Fairfax concerns
The Zionist Council of Victoria has written to Fairfax Media expressing concern about an article throwing doubt on the location of the Jerusalem temples.
Sam Tatarka
In hiss letter to Fairfax, publishers of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, President of the Zionist Council of Victoria, Sam Tatarka expressed concern in relation to the UK Telegraph article reprinted in Saturday’s paper and online which referred to Har Habayit (the Temple Mount) as the as the presumed location of two ancient temples.
The article written by Robert Tait seems to raise a question regarding an archeologically and historically established fact. The Temple Mount is the site of the Temple which was razed by Romans nearly 2000 years ago. After remaining vacant and desolate for a few centuries it was then used as a Church (when the Crusaders were in charge) or a mosque when the Muslims were in charge and for the last few hundred years as the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.
Much as the Palestinian political cause would be served by the obliteration of thousands of years of Jewish history in Israel it is as much as fact as is the Aboriginal history in Australia, or the history of the American Indians in North America.
It is far less objectional to refer to the site by both its Jewish and Muslim nomenclature viz Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary however to then further qualifiy the description with “presumed location” is a distortion of history.
Tartaka’s concerns are silly but also mendacious.
At last Count, the Dome of the Rock was 1323 years old, making it a highly significant work of Islamic architecture. Likewise, Al Aksa Mosque is 982 or so years old. Islamic presence can’t be dismissed so early as things existing just “last few hundred years”.
There are also arguments as to the precise location of the Temples on the mount, and since we can’t excavate, the newspaper article is correct: we presume they were there, somewhere there.
Does it really matter where it was after all as your article says it was razed by the Romans 2000 years ago and it was only an inanimate object made of stone, bricks and mortar anyway like all old buildings.