquest of Jerusalem by the army
of the Fatimid dynasty (969), a Temple Mount
synagogue was rebuilt and used until the Jews
were banished by Caliph al-Hakim in 1015. When
a subsequent ruler canceled Hakim’s eviction
order, the Jews again returned to this synagogue
on the Temple Mount and worshipped there until
the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. Hebrew
writings found on the internal walls of the
Golden Gate are believed to have been written
by Jewish pilgrims at least one thousand years
ago,33 thus testifying once again to the continued
Jewish attachment to and presence on the
Temple Mount in this era.
CRUSADER KINGDOM OF
JERUSALEM (1099-1187)
The early Arab rulers of Jerusalem for the
most part did not destroy or confiscate any of
the city’s churches. Although charged an entrance
toll, Christian pilgrims continued to visit
their sacred shrines. This religious tolerance
came to an end when the Seljuk Turks swarmed
out of Central Asia in the latter part of the eleventh
century and captured Jerusalem in 1071.
Assaults on pilgrims and attacks on churches
became commonplace. As reports of these anti-
Christian activities reached Europe, Pope Urban
II in 1095 demanded that Christians rescue the
Holy Land from the “infidel,” an appeal that resulted
in the First Crusade.
Within hours of breaching the walls of Jerusalem
in 1099, the victorious Crusaders had massacred
almost all of the city’s
Jewish and Muslim inhabitants.
34 The Crusaders
ascended the Temple
Mount and after giving
thanks to God for their
victory, converted the
mosques into churches,
renaming the Dome of the
Rock the Temple of God
(Templum Domini) and
al-Aqsa Mosque, the
Temple of Solomon (Templum Solomnis). The
mount was declared off-limits to all non-Christians
and became the center of religious and civil life in
Crusader Jerusalem.35
Despite the prohibition, Jews continued to
ascend the mount even during the Crusader period.
The prominent medieval Jewish commentator
and leader Maimonides (1135-1204) wrote
in a letter in 1165 that he “entered the Great and
Holy House [and] prayed there.”36 The Jewish
traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Jerusalem
sometime between 1159 and 1172, also recorded
Jews praying “in front of the Western
Wall [of the Dome of the Rock],37 one of the
[remaining] walls of what was once the Holy of
Loewenberg: The Temple Mount
32 Dan Bahat, “Identification of the Gates of the Temple Mount
and the ‘Cave’ in the Early Muslim Period,” Catedra, 106
(2002), pp. 61-86; Abraham Ya’ari, ed., Igarot Eretz Yisrael (Tel
Aviv: Gazit, 1943), pp. 48-53.
33 Shulamit Gera, “Ha-ketuvot b’otiot ivri’ot b’sha’ar
harahamim,” Catedra, 61 (1991), pp. 176-81.
An Ottoman
decree guaranteed
Jews the right
to pray at the
Western retaining
wall but not on the
mount itself.
34 Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the
Jews, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1957),
vol. 4, p. 109; Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, The Damascus
Chronicle of the Crusades: Extracted and Translated from
the Chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003),
p. 48.
35 Thomas Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 212; Baron, A
Social and Religious History of the Jews, p. 109.
36 R. Elazar Ezkari, Sefer Haredim (Mitzvah 83); Yitzhak Shilat,
“B’niyat Bet Knesset b’Har Habayit B’yameinu,” Tehumin 7,
1986, pp. 489-512.
37 The Western Wall Benjamin described was not the present
Western Wall (which did not become a site for prayer until the
sixteenth century) but the ruins of the western wall of the Second
Temple building on the Temple Mount.
44 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
Holies.”38 Thus, even in one of the darkest and
most intolerant periods of Jewish history, the
faithful did not abandon the Temple Mount.
A MEDIEVAL DISPUTE
Less than a century later, the Kurdish
Muslim warrior Saladin regained control of the
city, thus putting an end to the Crusader Kingdom
of Jerusalem in October 1187. Even
though the Temple Mount was re-consecrated
as a Muslim sanctuary,
Saladin permitted both
Jews and Muslims to
settle in Jerusalem and
to worship on the Temple
Mount. The Muslim authorities
permitted Jews
to erect a synagogue on
the site39 although the
situation vacillated over
the next few centuries.
For example, Saladin,
who at first had urged
Jews to come back to Jerusalem, a few years
later forbade them to go on the Temple Mount.
From the late thirteenth century to the midnineteenth,
the mountain was, for the most part,
off-limits to Jews with occasional interludes of
access.
During the first millennium following the destruction
of the Second Temple, Jews did not
hesitate to ascend the mount, but by the Middle
Ages, two distinct halakhic (Jewish religious
law) views on the permissibility of doing so had
crystallized. The dispute centered largely on issues
of the degrees of holiness associated with
the areas where the temple once stood and on
whether Jews who could no longer attain ritual
purity might inadvertently enter the location of
the former temple. According to most rabbinic
authorities, in the first centuries after the temple’s
destruction, it was permissible to walk on the
Temple Mount because the ashes of the Red
Heifer, which were necessary for attaining ritual
purity, were still available.40 But by the medieval
period, these ashes were no longer available,
and thus prevented Jews from achieving ritual
purity. Under these circumstances, Maimonides
taught, “Even though the Temple is in ruins today
due to our sins, everyone is obligated to
revere it like when it was standing … one is not
permitted to enter any place that is forbidden.”41
On the other hand, Rabbi Avraham ben David of
Provence [Raavad] (c.1125-98), the author of critical
glosses on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah,
concluded that “one who enters [the Temple
Mount] nowadays does not receive the penalty
of karet [literally, cutting off].”42 Though there
are various interpretations of the meaning of
Raavad’s gloss, he probably held that the Temple
Mount without a temple no longer had its original
holiness.
In the subsequent halakhic literature, the
vast majority of rabbinical authorities “built a
fence around” Maimonides’ conclusion and forbade
entering any part of the Temple Mount,
fearing that some might inadvertently enter a
forbidden area. Of the classical authorities, only
Rabbi Menachem Meiri (1249-1316), a noted
French Talmudic scholar, expressed the view that
in his days it was permissible for Jews to enter
the Temple Mount.43
And yet Jewish attachment to this ruined
site persisted. In 1211, three hundred European
rabbis, mostly from England and France, embarked
for the Holy Land. One, Rabbi Shmuel
ben R. Shimshon, wrote about his visit to the
Temple Mount.44 Early in the fourteenth century,
Rabbi Ishtori Haparchi (1280-1366) wrote
in his halakhic and geographic book Kaftor ve-
38 Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela
(Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1960), pp. 20-4.
39 Emil Offenbacher, “Prayer on the Temple Mount,” Jerusalem
Quarterly, 36 (1985), p. 134.
After the Six-Day
War, Jews were
allowed to visit
the Temple
Mount but were
not allowed to
pray there.
40 Eliezer Brodt, “Eimatai paska taharat afar para aduma,”
Tradition Seforim Blog, 2009.
41 Maimonides, Hilchot Beit Habechira 7:7.
42 Raavad’s gloss on Maimonides, Hilchot Beit Habechira 6:14.
43 Menachem Meiri, Beit Habechira on BT, Shavuot 16a.
44 Ya’ari, Igarot Eretz Yisrael, p. 78.
/ 45
Ferah about an earlier rabbinic ruling that urged
people to come to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices
on the Temple Mount.45 While nothing
apparently came of these plans, it is significant
that a noted authority of the period could contemplate
such an act, despite the self-imposed
rabbinic ban. Toward the end of the Mamluk
period, there is evidence from the chief rabbi of
Jerusalem, David ben Shlomo Ibn Zimra (1479-
1573), who wrote that the city’s Jews regularly
went to the Temple Mount in order to view the
entire temple ruins and pray there. He added
that “we have not heard or seen anyone object
to this.”46
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
(1516-1856)
With the Ottoman conquest of Jerusalem
in 1516, the relationship between the Jewish
people and the Temple Mount entered a new
phase. Sultan Suleiman I (the Magnificent, 1494-
1566) ordered the rebuilding of the city’s walls
and encouraged many European Jews, especially
those who had been expelled from Spain
and Portugal a generation earlier, to settle in
the Holy City. Suleiman also instructed his
court architect to prepare a place for Jewish
prayer in an alley at the bottom of the Western
retaining wall of the Temple Mount because he
had prohibited all non-Muslims from entering
any part of the Temple Mount. A royal decree
was issued that guaranteed for all times the right
of Jews to pray at this Western Wall in compensation
for the Jews’ relinquishing their legal rights
to pray on the mount itself.47
Subsequent Ottoman rulers invested little
effort in the upkeep of the Dome of the Rock or
al-Aqsa Mosque. There are no records of important
Muslim clerics or kings or even large
crowds of ordinary Muslims praying on the
Temple Mount.48 Even those rabbinical authorities,
who agreed in theory with the precedents
that permitted ascent, hedged their rulings in
view of the actual situation on the ground. Rabbi
Yosef Di’Trani, who visited Jerusalem during the
1590s, noted that there were locations on the
southern and eastern sides of the Temple Mount
where Jews could walk freely without any concern
of entering a prohibited area, but he ruled
that Jews should, nonetheless, avoid going there
because they were not ritually clean. In the nine-
Loewenberg: The Temple Mount
Following the victory of the 1967 war, Rabbi
Shlomo Goren (center), Israel Defense
Forces chief rabbi at that time, established a
synagogue and study hall, as well as his office,
on the Temple Mount and held organized
study and prayers on the site. But within
days, Goren’s efforts were brought to a halt.
At the behest of Moshe Dayan, the Israeli
government prohibited Rabbi Goren from
undertaking any further activities on the
mount.
45 Ishtori Haparchi, Kaftor v’Ferah, J. Blumenfeld, ed. (New
York: Beit Hillel, 1958), p. 214, n. 17.
46 Responsa of the Radbaz, vol. 2, no. 691; Tuvya Sagiv, “Haknissa
l’Har Habayit—T’shuvat Haradbaz,” in Yehuda Shaviv,
ed., Kumo v’Na’aleh (Alon Shvut: Machon Tzomet, 2003), pp.
46-81.
47 Joseph Schwartz, Geography of Palestine, I. Leeser, trans.
(Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1850), p. 260. 48 Manfred R. Lehmann, “The Moslem Claim to Jerusalem Is
False,” Algemeiner Journal, Aug. 19, 1994.
46 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
teenth century, students of the rabbinical giant,
the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Jerusalem and became
the prototype of today’s ultra-Orthodox haredi
community. The leader of this group, Rabbi
Yisrael of Shklov (d. 1839), held that though there
were areas on the Temple Mount that they were
allowed to enter, Jews were, nevertheless, forbidden
to ascend as the exact location of these
permitted areas was in
some doubt.49 This ruling
became the normative
position of the Orthodox
world for the next
150 years. Despite rabbinical
decrees prohibiting
access to the mountain
and the death penalty
threat for any Jew
caught on the mountain,
the deep-seated Jewish
attachment to the Temple
Mount remained strong.
An unknown number of
Jews ascended the mountain
surreptitiously during these centuries. No
records were kept of these visits because of their
clandestine nature, but occasional references in
Muslim court records and travelers’ accounts
give evidence of their occurrence.50
NINETEENTH AND
TWENTIETH CENTURIES
In the aftermath of the Crimean War (1853-
56), the Temple Mount was opened daily (except
on Fridays) to all visitors, regardless of their
religion—a concession demanded by the victorious
British. Nevertheless, the Jerusalem rabbis
again issued a decree prohibiting Jews from
going up, threatening to put any Jew who ignored
their ruling under the ban, a form of rabbinical
excommunication from the community.
While the vast majority of Jews abided by the
decree, many ignored it, including prominent visitors,
such as Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron
Edmond de Rothschild. Many of the new secular
settlers also disregarded the rabbinical instructions
and visited the site.51
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), the
first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the Jewish community
in Mandatory Palestine, repeatedly prohibited
entering any part of the Temple Mount, a
position also reiterated by his successor Rabbi
Isaac Herzog (1888-1959). Herzog testified in 1938
before the British Partition Committee that Jews
were not allowed to go onto the Temple Mount
until the coming of the messiah.
Just before the outbreak of the 1948 War of
Independence, Herzog instructed Gen. David
Shaltiel, the Jerusalem sector commander of the
Jewish underground forces, that should his
forces capture the Temple Mount, they should
make every effort to expel all enemy soldiers,
but once they had accomplished this task they
were to leave the Temple Mount as quickly as
possible because of the holiness of the place.
These instructions became moot since the Jordanian
army succeeded in occupying all of the
Old City, including the Temple Mount. For the
next nineteen years, no Jew was allowed to approach
the Western Wall or the Temple Mount
despite provisions in the Jordan-Israel armistice
agreement that called for free access to all holy
places.
POST-1967
In June 1967, on the second day of the Six-
Day War, Israeli paratroopers entered
Jerusalem’s Old City and made their way to the
Temple Mount; Col. Mordechai Gur, the brigade’s
commander, soon broadcast a momentous mes-
49 Israel of Shklov, P’at Hashulchan, H. Eretz Yisrael (Ramat
Gan: Re’ut, 2000), sect. 3:11-12; idem, Bet Yisrael commentary
(Safed: n.p., 1836), subsec. 26.
50 Amnon Cohen, Jews in Moslem Religious Courts: 16th
Century (Jerusalem: Ben Tzvi, 1993), doc. 104, May 4, 1551,
pp. 114-5, doc 107, May 19, 1554, p. 117; Schwartz, Geography
of Palestine, pp. 417-8.
Despite the
opposition of the
Muslim waqf and
the Jewish chief
rabbinate, the
number of Jews
going to the
Temple Mount
to pray has
increased.
51 Dotan Goren, “Ha-aliya l’Har habayit ul’Makom ha-Mikdash
b’tram ha-medina,” E-mago, 2007.
Loewenberg: The Temple Mount / 47
Despite Israeli sovereignty over the mount today, Jews
are still forbidden from praying on the mount out of
government fears that Muslims would find such action
provocative. Jewish presence on the mount is highly
restricted and monitored carefully by Israeli soldiers
as well as Muslim lookouts.
sage to the Israeli nation: “The Temple
Mount is [again] in our hands.” For
the first time in almost two thousand
years, the Temple Mount was under
the control of a sovereign Jewish
people.
Gur ordered three paratroopers to
climb to the top of the Dome of the
Rock and unfurl an Israeli flag over it;
four hours later Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan ordered the flag taken
down. This order initiated a schizophrenic
diplomatic and political state
of affairs that continues to this day.
Dayan proclaimed that, henceforth,
there would be unrestricted Jewish
access to the Temple Mount.
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.52
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Israel Defense Forces
chief rabbi at that time, was among the first soldiers
to appear on the Temple Mount and described
his activities on that historic day:
When we arrived on the Temple Mount, I
blew the shofar, fell on the ground and prostrated
myself in the direction of the Holy of
Holies, as was customary in the days when
the Temple still stood. … [Later] I found
General Moti Gur sitting in front of the Omar
Mosque. He asked me if I wanted to enter,
and I answered him that today I had issued a
ruling permitting all soldiers to enter because
soldiers are obligated to do so on the day
when they conquer the Temple Mount in order
to clear it of enemy soldiers and to make
certain that no booby traps were left behind.
… I took along a Torah scroll and a shofar and
we entered the building. I think that this was
the first time since the destruction of the
Temple almost two thousand years ago that a
Torah scroll had been brought into the holy
site which is where the Temple was located.
Inside I read Psalm 49, blew the shofar, and
encircled the Foundation Stone with a Torah
in my hand. Then we exited.53
Some weeks later Rabbi Goren established
a synagogue and study hall, as well as his office,
on the Temple Mount and held organized
study and prayers on the site. But within days,
Goren’s efforts were brought to a halt. At the
behest of Dayan, the Israeli government prohibited
Rabbi Goren from undertaking any further
activities on the mount.54
As a result of another government decision
that same year, the general public, including Jews
and Christians, was allowed to visit the Temple
Mount without hindrance but not to pray there.
Many visitors have taken advantage of this per-
52 Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (New York: Morrow and
Company, 1976), p. 390.
53 Shlomo Goren, “Selection from Personal Diary on the Conquest
of Jerusalem,” cited in Shabbaton, no. 422, May 29, 2009.
54 Yoel Cohen, “The Political Role of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
in the Temple Mount Question,” Jewish Political Studies
Review, Spring 1999, p. 108; Goren, Sefer Har Habayit, pp. 30-
3.
48 / MIDDLE EAST QUARTERLY SUMMER 2013
mission, but most observant Jews continued to
follow the instructions of the chief rabbinate,
which prohibit Jews from entering the mount because
of the issue of ritual impurity. A small number
of rabbis have followed Rabbi Goren’s plea
to permit and encourage Jews to visit those areas
on the Temple Mount that do not require
complete ritual purity.
At the outbreak of “al-Aqsa intifada” in
September 2000, the Temple Mount was closed
to all non-Muslims because it was feared that
the area might become a tinderbox of clashes
with Palestinians. The mount was reopened to
non-Muslims in August 2003, but visiting hours
were severely curtailed with the authority of the
waqf (Islamic religious endowment), the Muslim
custodians of the Temple Mount, increasing in
significance. During certain hours, Jews and
Christians are allowed to go up to the mount but
only if they conform to a strict set of guidelines,
including a ban on prayer and bringing any
“holy objects” to the site. Visitors are forbidden
from entering any of the mosques without direct
waqf permission; rules are enforced by waqf
agents, who watch tourists closely and alert
nearby Israeli police to any infractions. Thus
despite the fact that the Israeli parliament passed
laws ensuring freedom of worship to all at every
holy site, Jewish prayer on any part of the Temple
Mount continues to be prohibited.
55 Matti Friedman, “On the Temple Mount: a battle brews over
Jewish prayer,” Times of Israel, Mar. 12, 2013.
CONCLUSION
Even after the Roman armies destroyed the
temple in 70 C.E., the Jews never abandoned the
site. No matter what obstacles or decrees others
placed in their way, Jews continued to ascend
and pray at or near the area where their temple
once stood.
Whenever their physical presence on the
mountain was outlawed, they selected alternate
prayer sites, such as the Mount of Olives from
where the Temple Mount could be seen. In more
recent times, the Western Wall served as such
an alternative. But even during those periods,
Jews attempted, legally or otherwise, to go up
unto the mountain to pray. In recent decades,
despite the opposition of the Muslim waqf and
the Jewish chief rabbinate, the number of Jews
going up on the Temple Mount in order to pray
has increased year-by-year.55
Against this backdrop, the continued denial
that Jews have any connection with the
Temple Mount cannot but pose a formidable obstacle
to a settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict.
Iranian Ingenuity: Digital Guillotine
As if to demonstrate it isn’t totally devoid of innovation, Tehran recently revealed a most unique
invention. Unsurprisingly, its purpose is to carry out criminal punishment. It is a mechanical
device for severing the fingers of a convicted thief from his hand. Undoubtedly, the Iranian
inventor taking orders for this device will remain as lonely as the Maytag repairman.
SyndiGate.info (Amman), Feb. 12, 2013