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| Screenshot of extremist Jews praying illegally on the Temple Mount (JP) |
The latest incident involved a group of extremists who I suspect are from the same ranks as settler types that reside deep in the West Bank for purposes of showing the Arabs who’s boss. The types that want to settle all of Israel - militantly if they have to…and expel any Arab that gets in their way. Which was the philosophy of their late mentor, Rabbi Meir Kahane. (His extremist grandson, Meir Ettinger who heads the Religious Zionist extremist group, ‘Hill Top Youth’ seems to have inherited his grandfather’ s mantle.)
Their actions often leads to deadly conflict. Not just for innocent neighboring Paletinians, but to their own members and beyond. From their ranks cone the ‘price taggers’ who retaliate against innocent Palestinians when one of their terrorists does that to us. Or agains the government when they feel they were somehow wronged by them. In their most extreme incarnation they can be terrorists that rival the worst of Arab terrorists. As was the case not long ago when a Palestinian home was torched by one of them while they were sleeping in it.
This time they perpetrated an illegal fraud that has zero benefit other than to assert what they believe is a religious right denied them by their own government. But is not a right at all. It is against Halacha. And needless to say it can and probably will increase resentment of - and animosity towards all of the Jewish people. From the Jewish Press:
The Hozrim La’Har (Returning to the Temple Mount) movement has been training Jewish activists to pose as Muslims – and pious Muslims at that – so they can enter the compound through the gates the Arabs use at all hours of the day and night…
Hozrim La’Har Chairman Refael Morris teaches all of that to his group of activists who are eager to pray on the Temple Mount and enjoy the unlimited access that Muslim believers do…
Several attempts of the members to pray disguised as Muslims have been thwarted, but a few have made it and prayed to Hashem the way you’re supposed to at the Temple Mount: prostrated before His Holiness, just as we do on Yom Kippur…
What they did is disgusting. If I were a devout Muslim I would be outraged if Jews came in disguised as one of us in order to recite Jewish prayers. Can you imagine how any one of us would feel if an Arab disguised himself as a Chasid and came into our Shuls to recite Muslim prayers?!
These people might argue that what they are doing is different since we are actually talking about the area where our Beis HaMikdash stood. But since we are not allowed to go up there, doing so constitutes a violation of Halacha and serves only to incite the Muslims praying there.
As noted it is also against the law. And it is punishable by up to 3 years in prison. Two of these extremists were caught and arrested. In my view 3 years in prison is the minimum they should get. If it were up to me I would expel them from the country as an ongoing threat to the welfare of Jewish people.
This Halacha is not disputed by any Posek – not even by those that allow certain parts of the Temple mount to be entered. Andt these extremists think praying in the Mosque together with Muslims the most spiritual thing a Jew could do?! We cannot flout Halacha because it makes us feel more spiritual!
Does it bother them at all that their subterfuge could easily incite devout Muslim radicals to take it out on some innocent Jews who would never even dream of doing such a thing? I guess not when their ‘greater good’ is served.
They are true believers who will not be swayed with arguments about danger to the people.
Unfortunately I am not surprised at their tactics. It is very much in character for extremists of this type to try something like this. But I am disappointed (although not surprised) by the sympathetic coverage given to these people by the Jewish Press. They are strong supporters of settling all the land of Israel and support all efforts at doing so. As such they see anyone or anything that gets in the way – like the law or the police – as bad law and bad policing.
I cannot protest these people enough. And the way the Jewish Press characterizes them. This kind of thing does much harm to our image and does nothing to forward their goal of settling all of Israel anyway. For that, we need to wait for Moshaich.