There’s a place in the heart of Jerusalem, perhaps the most divided and polarized city in the world, where you can find peace and solitude. Where you can sit with your thoughts at the end of a dusty path, in the shade of ancient olive trees for a short while, without disturbance. Far from the hating crowd.
That place is at the heart of the conflict, in a little grove, littered with piles of new and very old masonry, on the eastern side of the Temple Mount. In a dip in the ground, hidden from the Dome of the Rock plaza to your left, just off the paved path that goes the length of the Old City’s walls, where the groups of Jewish pilgrims walk.
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Temple Mount is calm right now. Three and a half months after the last clashes.
Most of the non-Muslim pilgrims – especially in the time of COVID, when there are barely any tourists – are Jews who feel a connection with the place. They come in groups, a few dozen each time. The police insist on accompanying them. Officially, the officers’ role is to supervise the pilgrims and enforce the rules that forbid any overt Jewish worship.
Jewish pilgrims find a tranquil space on Temple Mount.
Emil Salman
But there has been a gradual change over the past two years, under the auspices of the police. Jewish communal prayer, with a minyan of at least 10 men, has become a regular, twice-daily occurrence, during the four hours in the morning and one in the early afternoon, five times a week, when Jews are allowed onto the Mount.
I joined the pilgrims six times in the two weeks before Rosh Hashanah. Each time the groups entered on the same route, which takes about 45 minutes, without any noticeable friction with the Muslims there.
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Non-Muslims enter through the Mugrabi Gate, which is accessed over a wooden bridge to the right of the Western Wall. Just before the bridge is a “Notice and Warning” sign, put there by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, stating that it is forbidden “by law of the Torah” to go up on to Temple Mount.
A few meters further on, by the police checkpoint, there is a second sign, “Welcome to Temple Mount,” with instructions on how to enter, according to the very same Torah.
Jewish worshippers accompanied by police officers on a recent pilgrimage to Temple Mount.
Emil Salman
The place to ‘visit God’
The pilgrimage to Temple Mount is a challenge – though some would say it is an affront or a provocation. The Muslims there, who regard the Al-Aqsa compound as the third-holiest place in their religion and are fearful of Jews seeking to take control of the last site where they exercise a degree of autonomy, would certainly regard it as such.
It is also a challenge to the Israeli state, which for the past 53 years has tried to limit Jewish worship there. This has been the stated policy of all Israeli governments, of left and right. For religious Jews, it’s a challenge to the Orthodox rabbinical establishment, which strictly prohibits any entrance to the Mount due to fears of its sanctity.
Despite this context, in my visits with the pilgrims last month, I failed to meet many of the bitter fanatics I expected to find. Instead, I met a variety of Israelis with diverse reasons for making the pilgrimage. Some harbored political and nationalistic motives. Others dream of building a Third Temple in our lifetime. But many see Temple Mount in much more abstract terms and just want to be there, without a clear objective.
One of the rules governing Jewish visits to the Mount states that the visitors must not wear leather shoes or boots.
Emil Salman
One said he felt he was standing “at the window of yearning.” Another described “trying to touch a distant point of sanctity.” And others didn’t have any high words, but gave the impression of not being activists or dreamers, but simply wanting to break the shackles of what for many Israelis has become the limited and sterile experience of established routine worship within synagogues.
For them, Temple Mount has simply become the place to “visit God.”
There are three basic rules for devout Orthodox Jews who rely on the rulings of rabbis who defy the Rabbinate on this matter. First, you must walk only in the prescribed areas that were not part of the Temple, which only the priests were allowed to enter. Second, before entering even the permitted areas, you must purify yourself in a mikveh (ritual bath). And third, do not wear leather shoes on the Mount. Some pilgrims walk barefoot or in their socks. Others wear rubber sandals.
Under the rules, no Jewish religious objects can be carried and those planning to say morning prayers on the Mount will have recited the first part at the Western Wall down below, before stowing their tallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) in lockers at the checkpoint. Even siddurim (prayer books) are forbidden. Some will say the rest of the prayers on the Mount by heart or use a siddur app on their phone. You can tell the regulars from the first-timers by those who use their smartphones to pray and those who are constantly taking photos.
There is not one “type” of Jewish pilgrim on Temple Mount, with worshippers including Haredim, religious Zionists and secular Jews.
Emil Salman
After a few minutes walk to the easternmost point on the Mount, the group stops, with the sealed twin entrances of Mercy Gate behind them, and begin praying for about 15 minutes. It’s the standard Orthodox version, beginning with the blessings before kriyat shema, then amida (silent prayer) and the Chazan’s recitation following it, in rather unorthodox conditions.
Unusually, the Chazan reads the blessings in a muted tone, and everyone – men and women, Haredim, religious Zionists and the secular – bunch around him to hear and answer “amen.” Most make sure not to sway in prayer and if one of them does so, a police officer may gently advise them not to. But make no mistake: this is Jewish communal prayer on Temple Mount.
There is no agreed version on when the police began allowing the prayers: shaharith in the morning and minhah in the afternoon. It began at some point around two years ago, toward the end of Gilad Erdan’s term as public security minister. Until then, it was often enough for a Jewish pilgrim just to mouth the words of prayer on their own to be detained and evicted. Slowly, the change took root and became permanent. In recent months, there have even been some reports about it in the news that didn’t create any waves.
The police began allowing the group to stop at that point for longer periods of time – enough not only to pray, but also for a short dvar Torah (sermon) – before asking them to walk on. Also, the Waqf custodians from the Muslim religious trust, who know everything that takes place in the Al-Aqsa compound, seem to be silently acquiescing.
On some days, they were nowhere to be seen around the group; on a couple of mornings, a Waqf monitor in an official white shirt and with a walkie-talkie could be seen watching from afar. It’s unclear why they haven’t vocally protested this ongoing erosion of the status quo. There’s now a fact on the ground. Jews are praying together on Temple Mount.
The “Jewish” approach to Temple Mount, to the east of the Western Wall.
Emil Salman
Deceptively calm
The volatility of Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharim as Muslims call it, needs no proving. Nearly every round of violence, since the Arab communities in Mandatory Palestine felt threatened by the idea of a Jewish national home in the Holy Land and the first major riots to break out in February 1920, has either come from or been channeled through the Mount – including the violence that erupted during the month of Ramadan this April-May, which spread to Gaza and Israel’s “mixed” cities.
But between the clashes, the Mount is deceptively calm. And it is during these quiet periods when each side tries to make its gains. The Muslims try to build and make renovations, and the Jews – under more restricted conditions – try to pray and worship.
The 140 dunams (35 acres) around Al-Aqsa are a hub of political intrigue and power plays between the rival Palestinian factions, eager to show their presence in what is a national symbol, also for secular Palestinians. Muslim countries are also trying to exert their influence, with Turkey, the Saudis and the Emiratis all jostling with the Palestinian Authority and the traditional custodians, the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. As always with religious politics, real estate counts for more than any spiritual measure.
There is a struggle here among Jews as well. But since Israel ceded daily control of the compound to the Waqf in 1967, after the Mount was captured from the Jordanians in the Six-Day War, the struggle is still mainly an ideological one.
Jewish pilgrims on Temple Mount.
Emil Salman
Temple Mount epitomizes the divide between secular and pragmatic Zionism and messianic religious Zionism. But even that is not so clear-cut. The socialist-Zionist pioneers who built the state may have sought also to build “new Jews,” devoid of loyalty to historic clericalist symbols like the Temple. But there were also secular Zionists who thought otherwise.
In his utopian novel “Altneuland,” Theodor Herzl wrote of a “massive building full of glory” that would be built on the Mount, near the mosques – “a palace of peace” where representatives of the nations of the world could come to solve the problems of the human condition (a sort of United Nations). And there were the early secular Revisionist Zionists like Prof. Joseph Klausner, on the right, who saw taking control of the Western Wall and Temple Mount as the peak of renewed Jewish sovereignty and nationalism.
There’s no consensus among religious Jews either. The ultra-Orthodox rabbis saw the pilgrimage to Temple Mount as another sacrilegious innovation of modern heretics who were not prepared to wait for the Messiah. But also Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the spiritual founder of messianic religious Zionism, opposed entering Temple Mount. He was worried that secular Zionists would make it a national site, devoid of holiness.
Today’s pilgrims also lack a joint purpose.
There are those who would like to evict the Muslim presence, now, and be happy to provoke a bloody holy war. Others are content with making “preparations” for building the Third Temple: planning the structure and designing the priestly garments, but for now it’s just theoretical. There are the “eutopists,” who fantasize of a house of prayer “for all nations,” by the mosques, and coexistence on the Mount. For some, especially the more secular-minded pilgrims, it’s about “sovereignty” and “freedom of worship.”
Based on my conversations with many of the pilgrims, though, they don’t seem to have a clear plan or vision beyond the desire for a spiritual breakthrough, beyond the stifling established Orthodox worship. Or as one regular pilgrim told me: “Temple Mount is God’s house, and I want to visit as often as possible.”
Jewish pilgrims on Temple Mount, where men and women, Haredim and secular Jews, mix.
Emil Salman
Traditional act of worship
Perhaps it’s the police’s permissiveness, but the Jewish pilgrims currently prefer to work together. “There are those who look for confrontation and to publicize every case where a Jew is arrested for praying out loud,” says Chaim Elbaum, a Temple Mount activist. “But it’s better not to make a fuss. When things are quiet, it’s easier to bring more people. Few will come when there’s a chance of being arrested.”
It’s hard to get reliable figures on the number of pilgrims, though they’re clearly increasing. One of the pilgrim groups released a statement recently claiming that in 5781 (the Jewish year that just ended), 25,581 Jews prayed on Temple Mount – a 13 percent rise over the previous year. They also claim that there’s been a dramatic jump in recent months, after the coronavirus lockdown ended.
What’s more interesting than their numbers is the sheer variety of the pilgrims. The pilgrimage used to be mainly a religious-Zionist phenomena, but today you can see Haredim (who say they have privately received the blessing of their rabbis), secular Jews and Jewish tourists from overseas too. It’s a more popular movement.
In recent weeks, I’ve met people who told me they go up on their birthdays and their parents’ Yahrzeit (memorial day). Like pilgrimages to the graves of ancient sages, Temple Mount is becoming part of a more traditional and less political act of worship.
You can also see it in the attitude of the police, who used to be much rougher with the pilgrims. Now, at the blessing for the ill at the end of the prayer, officers will join and ask for their relatives to be mentioned as well, or even for a blessing for themselves.
A young Jewish visitor taking a photo on Temple Mount.
Emil Salman
Some of the rabbis who allow their followers to go on the Mount are from the more liberal wings of Orthodoxy – such as Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, who goes once a year with his students.
Not all those that go, or want to go, are from the far right. One prominent religious feminist told me: “I went up to Temple Mount in the past, because I felt the need to be personally close to the holiness. But if I went there today, I’d be recognized and people would give it a political meaning.” A well-known religious academic, who is not a right-winger, said: “If I could go there anonymously, I would, without a doubt. It’s a unique religious experience.”
What has helped popularize the pilgrimage is the lack of normal Orthodox boundaries. There’s no segregation between male and female pilgrims, and there’s no religious judgmentalism. Despite the injunctions at the entrance to enter only “in purity” and “out of fear of the temple,” no one tells men or women that they need to cover their heads or checks your footwear.
Surprised at the lack of censoriousness, I asked one of the activists if he wasn’t bothered by bare heads and leather boots. “Who cares?” he shrugs. “The important thing is that you’re here.”
“When I joined the campaign four years ago, they would cross-examine me,” says Ofir Dayan, a 27-year-old student and right-wing activist. “They asked me, ‘Did you go to the mikveh?’ And I said ‘No, and it’s not your business.’ They’ve learned since then that a woman in jeans can be part of the struggle for Temple Mount.”
Dayan, the daughter of Dani Dayan, Israel’s former consul general to New York, is part of Students for the Temple Mount, a group that includes secular activists as well. She says her activism was originally out of protest against the limits on Jewish pilgrims.
“As a secular person, I felt my rights were being infringed; that I was being discriminated against. I started coming more often and began reading about the place. I see this as the place where we were formed as Jews, from individuals into a nation.”
Jewish pilgrims visiting Temple Mount.
Emil Salman
Breaking a 1,951-year-old record
It’s hard to believe that Jews praying together on Temple Mount hasn’t received unofficial backing from the highest places. Two months ago, on the Tisha B’Av fast when 1,600 Jews entered Temple Mount – almost certainly a daily record since the Second Temple was destroyed 1,951 years earlier – Prime Minister Naftali Bennett released a statement praising the police for acting “responsibly and with sound judgment while allowing freedom of worship for Jews on the Mount.”
The statement seemed to contradict Israel’s long-standing policy that Jews would be allowed to pray only at the Western Wall, and to visit Temple Mount without praying.
Anger from governing coalition partner the United Arab List, and most likely also concern from Jordan and other foreign governments, led to Bennett’s office clarifying the next day that there is no intention of changing the status quo on the Mount. But the reality is that the status quo is being eroded daily.
Jewish pilgrims on Temple Mount, with the Dome of the Rock in front of them.
Emil Salman
“When Bennett said ‘Freedom of worship,’ he was saying what his public wants to hear,” says Arnon Segal, a journalist at the right-wing weekly Makor Rishon and one of the main Temple Mount activists. He’s probably right.
Bennett, Israel’s first openly religious prime minister, may not be particularly devout, but he has keen political antennae. In the past, he’s never spoken openly about Temple Mount (though there’s a story that, as a teen in the 1980s, he once made the pilgrimage), but he knows where the wind is blowing.
Temple Mount is a rare issue on which the ultra-Orthodox and secular Israeli center-left are in complete agreement. Both camps are adamantly opposed to Jews entering and praying on Temple Mount, either until the Messiah comes or peace is made with the Palestinians. Both camps would prefer to regard Temple Mount as a place to which Israel has no connection. But while the Haredim have made ignoring reality a way of life, Israel’s mainstream politicians don’t have that luxury. If in the past the desire for Temple Mount was the preserve of a few fanatics who planned to blow up Al-Aqsa in the hope of derailing peace talks, nowadays, praying there has become almost routine for a growing number of law-abiding Israelis who have no interest in provoking a holy war.
One can oppose the pilgrimage out of concern for preserving the status quo and preventing more outbreaks of violence. One can claim, with a large degree of justification, that speaking of “freedom of worship” for Jews at one site in Jerusalem is ridiculous while Israel denies millions of Palestinians basic rights in the rest of the city and throughout the West Bank. But none of that can change the fact that the pilgrimage is growing.
Temple Mount hasn’t just been the source of strife and bloodshed between Jews and Palestinians over the past century. Going back, deep into Jewish history, it was also the cause of schism and murderous violence among Jews themselves. And as it regains its status as a place for Jewish pilgrimage, it could become one again. Temple Mount will not remain silent.
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