Tagged Temple Mount

Police close Temple Mount after firebomb thrown at officers

JERUSALEM (JTA) — All entrances and exits to the Temple Mount were closed by Israel Police after a firebomb was thrown at a police outpost at the site. The police said in a statement Tuesday afternoon following the attack that one of the suspects was identified and detained. Dozens… Read more »

ANALYSIS: Arabs, Jews trade barbs as Temple Mount heads toward the abyss

A security post at the Gate of the Moors/Mughrabi Gate. Jerusalem, July 19, 2017. (Mati Amar/TPS)

Summer in Jerusalem: As Israel continues to sweat through the hottest summer on record the Jewish Quarter of the Old City is full of tourists, seemingly oblivious to the heat. The restaurants leading from the Quarter towards the Western Wall pump with life, as does the Hurva Square, the… Read more »

These American Jews are looking beyond the Western Wall – to prayer on the Temple Mount

A group of Jewish worshippers visiting the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2016. (Sebi Berens/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Liberal American Jews are feeling thwarted in their years-long campaign for the right to pray as they wish at the Western Wall. Long frustrated that the plaza in front of the wall is run as an Orthodox synagogue, they were doubly incensed when Israel’s political establishment scrapped an… Read more »

Cable car tourist project in Jerusalem sparks controversies

Sunset over the Old City of Jerusalem, as seen from the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. ( Andrew McIntire/TPS)

Jerusalem (TPS) – The Jerusalem Municipality has been promoting a unique initiative to build a cable car that would connect the city’s western neighborhoods with the Old City and Mount of Olives in its east. While the city intends for the project to serve its residents as well as… Read more »

New stage for Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick: The Knesset

On a tour of the Temple Mount, Yehuda Glick shows religious Jews a diagram of the Jewish temple that once stood where the golden Dome of the Rock stands today in Jerusalem, Sept. 17, 2013. (Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A year and a half ago he was a fringe Temple Mount activist expected to die, the victim of a point-blank assassination attempt. This week he will enter the Knesset, the ruling Likud party’s replacement legislator for outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. Yehuda Glick’s journey —… Read more »

Kerry, at contentious U.S.-Israel confab, asks Israel to consider perils of single state

Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2015. (Courtesy of Brookings Institution)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at an annual U.S.-Israel confab, said Israel’s government must consider the consequences of evolving toward a single state incorporating the Palestinian areas. “How does Israel possibly maintain its character as a Jewish democratic state?” Kerry said Saturday at the Saban Forum in Washington,… Read more »

Meet the Islamic Movement, Netanyahu’s newest public enemy

Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, in Jerusalem, March 26, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – In assigning blame for the recent wave of violence in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to the usual suspects – Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. But he has also accused a lesser-known group that operates within Israel’s borders: the Islamic Movement, a religious political… Read more »

Jerusalem tensions, simmering since the summer, start to boil over

Muslims seen at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem's Old City, on their way to pray on the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Jun 30 2014. (Sliman Khader/FLASH90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Tensions in Jerusalem have run high since last summer, but have recently crossed over into lethal violence. In the past two weeks, there have been three attacks, in which motorists have plowed into crowds of people — killing, among others, a 3-month-old baby and and… Read more »

Holy work or troublemaking? Laying the groundwork for a Third Temple in Jerusalem

A model of the Second Temple at an exhibit of Third Temple vessels in the Temple Institute's offices in Jerusalem. (Ben Sales/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – No praying. No kneeling. No bowing. No prostrating. No dancing. No singing. No ripping clothes. These are the rules that Jews must abide by when visiting the Temple Mount, the site where the First and Second Holy Temples once stood, located above and behind the Western… Read more »