Assignment # 9 - The Future

I hope you enjoyed your last siyur to the Jerusalem City Hall. Please review and propose a solution to one of the many outstanding issues facing the holy city of Jerusalem. Be sure to consult pages 147 - 164 in the source book for background information. I am interested in hearing your predictions of what will happen to Jerusalem.

Also, your final exam is Tuesday, 21 November at 8:30 AM in our usual classroom. Good luck.

Assignment # 8 - A United Jerusalem!?!

I hope you enjoyed our slippery drive through Gilo, Har Homa, The Mt. of Olives, French Hill, Ramot, and Kiryat HaYovel - all neighborhoods founded after 1967. Your assignment is to read the article handed our on the siyur titled "Pulling out - in Jerusalem, too" by Akiva Eldar as well as the article on the blog under Assignment titled, "The Power of Myths". I am interested in seeing your reflections of the sacredness and importance of Jerusalem to the Israeli government and how it will effect the future of the city. (Next week we are travelling to City Hall; please dress a little bit nicer).

FYI

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m Last update - 23:19 01/11/2006
Higher than the Al-Aqsa Mosque
By Nadav Shragai

Nearly 25 years ago, Rami Zayit, a scribe from Kiryat Arba, and Jerusalem architect Gideon Harlap, drew up the plan, "Mivneh Negev." The plan was to open the triple gate in the southern part of the Temple Mount (the Hulda Gates) and to transform the subterranean spaces of Solomon's Stables in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount into a prayer area for Jews.

The plan was designed to bypass the problems of Jews praying on the Mount, with specific reference to the tension between Jews and Arabs surrounding the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and halakha, which prohibits Jews from entering the sanctity of the Mount.

Only after some time did moderate Temple Mount movements adopt this idea. Today we know the most significant change since 1967 - turning Solomon's Stables into a third mosque on the Mount, larger in area than Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock combined - was almost a direct result of these plans. Although the Israeli Islamic Movement sought an anchor in the Temple Mount, the location that was chosen for the Al-Marwani Mosque, Solomon's Stables, was the direct result of the Jewish plan to build a synagogue there.

Competing for the best minaret design
About 10 years after the construction of the Al-Marwani Mosque, the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount is again abuzz with provocative plans. A few weeks ago, to Israel's dissatisfaction, Jordan's King Abdullah announced the construction of a fifth minaret in the Temple Mount area. The minaret is to be named after King Hussein, Abdullah's father. One of the places designated for the minaret is the empty, southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, above the mosque in Solomon's Stables. Abdullah even declared a competition for the best minaret design.

The religious right is skeptical of the government's unofficial attempts to placate them. When it comes to the Temple Mount, the religious right is tired of denials, which ultimately turn out to be false, concerning the third mosque in Solomon's Stables, the fourth mosque in ancient Al-Aqsa, and the archaeological damage to the Temple Mount during the construction of the Waqf (the Moslem trust) over the years.

Perhaps this is why now, of all times, MK Uri Ariel (National Union-National Religious Party) is presenting a plan of his own for building a synagogue on the Temple Mount. He is also discussing the southeastern corner of the Mount, and this is apparently no coincidence. Ariel is presently looking for an architect, and he plans to submit the plan for the approval of the Jerusalem Municipality's planning committee - not that it has a chance. However, it will cause a commotion. "Such an act will repair a historical injustice much more than did the transfer to Israel of the remains of Herzl's children," says Ariel. "Throughout the generations we were expelled from the site. This is an opportunity for the Muslim world to prove that it is sufficiently tolerant to contain beliefs that differ from its own."

Circumstances indicate that Jordanian shares in the Mount are on the rise, whereas those of the Palestinian Authority are declining. After many years during which the Waqf was operated by the Jordanians, the PA expelled the Jordanian mufti (Sheikh Abdul Qader Abdeen) from the Temple Mount by force, and instead appointed a mufti of its own (Sheikh Ikrama Sabri).

All this took place in the early 1990s at the time of the Oslo Accords, years after King Hussein contributed money to cover the Dome of the Rock with gold. The PA also began to pay, at least in part, the salaries of Waqf officials, which for years came from Jordan. The fact that some of the PA officials adopted a policy of conflict with Israel on the Mount led to a revolution in the Israeli approach in recent years.

In the peace agreement signed with Jordan, the Hashemite kingdom received future precedence regarding anything concerning the Temple Mount, but for years there was no reflection of this commitment. In recent years, the situation has changed. Jordan was involved in reopening the Mount to Jewish tourists, after it was closed to non-Muslims for three years. The Mount was closed at the end of 2000, in the wake of the visit there by then chair of the opposition, MK Ariel Sharon. Jordan was also involved in coordinating the renovation of the southern and eastern walls of the Mount, which had cracks and protrusions, with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the police, the Prime Minister's Office and the Waqf.

Attorney Dr. Shmuel Berkovitz (author of "The Wars of the Holy Places"), who is very well versed in the fine points of relations between the various Mount groups, believes Jordan is trying to gain Israel's consent to build a fifth minaret; this fits in with the Israeli view of Jordan as a moderating influence on the Mount vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the Israeli Islamic Movement. This perspective, which Israel does not hide, is exactly what frightens the Temple Mount movements, which fear a quiet agreement between Israel and Jordan on the construction of the minaret.

In light of this, there is ferment in the Temple Mount movements; Ariel and his proposal are only the tip of the iceberg. Gershon Solomon of the Temple Mount Faithful, for example, is planning a campaign against the Western Wall, which he says diverts attention from the "real thing" - the Temple Mount - to which the Western Wall is only an entrance hall, at most. "The Western Wall is not a vestige of the Temple, as people tend mistakenly to believe, but the western support wall of the compound," Solomon points out.

The discourse among other activists is no different. Berkovitz remarks that for the right-wing organizations, another minaret on the Mount will perpetuate foreign domination. He predicts harsh opposition on their part to the plan, if it becomes realistic.

'A relay race of the generations'
The Chief Rabbinate is preferring to keep quiet for the time being, and, considering the two chief rabbis, this is hardly surprising. Rabbi Yona Metzger and Rabbi Shlomo Amar belong to the conservative rabbinic school, which considers the Temple Mount a matter for messianic times and not for the present. Metzger and Amar, like their patrons Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, are opposed to allowing Jews to enter the Temple Mount, for two halakhic reasons: The lack of any possibility of becoming purified from contact with the dead before entering the Mount; and the lack of information regarding the exact site of the holiest of holies to which entry is forbidden except to the high priest on Yom Kippur.

During the term of Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who also adhered to the same prohibition, the Chief Rabbinate became involved almost against its will in the issue of building a synagogue on the Temple Mount. At the time, it was not right-wing organizations or Temple Mount movements that raised the idea. At that time, during the Camp David talks in 2000, it was none other than then prime minister Ehud Barak who raised the possibility of building a synagogue on the Mount, parallel to relinquishing sovereignty over significant sections.

The council of the Chief Rabbinate decided at the time that the Temple Mount must remain under Israeli sovereignty, but one of the absurd consequences of Barak's moves was that after 33 years during which the Rabbinate rejected for halakhic reasons any possibility of Jews praying on the Mount, a committee was established by the Rabbinate to formally examine the possibility of building a synagogue on the Mount or within its walls.

Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, the chief rabbi of Haifa, is the head of the committee. The committee has met several times and discussed alternative sites for a synagogue, but did not reach a decision. The establishment of the committee was meant as a directional sign for the political leadership, or as Rabbi Lau put it at the time: "We are in a relay race of the generations, and our entire right to the Land of Israel derives in effect from our basic right to the Temple Mount.

The Muslim claim to precedence on the Temple Mount is baseless. Islam was born 550 years after the destruction of the Second Temple [in 70 CE]." The Muslims had a different interpretation of the establishment of the committee. Sheikh Hian al-Adrisi, the Temple Mount imam, accused: "They are actually talking about a synagogue in order not to heat up the atmosphere, but they are planning to build their Temple on Al-Aqsa. The Muslims are willing to sacrifice their lives and their blood to preserve the Islamic character of Jerusalem and of Al-Aqsa."

Two additional plans for the construction of a synagogue on the Temple Mount were presented in recent years. One is that of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, also a former chief rabbi. Eliyahu claimed years ago that "foreigners and idol worshippers should be expelled from the Temple Mount and a synagogue built there."

"We see with our own eyes how foxes walk there [a sign of desolation], and in a place of which it is said 'the stranger who approaches will be killed,' strangers walk and profane it," wrote Eliyahu in the periodical Tehumin. "We need not fear what they will say. My proposal is to build a synagogue and a place for Torah and prayer in the area where we are permitted to enter, with supervised entry and exit."

When he was chief rabbi, Eliyahu refined his proposal even further, and proposed building a synagogue in the southeast corner of the Mount behind the Al-Aqsa mosque, as long as the building would be higher than the mosque. Eliyahu also raised a possibility that one of the walls of the synagogue, the one that faces the holy place, be built of glass.

Another proposal for building a synagogue on the Temple Mount is that of architect Gideon Harlap, who even placed it on city planning maps as "a change in city plan 62 Jerusalem," on behalf of the Friends of the Temple association headed by Prof. Hillel Weiss. It was published in the anthology "Kumu Ve'Naaleh" ("Let us rise and go up"), edited by rabbis Yehuda Shaviv and Yisrael Rosen. Harlap got down to details, and even prepared a budgetary estimate. The cost of the planning and implementation will, according to his calculations, total about $8 million.

"This report," Harlap explained, "comes to inform the official authorities of the fact that, in terms of engineering, architecture and planning, there is a wide range of solutions that facilitate providing a place for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, which has long been necessary. And in any case, there are solutions for providing access for worshippers of various religions, without mutual interference, and in accordance with Jewish halakha."

Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, who heads the Tzomet Institute in Gush Etzion and began the anthology in which Harlap's plan was published, said, "secular Zionism has become distant from the Mount and its Torah," but he and his friends want to illuminate "Torah viewpoints, which are uplifting and exalting."

Assignment # 7 - Outside the Walls

I hope you enjoyed today's scavanger hunt through the German Colony, Yemin Moshe, Mishkanot Sheaninim, and Mamilla. You need to turn in or show me your group's pictures to receive credit for this assignment by this Thursday (Nov. 2nd).

Assignment # 6 - On top of David's Tower?

This week's reflection should be about our jaunt to the Tower of David Museum, through our walk on the walls to the Coneculum and David's Tomb. Although we took it easier this siyur, I hope that you will begin to share your thougts on the viewpoints of Jerusalem as we experienced a bird's eye view of the city. You are also invited to share your thougths on Kingdom of Heaven and how it relates to the ideas and themes we have been discussing in this course. This assignment is due Sunday Nov. 2.

Assignment # 5 - Jewish Quarter & Davidson Center

This reflection is due Sunday 22/10. Please share your thoughts and analysis of your experiences in the Old City this past Sunday. Be sure NOT to critique the acting or flatter the actor - he is already aware of his talents and faults. To jog your memory: we entered through Zion Gate, visited the Cardo, the replicated menorah for the Temple, the Broad Wall, my favorite place in the Old City, and concluded with a virtual tour of the 2nd Temple at the Davidson Center. Good Luck on your midterms.

Kudos to a clever student for the tip on this article:

Jordan plans new Temple Mt. minaret
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Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 11, 2006
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Israel has not objected to Jordanian plans to construct a fifth minaret on the Temple Mount, and the Hashemite Kingdom is pressing ahead with plans to do so early next year, a senior Jordanian official said Wednesday.

The minaret, which will be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near the Golden Gate, will at 42 meters be the highest of the minarets on the Mount and the first to be built in more than 600 years, Dr. Raief Najim, vice chairman of the committee running the project, told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview from Amman.

He said he spoke with Israeli authorities about the plan last year and did not hear any objections to the proposed construction. He revealed that he toured the intended site with a top Jerusalem police commander, a senior government official and the head of the Antiquities Authority and none of them voiced any opposition.

"Even though the political situation has changed, I do not think they will refuse to construct such a thing," he said.

The Prime Minister's Office said Wednesday that no decision was taken to approve the construction of the minaret. The Antiquities Authority declined comment.

Earlier this week, King Abdullah II issued an international tender for the design of the minaret, which is expected to cost 400,000 to 500,000 Jordanian dinars (NIS 2.4 million to NIS 3m.).

The winner of the tender will be chosen in three months, Najim said, adding that construction work could begin early next year.

Najim, who met with Abdullah on Monday to finalize the plans, said that the minaret will be constructed in Hashemite style to differentiate it from the previous four minarets, which were built in the Mameluke style, and will include seven sides representing the star on the Jordanian flag.

According to a decades-old regulation in place at the Temple Mount, Israel maintains overall security control, while the Wakf, or Islamic trust, is charged with day-to-day administration.

A leading Israeli archeologist lambasted the plan. "I am against any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount," said Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Gabi Barkai, a member of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "If the status quo is being changed, then it should not just be the addition of Muslim structures at the site."

In contravention of the law, Antiquities Authority archeologists have not been carrying out full-time supervision of the site for much of the last decade due to their concern about renewed Palestinian violence, despite the reopening of the compound to non-Muslims two years ago.

During this period, Israel has been keen to involve the Jordanians in the ongoing repair work on the Temple Mount, as they are considered more moderate than the Palestinian heads of the Wakf appointed by Yasser Arafat on his return to the West Bank 10 years ago.

The other minarets include three near the Western Wall and one near the northern wall. The first minaret was constructed on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1278. The second was built in 1297 by order of a Mameluke king, the third by a governor of Jerusalem in 1329, and the last in 1367.

"For the past century all Hashemite intervention [here] was restoration and maintenance, and now for the first time there will be a new monument on the site," Najim said.

Is a Smaller Jerusalem Better?

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
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Last update - 03:09 12/10/2006
A small Jerusalem is better
By Moshe Amirav

On October 17, the National Council for Planning and Construction is supposed to discuss a new plan that will change the face of Israel's capital. At issue is the construction of 20,000 residential units west of Jerusalem, which will dramatically change the direction of the city's expansion and will weaken it economically and politically.

The public uproar surrounding the new plan, which has led to the submission of 15,000 objections, stems from fear that the planning mistake of the 1970s is repeating itself. At that time, Israel invested huge sums in the construction of about 40,000 residential units in East Jerusalem. These turned into seven neighborhoods, including Ramot, Gilo and Pisgat Ze'ev, which today house about 180,000 Jewish residents.

The plan, which was initiated by Golda Meir's government in order to "strengthen the capital," was severely criticized by all the experts. Thirty years later, its destructive consequences have become evident: From a compact city of 37 square kilometers, Jerusalem has turned into a huge metropolis that covers 120 square kilometers, twice as large as the area of Tel Aviv and Haifa combined. Instead of channeling government investments into infrastructure, industry and tourism, they were channeled into the construction of these neighborhoods, which led to the flight of businessmen and the economic elites from the city.

During the past two decades, about 300,000 Jews have left the city, most from the middle or upper class. Jerusalem has turned into the poorest city in Israel, and today, Jewish neighborhoods comprise only one-third of the city's eastern part. The other two-thirds house about a quarter of a million Arabs, who have upended the demographic policy designed to reduce their proportions. The Jewish majority has shrunk to only 66 percent, and there is a fear that in another 20 years, the city will be binational - half its residents will be Palestinians.

The idea that a "bigger Jerusalem" would strengthen the city turned out to be mistaken. A "small Jerusalem" is preferable. Now, the National Council for Planning and Construction is about to repeat exactly the same mistake, but the consequences are liable to be far worse. A group of wealthy businessmen and a world-famous architect, Moshe Safdie, have joined forces to convince the municipality and the government that Jerusalem is not big enough, that it lacks built-up areas, and that 120,000 Jews must urgently be brought to it. Here lies the trap of the mistaken idea: There is no need to enlarge the city; just the opposite - it should be made smaller.

The solution is to strengthen the downtown area and invest in employment infrastructure, on one hand, and to relinquish the Arab neighborhoods, on the other. All the studies have proven that these two steps would strengthen the city economically and politically. They would raise the city's economic level from 90th (last) place, where it is now, to a respectable place in the top decile of Israeli cities. They would also increase the city's Jewish majority from 66 percent to 96 percent and ensure Jewish hegemony in the Israeli capital. But who listens to experts when wealthy businessmen promise the magic formula: the construction of 20,000 residential units on the slopes of the mountains west of the city?

The consequences of the Safdie plan, which calls for these thousands of new apartments, are liable to be a disaster for the capital. The plan would destroy the green landscape west of the city, while the economically strong population that the entrepreneurs promise to bring from the coastal plain to Jerusalem will not come. Tens of thousands of Jerusalemites will migrate from the city to private homes and cheap apartments in the luxury neighborhoods that will be built. The percentage of Jews in the city will decline to 50 percent within the coming decade, and Jerusalem will collapse economically and politically.

But now, just like 30 years ago, the experts' warnings will apparently be rejected under pressure of the entrepreneurs. Dozens of Knesset members from Labor, Yisrael Beiteinu, the National Religious Party and Meretz have signed a manifesto against the plan. But unless the interior minister and the prime minister intervene to stop the plan, or at least to downsize it, Jerusalem will continue on its planning march of folly, which holds that a "big Jerusalem" is the solution for strengthening the city.

The author served in the past as a member of the Jerusalem Municipality's administration

Reading Homework

Just a reminder that for our siyur this week at 1 PM on October 12th - you do not have to bring your sourcebooks, notebooks, or pen/pencil. The following Sunday, October 15th, we are leaving at 1 PM for a exciting investigative siyur to the Old City - you do need your sourcebook, notebook, and a pen. Please make sure that you have read up to the 2nd Temple period (including the sects in the city); consult the table of contents is your are not sure. As for the following lecture, please have completed up to and including the Arab/Muslim arrival and conquest. Have a happy Moed!