Planned sacrificial ritual in Jerusalem: Playing with fire

Jerusalem is a symbolic place for several world religions. In the middle of the Middle East war, a fundamentalist group is further fueling the conflict between religions. What’s behind it?

The Temple Mount is the site of the first two Jewish temples. They were destroyed by King Solomon in 950 BC and by the Roman occupiers in 70 AD. Since then, there have been efforts to build a third Jewish temple there – for which the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most important place of worship, and the Dome of the Rock would have to be destroyed. Yitzhak Pindrus, Knesset member of the ultra-Orthodox ruling party United Torah Judaism, announced in a television interview that the third temple would be built on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Now an extremist group is trying to make these plans concrete. The “Temple Institute” in Jerusalem has announced that it will be allowed to sacrifice a red cow on the Temple Mount at the beginning of the Jewish Passover festival today. According to Numbers, this sacrifice of a “blemishless, flawless red heifer that has never worn a yoke” is said to be the prerequisite for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple.

Not the first attempt

Such animals have been specially bred or selected several times in recent years, but without meeting the requirements. Now, US sources have also reported, cows raised by Christian farmers in Texas have been brought close to Israel. Pictures of the animals have been circulating on social media for months.

In a speech 100 days after the attack on Israel, Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the radical Islamist Hamas militia, cited the announcement as one of the reasons for the attack: Jews had imported “red cows” in order to be able to build their temple on the Temple Mount . However, the fact that this justification came so late and after the announcement of the “Temple Institute” suggests that the action was instrumentalized.

Specific date given for sacrificial ritual

An alleged approval of the sacrificial ritual for April 22 was published on social media. In fact, it is a request for a public meeting with 10,000 participants, at which, among other things, butcher’s knives, priest’s robes, an altar and a sacrificial animal are to be carried.

However, actual approval of such a demonstration is very unlikely. However, a call allegedly from Hamas is circulating on social media for all Palestinians to gather at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and defend it against “desecration” by the “Temple Institute”.

Problematic interpretation of the Talmud and the Bible

From a Jewish theological perspective, the action can hardly be justified, says Judaist and journalist Eik Dödtmann in an interview with ARD fact finder. “Rabbinic Judaism, which emerged after the second destruction of the Temple, never intended to return to a temple cult religion.” Only the combination of Jewish nationalism, Israel’s desired state sovereignty over all of Jerusalem and the emergence of a messianic, militant, national-religious Jewish fundamentalism made the option of rebuilding the Jewish Temple conceivable and ultimately also practical.

Dödtmann fears the worst if the “Temple Institute” carries out its ritual, namely “an expansion of the current conflagration in the Middle East to the entire Muslim world.” The destruction of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock sought by the protagonists of the “Temple Institute” would presumably result in a terrible wave of violence – terrorist attacks, armed conflicts.

Fundamentalist Christians join in

Christian Zionists also play an important role. They were actively working towards an apocalyptic scenario, says Dödtmann. US evangelicals, among others, would massively support the efforts of the “Temple Institute” and donate to them – including Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The strategic coalition between Evangelicals on the one hand and Orthodox Jewish groups on the other is theologically paradoxical, says Dödtmann: “The Jews should only be used to bring about the eschatological decisive battle, the return of the Christian Messiah Jesus Christ and the Day of Judgment, and then to Christianity themselves convert or be destroyed.”

religious leaders to warn

Several high-ranking religious leaders are appealing in a petition against the “Temple Institute” project: the signatories include the former patriarch Archbishop Michel Sabbah, Jerusalem’s auxiliary bishop William Shomali, the former World Council of Churches President Olav Fykse Tweit and the Jerusalem-born ex-president of the Lutheran Church World Federation, Munib Younan.

“As Christians from the Holy Land and other parts of the world, we together express our concern, dismay and condemnation at the efforts of Christian Zionists to bring more suffering and pain to Jerusalem,” it said. As religious leaders, they would regret that cynical self-interest played a role in the relationship between the “Temple Institute” and its Christian Zionist supporters, the signatories said. “We strongly reject any attempt to turn Jerusalem into an apocalyptic playground.”

With information from Susanne Drost, ARD Studio Tel Aviv