It was a reenactment of the Paschal sacrifice, staged by activists seeking to expand the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount and attended by hundreds of right-wing Jewish men, women and children. The bloody trail marked the route from the place where the lamb was slaughtered to the altar put up in the middle of the plaza.The Third-Temple movement has been slowly growing in Israel for some time. I don't have any problem with them engaging in this ritual at this particular place if they want to, but, as I have said many times before, I oppose all efforts to rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount. No excavation or construction on the Temple Mount! Not even archaeology, until we have non-invasive and non-destructive technologies to do the work.
This is the sixth year in which Temple Mount activists have staged the reenactment, with barefoot priests in white garments resembling those worn by priests in the ancient Temples and gold-painted vessels modeled after those of the Temples strewn about the altar.
But Thursday’s event marked a real achievement. For the first time the group was allowed to hold the ceremony in the heart of the Jewish Quarter, outside the Hurva Synagogue, just a few hundred meters from the Temple Mount − which is administered by a Muslim religious trust.
The activists had originally sought to hold the event at the Davidson Center in an archaeological park next to the Temple Mount. But the police scuttled that idea, and the High Court of Justice upheld the decision.
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Last year's Paschal sacrifice ceremony was notes here. Cross-file under Politics and Passover is Coming.
