At funeral of teen killed in terror attack, Yitzhak Yosef says visits only further incitement and violence, blasts ‘fourth-rate rabbis’ who encourage them
By Itamar Sharon and Times of Israel staff
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]srael’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef on Friday called on Jews to stop their attempts to visit Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, in order to restore calm to the capital after weeks of violence and religious clashes surrounding the holy site. He said it was religiously forbidden for Jews to ascend to the mount at all, reiterating a long-held consensual rabbinical view that today’s impure Jews should not risk defiling the holiest site in Judaism.
“We need to stop the incitement provoked by people going to the Temple Mount,” Yitzhak said at the funeral of 17-year-old Shalom Ba’adani, who was critically injured in Wednesday’s car attack in Jerusalem and died of his wounds Friday.
“Jews must not go to the Temple Mount and provoke the Arab terrorists,” he said. “This must be stopped…only in this manner shall the blood of the people of Israel stop being spilt.”
Yosef reiterated the belief held by many senior Jewish figures that visiting the Temple Mount, the site of the biblical temples, was forbidden by religious law.
“Fourth-rate rabbis cannot dispute (the rulings of) the sages of Israel,” Yosef stated.
Yeshiva student Shalom Ba’adani had been on his way to the Western Wall Wednesday when 48-year-old Ibrahim al-Akary plowed into pedestrians at a light rail station along the seam-line between East and West Jerusalem.
Ba’adani, a nephew of prominent Shas Rabbi Shimon Ba’adani, sustained serious head injuries and was treated at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem before succumbing to his wounds, thus raising to two the number of people killed in the attack. Ba’adani’s funeral was also attended by Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and fromer leader MK Eli Yishai.
Police were bracing themselves for another heated day in the capital Friday surrounding Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount and said, after receiving information on impending riots, that they would limit entrance to the site.
Security forces were spread out in increased numbers throughout the Old City and East Jerusalem, and only men over the age of 35 would be allowed into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound due to intelligence on Palestinian youths’ intentions to foment unrest there. Women of all ages would be allowed access.
Tensions in the capital have been boiling in recent weeks, with East Jerusalem and West Bank residents demonstrating and rioting in response to their fears that Israel seeks to change the status quo of the Temple Mount and allow Jews to pray there.
The situation has also led to several Palestinian terror attacks and an assassination attempt against a prominent Israeli right-wing activist.
Netanyahu instructed officials Thursday to demolish the homes of the terrorists who had perpetrated attacks in Jerusalem, according to Israel Radio.
The prime minister’s directive came a day after an East Jerusalem man drove his van into a group of pedestrians at a light rail station in the capital, killing a Border Police officer, Jedan Assad, and yeshiva student Ba’adani and injuring a dozen other people. A similar hit-and-run attack took place two weeks earlier at another train station along the seam-line when an East Jerusalem man drove his car onto a platform, killing two and injuring several. Both attackers were killed by police.
On October 29, Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick was shot outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in central Jerusalem by an Arab employee of the center, who was later killed by police during an attempt to arrest him.
On Thursday evening, dozens of right-wing Jewish activists marched toward the Old City, as heavy clashes between police and Arab residents of East Jerusalem persisted.
“We are proudly marching with high heads to the direction of the Temple Mount. God willing, we’ll get there,” organizer Ariel Groner told AFP at the site where a Palestinian recently tried to assassinate Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a campaigner for Jewish prayer rights at the compound.
Under the present arrangement in the Temple Mount, the site remains under Jordan’s custodianship — as part of the 1994 peace agreement — and Jews are allowed in the compound, but are barred from religious worship or prayer.
Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed in past days that there will be no change to the present arrangement, and spoke Thursday with Jordan’s King Abdullah II to reiterate his stance. –– timesofisrael.com
