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Israelis Sue Muslims Over Temple Mount Destruction

A group of 150 Israeli citizens have filed a class action suit against the Moslems who run the Temple Mount site for having destroyed Jewish antiquities there.

The suit, brought by the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, charges that Islamic officials have engaged in the deliberate destruction of ancient Jewish relics on the Temple Mount. The indictment was filed in the Jerusalem District Court last week, and Shurat Hadin sources say it is the first of its kind in Israeli legal history….

She explained that the 150 plaintiffs are acting as representatives of the Jewish People, who are the owners of the Temple Mount and therefore the injured party as a result of the Waqf actions at the holy site…

The suit accuses members of the Waqf of intentionally demolishing priceless Jewish artifacts, including remains from the Second Temple. In recent months, the Waqf has brought in bulldozers and heavy digging equipment for the purpose of digging a long trench on the Mount, supposedly to replace electrical cables. “Israeli archaeologists who sifted through the discarded earth,” the Law Center reports, “were shocked to discover a great number of Jewish artifacts brutally trashed by the bulldozers. A wall from the outer courtyard of the Second Temple is believed to have been completely pulverized.”

The full story is here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Carta's New Atlas

Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible has arrived at Eisenbrauns. Because this is a shorter version of The Sacred Bridge, it’s been dubbed by some as “The Sacred Abridgement.” The longer volume costs $100; the shorter is $50. The length though is more than half, and I’m sure there’s plenty of “bang for the buck.” I haven’t seen it, but based on the longer version, I’m sure that it will be a superb resource.

The publisher’s description says this:

The object of this concise version is to augment the personal Bible study of all who seek a straightforward understanding of biblical history. Nevertheless, the reader will still have the sense that sacred history came about in a real world, a realm illumined by a multitude of discoveries and studies during the past two hundred years. Furthermore, the geographical dimension of the Bible accounts is being thoroughly presented. Every Bible student may thus put himself in the ancient reality and feel the events as they were experienced by the ancient Israelites and their neighbors.

UPDATE (11/19): Author Anson Rainey told a friend of mine that the differences between the two editions are these:

1) Bibliography and in-text references removed in shorter edition

2) Original language texts removed but translations remain

3) Two chapters on Bronze Age reduced to one

4) Typographical errors corrected

Thus it seems that with CNCHAB you get about 80% of the content for 50% of the price.

Tagged Resources

New Tunnel for Synagogue in Muslim Quarter

From Haaretz:

An underground passage is being planned in Jerusalem’s Old City to link the reconstructed Ohel Yitzhak synagogue in the Muslim Quarter with the Western Wall tunnels in the Jewish Quarter.

The passageway, which is being planned by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, will utilize existing spaces created by archaeological excavations beneath the Muslim Quarter. This would minimize the need for new digging, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz told Haaretz.

The idea still needs approval from the government, security services and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, said the foundation signed an agreement a few days ago with Cherna Moskowitz, who owns the Ohel Yitzhak complex. Moskowitz is the wife of American Jewish tycoon Irving Moskowitz, who has been active in settling Jews in Muslim areas of Jerusalem.

According to the agreement, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation will manage and maintain both Ohel Yitzhak and the areas beneath it that the IAA has excavated. The foundation plans to open an educational institute and museum at the site, which will preserve the antiquities unearthed by the excavations….

Ohel Yitzhak was built in 1917 but was abandoned during the Arab riots of 1936. It was then blown up by the Jordanians, along with every other synagogue in the Old City, after they captured the area in 1948.

About 15 years ago, the Moskowitzes bought the site. They then financed the synagogue’s reconstruction, based on old photographs plus remnants of the destroyed building found at the site.

In 2004, the IAA began excavating under Ohel Yitzhak. The principal find was a giant public bathhouse from the Mameluke period (the 14th century), which occupies the entire site.

Its cloakroom was completely intact, and archaeologists also found remnants of the ovens that produced the steam and the vents that carried the warm air into the baths. According to IAA archaeologist Yuval Baruch, this is the most complete relic of the Mameluke period ever discovered in Jerusalem.

The story continues here.

Muslims Recognize Temple's Existence

I don’t have access to the particular guide referenced, but I don’t doubt that it is true. Of course, the statement was made in a different day and age. But now that politics are different, so is truth.

From a letter to the editor, Jerusalem Post, Oct 31, 2007:

Sir, – I read with interest “Jerusalem mufti: Western Wall was never part of Jewish temple” (October 25).
The kind of denial by former mufti Ikrema Sadi is somehow disputed by no more and no less than the institution he represents: the Supreme Muslim Council. In an official guide published by the council in 1930, it states: “This site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest times. It’s identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings’ from 2 Samuel XXIV, 25.”

The rest is here.

UPDATE (11/21): Reader Sean Q has located a copy of the guide and has scanned it. You can download it in pdf format here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

The Pictorial Library: Romanian Edition

If you’ve been waiting for the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands to be available in Romanian, the first two volumes have been released (Galilee, Samaria). The Jerusalem volume should be available next month. Just in time for Christmas…for that special Romanian in your life. 🙂

Tagged Resources

Temple Mount updates

There is news for three items related to the Temple Mount:

Quarry: The Orthodox Union has new photos online (or if you prefer a slide show)

First Temple Period Remains: Leen Ritmeyer has marked out the find location on a couple of diagrams. The discovery matches his previous conclusion that this area was within the temple area of Hezekiah’s time.

Temple Mount Destruction: The transcript from the government meeting about the bulldozer excavations is now online in Hebrew. Yitzhak Sapir has made the following observations:

Present at the meeting were archaeologists Yuval Baruch (district archaeologist of Jerusalem for the IAA), Gabriel Barkai and Meir Ben-Dov, as well as Shuka Dorfman, head of the IAA. Eilat Mazar was also invited but she doesn’t appear to speak during the meeting.
Aside from their statements on the topics, which are really interesting, there are also some interesting statements by Limor Livnat, who was in the past Minister of Education and responsible for the IAA, and an architect who claims that when the dig began two months ago, he found a segment of the Northern Wall of the Temple, that was covered up the next day.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount