Ben Shapiro: Build A Synagogue On Temple Mount

JERUSALEM (VosIzNeias) — Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro, who is visiting Israel at present, recently expressed his opinion that a synagogue should be built on Temple Mount. Shapiro spoke after he was kicked off the Mount last week by members of the Waqf, the Jordanian custodians of the Temple Mount, when a member of his group was caught praying. The Waqf, who were granted custody over the site by the Israeli government in 1967, forbids all non-Muslims from praying at the site.

“I think there’s a strong case to be made that Jews should be building [on the Temple Mount] if they can’t build the temple, because there’s the Dome of the Rock right there. They should at least build a synagogue up there so you can have regularized prayers,” Shapiro said on his podcast Wednesday.

“If Muslims are able to build a school on one end which they have done, it seems to me the Jews should be able to build a synagogue in a space that is roughly the size of three football fields,” he added.

Shapiro also commented on his Temple Mount experience, “The site’s incredible. If you’re ever in Jerusalem and you have a chance to visit it you certainly should. It’s the holiest site in Judaism.”

“That’s where the Holy of Holies used to stand in the Beit HaMikdash – the Temple. It is the rock where Abraham, according to the Bible, was about to sacrifice Isaac. It is also the site where Jacob, when he had the dream of the ladder going to heaven was promised the land,” he said.

He added that there was no comparison between the experience of praying at the Western Wall and that of praying on Temple Mount:

“The Western Wall is actually a retaining wall for the platform where the Temple stood. It’s kind of weird. We’re actually praying at the retaining wall not of the actual Temple itself, there was another wall that surrounded the Temple. It’s sort of like praying at the fence of a parking lot that contains the building you actually care about.”