Educator and author Rabbi Shalom Gold took part in the 18th annual march around the ancient walls of the holy city of Jerusalem on Saturday night, held by the Women in Green movement.
In his remarks, Rabbi Gold strengthened the participants and encouraged a return to the Temple Mount.
“We have to be strong and proud enough to say: What any other person on the face of this earth can do on the Temple Mount – which is to pray there – is denied to Jews. It’s unbelievable. It staggers the imagination,” he said.
“Maybe there should also be a process of preparing Jews how to go up to the mountain,” he added. “You don’t just go up to the mountain, there’s a halakhic process. But we have to demand our rights, otherwise they’re laughing at us that we were able to give that up.”
Rabbi Gold noted that Tisha B’Av does not only remember the destruction of the First and Second Temples many years ago, because “there is destruction of the mountaintaking place right now. They are digging and digging with heavy equipment against the law. They’re digging up all of Jewish history. They want to erase every trace of our on that mountain. It’s the biggest act of highway robbery in the world.
“They’re destroying our archaeological proof because they say there was never a First Temple or a Second Temple, and we remain silent,” he said. “Making this march around the city and going to stand right beneath the Temple Mount, our cry to our government should be: It’s our mountain. They must stop all of the destruction taking place. We should be mourning what is taking place every day on that mountain.”
