As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of
Breaking Israel News,
December 5, 2018 (links in original):
The first Temple Jerusalem Convention took place at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on Wednesday, aimed toward educating Christians about the relevance of the Jewish Temples to their belief. The focus is not only on the Biblical Temples but also on the future Third Temple written about in prophecies.
In his opening address, John Enarson, the Christian Relations Director of Cry for Zion and co-organizer of the conference explained the ground rules for the conference.
“The conference will be a meeting place of Jews and Christians with different perspectives. This should be done with mutual respect, acknowledging differences, and finding common ground on important issues without signing up for any political or religious position. We ask that all participants show grace toward each other.”
Doron Keidar, one of the organizers and the executive director of Cry for Zion, has high hopes for the event.
“This is like the first Zionist conference which brought people together to talk about their hopes and dreams for a Jewish state,” Keidar told Breaking Israel News. “That led to the establishment of the modern state of Israel. We are bringing people together to talk about the Temple Mount. It is pretty clear what can come from this.”
Rabbi Tuly Weisz, head of Israel365, addressed the crowd, emphasizing that it was powerfully appropriate for such a gathering to be held during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
“Many Jewish holidays are about ‘they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat,’” Weisz jokingly told the crowd. “But Hanukkah is different. The Greeks did not want to kill us. The focal point of the holiday is about the non-Jews preventing the Jews from connecting to the Torah and about the Greeks defiling the temple. It is entirely appropriate to join in with Christians who have come to Israel to honor the Temple, the Torah, and the Jewish people.”
“If you were the Gentiles back then, there would never have been a need for Hanukkah,” Rabbi Weisz concluded.
The conference focused on a theory that is gaining popularity which claims that the Jewish Temples did not stand on the Temple Mount. According to the theory, both Temples were located further south in an area now recognized by archaeologists as the City of King David. This theory was most recently put forth in a series of books written by Bob Cornuke, a former police investigator with no training in archaeology. Cornuke has also proposed that the Ark of the Covenant was taken out of Solomon’s Temple and has been hidden away in a church in Ethiopia for hundreds of years.
Several of the speakers addressed this theory. Harry Moskoff, the author of the A.R.K. report, discussed the archaeological proof of the Temples’ location as well as the lack of proof for the theory’s claims.
Enarson believes the theory hides an insidious theological agenda.
“Rejecting the Temple Mount is the last stand of Replacement Theology,” Enarson explained to Breaking Israel News in an interview in April. “Replacement Theology, a belief that Christianity replaced Judaism in the covenant between Abraham and God, was a core tenet of Christianity. Subsequent to, and because of, the Holocaust, some mainstream Christian theologians and denominations have rejected Replacement Theology.”
As reported by Mr. Berkowitz,
December 5, 2018:
A conference on Wednesday brought together religious Jews and Christians to discuss a topic that had never before been addressed in a multi-faith forum: the past and the future of the Temple Mount as it related to their respective religions.
As participants entered the conference, they were greeted by the sight of a 20-foot model of the Second Temple and much of the discussion focused on the subject of the Third Temple. Though the conference was a religious forum, avoiding politics, the political implications of any discussion about the future of the Temple Mount, a location frequently described in mainstream media as a “flashpoint,” bears dire political consequences.
Doron Keidar, one of the conference organizers and founder of Cry for Zion, an NGO advocating for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, was aware that he would likely be accused of incitement when he set out. This point was driven home during the press conference when Keidar was confronted by reporters who asked him several times if speaking about a Third Temple implied an agenda to destroy the Muslim sites on the Temple Mount.
Keidar rejected that claim, telling reporters that Cry for Zion’s main goal was to bring Jewish sovereignty to the Temple Mount.
“Our main goal is not to build the Temple and we are not a Temple organization,” he said. “We are advocating for Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount, petitioning the government to express stewardship of the site.”
This raised concerns among journalists who asked if sovereignty meant oppressing the Muslims or restricting them religiously.
“Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount would benefit everyone,” Keidar replied. “At the Western Wall, there is total freedom of worship for all religions. Muslims are free to pray at the Kotel (Western Wall) as are Christians. Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount would bring equality of religion to the site.”
Keidar pointed out that the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel ensured freedom of religion for all faiths at the holy sites.
“Freedom of worship is also established in international law as described by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights,” Keidar said. “The right for all faiths to pray on the Temple Mount was upheld by the Israeli Magistrate’s court. Right now there is illegal discrimination taking place where only Muslims can pray.”
John Enarson, the organization’s Christian Relations and Creative Director, echoed this assertion.
“Allowing the Jewish flag on the Temple Mount would guarantee that this freedom of religion will exist, just as it does at every other holy site that is under Israeli sovereignty,” Enarson said. “Many Christians believe that there will be a Third Temple but that is not relevant to what our organization or this conference do. We want equality of religion on the Temple Mount, plain and simple. How the Third Temple comes about and what form it takes is in God’s hand.”
“I would prefer that the Muslims would welcome other religions and encourage this, but in any case, it should not be tolerated by the international community or by the Israeli government,’ Enarson declared.
Keidar compared their initiative to the civil rights movement in America, petitioning for equality for blacks.
“Christians can’t take their Bibles with them or pray or wear crosses on the Temple Mount,” Keidar pointed out. “Anywhere else in the world, that would be religious oppression and not tolerated.”
“We are trying to educate the Christian world about the Jewish perspective on their holiest site,” Enarson said. “There has been a lot of mistrust between the Jews and the Christians. This will increase peace, not lead to war.”
The main focus of the conference was on theories that the Jewish Temples stood in an area identified as the City of David.
“There is a mistaken belief that this would enable a peaceable solution in which the Jews could build a Temple in another location, a small distance from the Temple Mount,” Keidar said. Keidar, who works in security in the Old City, rejected that perception. “That area, referred to in the Bible as Shiloah, is known as Silwan. It is a hotbed of hatred and some of the most hotly contested territory in Jerusalem.”
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