The little group was of course immediately approached by several Arabs who stared at the American couple and the hareidi-religious guard.
“One policeman told us that we could feel free to take pictures, and guided us to good vantage points to take great snapshots,” the rabbi said.
Noticing there were no other groups similarly guarded, however, he asked, “How many of you are out here right now guarding those other tourists who came in ahead of us?”
He said he imagined that the number would have had to have been staggering, although he could see no others.
The guard answered, “None. They aren’t Jews; you are.”
“In a sudden rush of anger I continued silently until the end of our time there.
“We Jews, who have given the world the most peaceful and accessible holy sites to all the peoples of the region, are restricted in our own land and treated as criminals for the slightest offense caused by being ourselves,” he told JewishPress.com.
“I was aware of reports of the arrests of other men who had deliberately caused incidents on the Temple Mount by assuming prayerful poses, but discounted the stories as inaccurate, incomplete; surely an incompetent editor had omitted the details of some egregious action by those who were arrested. Now I had had this bitter experience.
“I tried to imagine the furor that would rise if Muslims were prevented from freely visiting a mosque anywhere in Israel. Yet here, in this absurdly upside-down world of the Middle East, these behaviors are accepted as normal.”
The rabbi said he was having trouble understanding why Israel, as moral and as desperate for peace as it is, should be forced to “behave badly to its own people in deference to the sensitivities” of its enemies.
He added that he plans to urge his congregants to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all Israel” and to help correct the misinformation and growing darkness that “seems to be overtaking the Western world.”