**Special Notice: Your humble servant will be in transit from May 17-24 and will update this blog as possible. Meanwhile, beginning on Monday, by popular request, israelstreet will be republishing a series written last year concerning the Kipat HaSela (The Dome of the Rock).
TODAY’S BLOG
6:00 pm Israel time, Saturday, May 23
Part 11:
For the last week and a half, this blog has detailed the history of the Temple Mount–and in particular the Dome of “the Rock.”
Yesterday, we had just arrived in the year 1516 CE–2,466 years since Solomon built the First Jewish Temple over the holiest place in Judaism, the Foundation Stone.
The non-Arab Turkish Ottoman Empire has conquered Jerusalem in the form of the armies of Sultan Suleiman I. He proceeds to rebuild the walls of the city–the same walls that stand today. His policy toward the Jews is one of give and take. On the one hand, Suleiman immediately encourages Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been thrown out of Spain and Portugal 24 years earlier to come and live in Jerusalem.
On the other hand he decrees that no Jew (or Christian) can ascend the Temple Mount. However, to compensate the Jews for their loss, he orders that a Jewish place of prayer be established at the retaining wall of the Second Temple–the Western Wall (Kotel) where Jews still pray today.
And so the situation remains for the next 340 years. During this period, the Temple Mount (and Jerusalem) are generally ignored by Muslims, and though Jews are prohibited from entry, there are reports from Muslim sources that Jews continue to covertly ascend the Mount whenever possible.
In 1856, the outcome of the Crimean War results in the British demanding that the Turks open the Temple Mount daily to all visitors–especially Jews and Christians–on every day of the week except Friday. Ironically, during the aforementioned 340 years, a number of Jerusalem rabbis had issued rulings that Jews should not visit the Mount until the return of the Messiah.
Nevertheless, beginning in 1857 Jews return to the Mount again, openly, and in great numbers.
And it is in this year that we will stop our journey today–and tomorrow, when we resume, we will have our first photographs of the Christian-designed building that holds the holiest place in Judaism, the Dome of “the Rock”.
Part 12:
We come to the 12th of 13 installments in our series on the Dome of “the Rock”.
The year is 1857 CE. We have come a long way since Solomon built the First Temple over the Foundation Stone–2,807 years to be exact.
The Ottoman Turks still have control over Jerusalem, but the British are exerting their power in the wake of the Crimean War. The Temple Mount has just been opened to Jewish and Christian visitors every day of the week except Friday.
Nevertheless, 341 years of Turkish Muslim neglect has had its effect on the holiest site in Judaism (and on Jerusalem itself).
One of the first photographs we have of the Dome of “the Rock”–or better named “The Building Over the Foundation Stone” show a weeded site devoid of people:
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The Dome of “the Rock” with its Jewish Foundation Stone within. A photograph by Bonfils dated 1875.
Here is a picture of the Foundation Stone dated 1900:
Note the caption on the pictures: “The Sacred Rock, where the Temple Altar stood, Mt. Moriah, Jerusalem, Palestine.”
Another picture on a smaller scale from 1910:
From the file of Oded Reikin.
Here is an aerial view of Jerusalem from 1918–made by the British Air Force after the British took over:
Air view of Jerusalem–1918. The Dome of “the Rock” is in the upper right corner.
During the time from 1857 through the British mandate from 1918-1948, the situation on the Temple Mount remained the same.
Jews were permitted to ascend to the spot where the Holy of Holies stood–but orthodox Jews especially came under strict prohibitions from orthodox rabbis to not do so. Various reasons were given–one of which was incredibly specious.The reasoning was that since “no one new where the Holy of Holies had been”, then a person on the Mount might violate that holy space by being there.
Nevertheless, Jews of all stripes, especially secular Jews continued to make their way to the Mount.
From 1948 to 1967, the Jordanians took control of the Old City of Jerusalem and threw out every single Jewish inhabitant. Because of this ethnic cleansing, no Jew appeared on the Mount in those years.
But the situation changed dramatically in 1967, as we shall read in our next and final blog in this series tomorrow.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.