The Jewish people’s unbreakable bond with the Temple Mount

From time immemorial the Jewish people have had an unbreakable bond with the Temple Mount, beginning when Abraham journeyed there at G-d’s request to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

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Years later at this same location, King David officially bought the land, the “threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite,” and built an altar to the Lord (2 Samuel 24:18, 21), and it was here that the First Temple (10th century BCE-586 BCE) and Second Temple (516 BCE-70CE) stood.

In 67 CE, the Jewish revolt against the oppressive Roman rule in Palestine broke out, and three years later the Roman army, commanded by Titus, conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Jewish Temple. It is widely believed that after this point in history Jewish physical contact with the Temple Mount was lost. Though Jews continued for generations to pray to return to their holiest site, once they went into exile, any tangible connection came to an end. As General Motta Gur, the commanding general of the paratrooper brigade who liberated the Old City in 1967 told his troops, “For some two thousand years the Temple Mount was forbidden to the Jews. Until you came and returned it to the bosom of the nation.”

However, the truth a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount actually continued throughout history. In fact, when Beitar, the last Jewish fortress town of the Bar Kochba rebellion fell in135 CE, the Romans did not object to the continued worship of local gods, and did not prevent Jews returning to worship on the Temple Mount, the site where the Temple had stood only a few years earlier. And Jews did ascend, as we know from numerous Talmudic accounts.

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