Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
21 Cheshvan 5782
October 27 2021
The News on the Israeli Street
It was a mere 2 days ago . . .
. . . that your humble servant wondered in this blog “how long it will be until Bennett follows in Netanyahu’s footsteps and freezes” the proposed 1,335 new housing units in Judea and Samaria because the Biden Administration has condemned the new construction?
We now have the nauseating answer.
48 hours.
This morning, the meeting of the Civil Administration which was supposed to approve the new units was canceled. It could possibly take place tomorrow, next week, or never, but once again Bennett and company are kowtowing to Washington.
The Biden Administration apparently throws Israel a bone . . .
It is beginning to appear that Israel will join Bulgaria, Romania, and Cyprus as countries whose citizens may travel to the U.S. for 90 days with no visa.
Why is this a “bone”?
Because the citizens of 40 countries need no visa at all regardless of their length of stay.
Long overdue . . .
Following on the heels of her giveaway of land belonging to Jewish regional councils to the Israeli-Arab city of Araba, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked designated the first Druze city in Israel yesterday, Ma’ar in the lower Galilee.
As bad as the Araba decision was, the Ma’ar decision should have happened long ago.
The daily Corona update . . .
928 more Israelis were confirmed “yesterday” as having Covid-19. There are now 11,000 active cases in the country.
1,324,897 Israelis have contracted Corona since the pandemic began.
The positive test rate yesterday was 0.93%.
236 Israelis are in serious condition with another 136 in critical condition on ventilators.
8,063 Israelis have died–1 since yesterday.
If these numbers remain steady for the next week, we will cease having a daily Corona update on OneIsrael.
Vaccinations:
6,224,388 Israelis have received one dose.
5,719,944 Israelis have received two doses.
3,922,245 Israelis have received three doses.
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TODAY’S BLOG
The Most Exciting Photo I Made In Jerusalem This Weekend!
With no further ado . . . it is this:
What do you think you are looking at?
Last Thursday, at the top of the stairs leading away from the Kotel (Western Wall), we stopped to eat at a shwarma joint–the same place that we eat on every trip to Jerusalem, and where we had last eaten back in early 2020. That shwarma place is just to the right of the star marking “Tiferet” on the graphic below:
Note the word “Tiferet”.
After ordering a shwarma plate, we sat down to eat. I was just telling my wife that when we finished, I was going to walk up the short flight of stairs to the famed underground Karaite Synagogue (the oldest synagogue in Jerusalem located just to the left of the “Tiferet” star) in order to see how work was progressing on the Tiferet Synagogue–when I looked to our left and to my amazement we saw what you see in the above photo.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
From the late 1800s all the way until 1948, two synagogues dominated the Jerusalem skyline towering above all else including the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Kipat HaSela (Dome of the Rock).
Those two synagogues were the Hurva and the Tiferet:
This is how the majestic Tiferet looked then:
The famed Tiferet Synagogue located in the heart of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.
What happened in 1948?
The Jordanians brutally took control of the Old City, ethnically cleansed it of all Jews, and dynamited both the Tiferet (May 21, 1948) and the Hurva (on May 27,1948).
The Tiferet synagogue after it was dynamited by the Jordanians.
And so, both synagogues lay in ruins. Finally in the year 2000, the government decided to let the Hurva be rebuilt and after a decade of construction, it opened in 2010.
However, the once-grand Tiferet languished in desolate rubble until 2012 when a decision was finally made to reconstruct the synagogue primarily using the funds of an anonymous donor (later revealed to be a Ukrainian businessman).
Every year since then your humble servant has gone to see what is happening with the reconstruction. I took the photo below in August of 2015 at which time there was merely a shell and some scaffolding on the inside.
This is a picture of the Tiferet synagogue that I took while standing in the doorway of the Karaite compound. At that time the Tiferet was surrounded by metal fencing as archaeological work was being done inside. The doorway to the Tiferet is about 5 steps away from the doorway to the Karaite.
All of this brings us to the present.
Sitting in the shwarma joint, I was amazed to see that the concrete base of the synagogue had been poured and that work was being done on the highest levels. What work is hard to tell because the entire edifice is covered so that no one can see inside.
Obviously and literally, the entire project is being kept under wraps out of the fear that the Tiferet’s reconstruction will inflame Muslims. Already we have heard the imam of the Al-Aksa Mosque absurdly claiming that the land on which the Tiferet sits (again, in the middle of the Jewish Quarter) belongs to the Al-Aksa “compound.”
Just as obviously, those workers doing the reconstruction have accelerated their pace during the Corona pandemic. Yet, there is still no indication when the project might be completed–though a reasonable guess might be around 2025.
Whatever the case, I cannot describe my absolute heart-pounding exhilaration over seeing Israel’s most famous synagogue being rebuilt. It was the most exciting moment of our Jerusalem trip!
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.