Noah
Feldman has brought to our attention that an incident surrounding the
Jewish Temple in 1929 is an important background for understanding the present
crisis on the Temple Mount. Feldman
follows Hillel
Cohen who argued that 1929 was the beginning of the Arab-Israeli
conflict. In that year, Israelis and
Palestinians were caught in a dispute, when a mehitza (wall separating men and women) was placed at the Western
Wall during prayers for the Day of Atonement in 1929. The Palestinians objected that the placing of
the mehitza violated the “Status
Quo.” Eventually an Arab-Israeli
conflict broke out in which nearly 250 died.
In 1929, the chief rabbi of Palestine Abraham Isaac Kook, spoke
of the coming restoration of the temple.
He meant, of course, in the messianic age. Orthodox Jewish authorities at that time
taught that Jews were not to set foot on the Temple Mount.
Since 1929, Israel has become a state (1948), and gained sovereignty
over Jerusalem (1967). Present day
Orthodox Judaism has changed its consensus on the Temple Mount. According to Feldman, “Many rabbis now hold
that it is permissible for Jews to visit…portions of the Temple Mount,” and
that a “growing number of Zionist Orthodox Jews now believe that it would be
permissible to rebuild the temple and restore the sacrificial cult if it were
practically possible.”
This background, it seems to me, helps in understanding with a certain
degree the Palestinian sentiments of the crisis, and their point of view. However, this does not justify violence, nor
any calls to violence such as the case with the American Muslim Sheikh Ammar
Shahin.
No comments:
Post a Comment