The Jewish Temple

In the eleventh century BCE, David was the king of the Jews, the biggest and most southern tribe of the Israelis. After seven years of civil war, he became the king of all Israelis. Subsequently he conquered the town of Jerusalem from the non-Israeli tribe of the Yevusi.

David turned Jerusalem into his capital (the former capital was Hebron). The reason for that is probably that the city was not affiliated with any Israeli tribe and it stood on the border between Judea and the rest of the tribes. It was something like Ottawa or Washington, a federal city.

David`s son, Solomon turned the mountain that towered above the hill of Jerusalem into his Acropolis. He built on it his palace and the temple. What stood on that mountain before Solomon? The bible says a barn. Some historians suspect maybe a Yevusi temple stood there.

It was the first time the Israelis had a permanent temple. It was the place for sacrifice. It also hosted the holiest of relics, the Ark of Covenant. Solomon outlawed the existence of any other sacrifice centers, so any Israeli wanting to cleanse his sins by sacrifice had to go to Jerusalem, and three times a year during the holidays, the law made it a commandment to go to Jerusalem. Thus Solomon created a center and a symbol for the divided tribes, and a way to consolidate his hold over the kingdom. Even after Solomon`s death when the kingdom split into two, Judea and Israel, Jerusalem remained the center for Jewish life.

In Jewish tradition, many legends became tied to the Temple Mount. One legend said that creation of the world began from the Temple Mount and that it is the center of the world (this was before it was common knowledge that the world is a globe). Many old maps of the world, up to modern times, show Jerusalem as the center of the map. Another tradition said that the intended sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham, as told by the bible, was on this mountain
At 587 BCE Jerusalem was captured by Babylon, the temple was destroyed and the Jews went into exile. Seventy years later, when Cyrus of Persia vanquished Babylon, the Jews were allowed to go back to Judea and the temple was rebuilt. Only a minority of the Jews returned from exile and the second temple was small and unimpressive. Judea was just a backwater province of the Persian Empire.

After Alexander the Great conquered Judea from the Persians at the end of the fourth century BCE, Judea returned to the forefront of history and with it the Temple Mount. A fight over the status of the temple was the cause of the Jewish revolt against the Selecuid Empire, at the end of which Judea became an independent state.
The leaders of the revolt were priests, so now the priests of the temple became also kings and political leaders. This led to the secularization of the priesthood, and a new spiritual order, the rabbis, came into being and emerged as a rival to the temple hierarchy.

At 63 BCE the Roman General Pompei entered Jerusalem, and Judea became a subjected kingdom of the Roman Empire. The most famous of the client kings was Herod, who was a great builder. One of his biggest programs was the renovation of the Temple Mount. Herod built four big walls around the mountain and a big surface between them, turning the mountain into a giant rectangle. On the mountain he built a much more grandiose version of the temple. The current shape of Temple Mount is the shape Herod gave it.

The improved temple existed for less then a century. Following the revolt of the Jews against the Romans the temple was destroyed in 70 CE. The destruction of the temple threatened the existence of Jewish life, since all of the Jewish ritual depended on the existence of the temple. To the rescue came the rabbies, who anyway had criticism of the way the temple and the priests functioned. They changed the ritual so Jewish customs can continue regardless of the temple. However, the yearning for the rebuilding of the temple, became a cornerstone of Jewish prayer, and it was regarded as a mission for long awaited Messiah.

The Roman rulers who later converted to Christianity, did not allow Jews to pilgrim to the Temple Mount. Later on, the rabbis them self forbade Jews to ascent the mountain, saying that at this time and age, Jews can not be pure enough to enter the site of temple. The Jews continued to pray at the site of the Western Wall, also known as the wailing wall, actually one of the support walls Herod built for the Temple Mount compound.

The Moslem Mosques

For many years the Temple Mount remained barren. But after the Moslems conquered Jerusalem in 638, the Temple Mount gained momentum again. Even though Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran, the Moslem tradition ties the ascent of Mohammed to the sky on his horse to the temple. A mosque named `Al-Aqsa` (the edge) was built to mark this event on the southern side of the Temple Mount.

The Moslem dynasty of Omayyads that ruled most of the Arab world in the second half of the seventh century had a quarrel with the rulers of Mecca and Medina the Islam`s holiest citys, so they decided to make Jerusalem, which was nearer their capital Damascus, a counter weight to those cities. They rebuilt `Al-Aqsa` and also build a magnificent monument, `The Dome of the Rock`, on the center of the mountain, on the presumed site of the Jewish temple and the `creation rock` from which the legend says the world was created. They also built palaces to the south of the mountain. Their actions made Jerusalem the third holiest city for Islam.

The next dynasty the Abbasids, moved the Arab capital from Damascus to Baghdad and so Jerusalem declined in importance. That is one of reasons the crusaders were able to take control of Jerusalem in 1099. The Christians did not destroy the Moslem sites, but they did convert them to their use, turning the dome of the rock to a church.

The Temple Mount and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Zionist who came to Israel beginning in the end of 19th century held Jerusalem as a Symbol (Zion is another name for Jerusalem) even though the majority of them were not religious. After the British took control of Palestine in 1918, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall became a point of tension between Jews and Arabs inside the greater conflict for national sovereignty. The Arabs claimed they traditionally held control over the arena before the Western Wall, and the Jewish attempt to put a bench next to the wall in Yom Kippur holiday of 1928 was one of the sources for the Arab revolt of 1929. Following the revolt, the British decided that the Western Wall arena should remain in `Status-Que` that is nothing can be taken out or in the Arena. The Jewish tradition says that on the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a special trumpet called `Shofar` is to be blown. For various reasons the Moslems saw it as a provocation and the British decreed that the Shofar is not to be used in the Western Wall. The continued attempt by some Zionists groups to enter the Shofar was a continued point of friction.

In the 1948 war (Known in Israel as the Independence War), the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall was occupied by the Jordanians. Even though the cease fire agreement between Jordan and Israel said that Jews would have free access to the Wall, this part of the agreement was never implemented. Israeli culture continued to cultivate the yearning for the Western Wall.
In 1967 (Six Day War) Israel conquered East Jerusalem including the Temple Mount. For many Israelis it was a dream come true. For the Arabs, `the defense of Al-Aqsa` became a major point in the agenda of the conflict.

In reality, the day to day administration remained in the hands of the Moslem religious organization, the `Waquf`,and the overall security in the hands of Israel. The mainstream Jewish thought said that the construction of the next temple on the Temple Mount is a job for the Messiah and not for ordinary people, and the Jews are not allowed to climb to the Temple Mount because they are impure. This allowed the situation to remain stable. However, over time, the emergence of extreme, apocalyptic groups has brought trouble. In 1969 a young evangelist Christian set fire to the `Al Aqsa` mosque and damaged it. In the 80s, two secret, extreme Jewish Organizations, plotted, each on its own, to destroy the Moslems sites. Their plans thankfully came to nothing. In 1990, an attempt by a small Jewish group to ascent the Mount brought on a serious rioting by Moslem worshippers. The rioters throw stones at Jewish prayers at the Western Wall, and stormed a police point on the Temple Mount. Israeli border policemen opened fire at the demonstrators, killing a few. In Palestinian terminology it is known as the `Al-Aqsa massacre` (the Israelis call it `the Temple Mount riots`).

In 1996, an opening of a tunnel that outskirts the Mount, was seen by Moslems as a threat to the mosques and for the first time in recent times, fighting broke out between the Israelis and the Palestinian. The fighting that lasted 3 days and claimed lives on both sides is known as the `Tunnel Incidents`.
Recetenly, the status of the Temple Mount became one of main disagreements on the negotiation for a peace settlement in the Middle East. While Jewish Traditionalists (and most of the Israeli public) do not agree to give up control of what they regard the holiest place in Judaism, the Moslem public opinion see any sign of Israeli sovereignty in the compound as an affront. This is one of the issues currently blocking any advance in the peace talks.