Video of rabbis condemning Temple Mt visit (screen shot)
A group of senior Israeli rabbis released a video to the Arab nations of the world in which they condemned the Israelis who ascended to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) on Tuesday fast. They were led by Israeli politicians, such as Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who pledged that the policy prohibiting Jews from praying on the Temple Mount would be changed. The comments made by the rabbis had Arabic subtitles.
Ben-Gvir’s comments angered members of his own government as well as many orthodox rabbis who believe that Jews are forbidden to ascend the Temple Mount again until after the Messiah arrives.
Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av), a 24-hour fast and day of mourning commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans 2,000 years ago.
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In the video, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the first of Zion, made an open appeal to the world calling on them to “not see those government ministers as representing the people of Israel. They do not represent the people of Israel. The majority of Jews in the Land of Israel and in the world do not go up to the Temple Mount. Please act to calm the spirits, we all believe in one God and want peace between the nations and it is forbidden to allow extreme fringes to lead us.”
Rabbi Shmuel Bezalel, a member of the Council of Torah Sages and head of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem, said, “Most of the great judges of our generation in Israel forbid this thing, and no one should go up to the Temple Mount.”
Rabbi David Cohen, a member of the Council of Torah Elders, condemned the people who went up to the Temple Mount saying, “We have an obligation to protest, something that cannot be allowed to occur happened.
Cohen went on to say that the people who caused the controversy “are literally thugs who desecrated the temple in public.”
“People who supposedly wrap themselves in the cover of godliness that is all about the desecration of the temple, the desecration of the name of heaven like no other and go on and cause it to inflame the passions and cause them to harass and harm other Jews, and must make a vigorous protest against them to stay away from them and know that it is wrong and that it is treif (not kosher),” he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also not happy with Ben-Gvir’s words.
His office issued a statement saying “It is the Government and the Prime Minister who determine policy on the Temple Mount. There is no private policy of any minister – not the National Security Minister or any other minister – on the Temple Mount. Thus it has been under all governments of Israel.”
Netanyahu’s office also criticized Itamar Ben-Gvir’s actions saying they “deviated from the status quo” and emphasized that “Israel’s policy on the Temple Mount has not changed; this is how it has been and this is how it will be.”
