The enemies of Israel first besieged Jerusalem, and then breached its walls. The seige claimed thousands of lives, bringing the Jews to the point of eating their own young to survive. Once the invasion of Jerusalem was begun, Jews were slaughtered indiscriminately in the streets. Jewish daughters were raped and murdered, and Jewish youths were carried into captivity where they lost their Judaism and/or their lives.
Three times, the Temple was invaded and defiled. Twice it was destroyed. Such defilement has been described as the total ravaging of the Temple, the defilement of all its holy vessels and tools, and the theft of those vessels of any monetary value. The scroll of the Bible contained in the Temple was at various times torn, burned, and fornicated upon. Idols were placed in the Temple sanctuary, and observance toward them was forced upon Jewish worshippers.
Such descriptions are uttered by Jews around the world every year on Tisha B'av and on Yom Kippur in the prayer services. The last and worst of these desecrations begat a nineteen hundred year long exile from which the Jewish nation is just beginning to emerge.
Almost immediately, history has revisited us. On May 18, Israel Radio reported, "The room housing the Holy Ark of the Jericho Yeshiva, which meets in the building of Jericho's ancient Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue, was broken into last night, apparently by PLO police (sic) who vandalized the building. The ark curtain was torn and a mezuzah, a religious article, has been removed from the doorpost. Food and trash were strewn around the room and left in the ark. A photo of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was left in the room over the weekend along with PLO police (sic) uniforms and other gear."
Many sources compare yeshivas, modern biblical seminaries and places of religious study, to the Temple of old, citing such institutions as the modern replacement of the Temple in its absence.
I find it utterly unconscionable that the religious community in the Jewish world has allowed this incident to pass virtually unnoticed. For the anti-Jewish regime of Yitzchak Rabin to ignore such dire events is inexcusable, but almost expected at this point. For members of the PLO, nominally Israel's "partners in peace", to commit such an atrocity speaks volumes to the insanity being forced upon the world's Jews by the regime in Israel.
It is a tremendously illustrative point that this atrocity took place in the very same week in which reports surfaced about a speech by the murderer who heads the PLO inciting his followers to attack Jerusalem in a "holy war to liberate your precious shrine". The striking comparison to the times of the Temple cannot be ignored.
Fifty-four Jews have been killed by the very people with whom Israel purports to be discussing arrangements for peace in a seven month period. These are indeed the arrangements with which Israel and the world's Jews will be faced with the onset of Palestinian control over parts of Israel. These are not the arrangements for peace, but funeral arrangements.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
