The King of Jordan Should Help to Restore Calm on the Temple Mount

After the Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount last month, the Jordanian government condemned this peaceful tour of the area as the “storming of al-Aqsa mosque and violation of its sanctity,” while the U.S., the UK, and other Western countries cautioned Jerusalem against doing anything that might “inflame tensions” (as one diplomat put it). No such admonitions, however, have been issued to King Abdullah of Jordan, observes David M. Weinberg:

Standing beside every world leader he possibly can, and when meeting Israeli prime ministers too, the Jordanian king Abdullah defiantly declares his self-anointed “custodianship” over the Temple Mount and “all holy sites” in Jerusalem. Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that no Jordanian “custodianship” or “jurisdiction” in Jerusalem ever has been agreed to by Israel nor does it exist in any international accord. All Israel acknowledges is that the Hashemite kingdom has a “special role” to play on the Temple Mount.

One would think that “special role” would mean that Jordan has special responsibility to help maintain the site as a holy place of prayer, brotherhood, and tolerance. At a minimum, one would expect the Jordanians to do everything possible to help keep the peace by blocking attempts to turn the site into ground zero for violent Arab insurrection, wild Palestinian rioting, and the most anti-Semitic and genocidal anti-Israel incitement.

Alas, the Jordanians have done no such thing. . . . Using al-Aqsa as a base for physical assaults on Israel (like storing weapons) and as a platform for the ugliest education about the evils of Jews and Israel is not an occasional thing. It has become the Jordanian-sponsored standard of behavior on the Temple Mount. This has been the contribution of Jordan’s much-ballyhooed “special role” condition.

It is not like King Abdullah can’t control things if he wanted to. I can assure you that not a single word of criticism against Abdullah is heard on the Temple Mount from any Palestinian preacher, just as not a single mild word of criticism against Abdullah is allowed out of the mouths of any sermonizer in mosques across Jordan. . . . But apparently at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem no such censorship exists. At the most sensitive, explosive, holy site in the world, everything goes, especially anti-Semitic and genocidal anti-Israel incitement—under the allegedly benevolent and hypothetically moderate watch of King Abdullah of Jordan.

Read more at David M. Weinberg

More about: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jordan, King Abdullah, Temple Mount

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society