Shelley Neese's Blog, page 8

New Book Unearths Temple Mount Controversies

By Andrew Harrod, Jihad Watch—

Some Jerusalem visitors “are suddenly transfixed and transformed, infused with visions and apocalyptic pretensions,” one Jerusalemite notes in The Copper Scroll Project: An Ancient Secret Fuels the Battle for the Temple Mount. Set in Israel and on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, this recent book by Christian Zionist and longtime Israel resident Shelley Neese weaves an intriguing tale around past and present controversies of piety, politics, faith, fact, and fiction.

Neese notes that “Israel’s health ministry records at least fifty patients a year” suffering from this “Jerusalem Syndrome,” a condition that throws into sharp relief disputes swirling around the Copper Scroll. Discovered in 1952, the scroll is among the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran caves along the Dead Sea beginning in 1947 that revolutionized studies of the Bible and the ancient world. Inscribed on thin copper sheets, the scroll “text screams buried treasure,” Neese writes.

Retired Oklahoma arson investigator Jim Barfield, leader of the Copper Scroll Project (CSP) since 2006, thinks that his interpretation of the scroll will uncover these treasures. In his understanding, the scroll documents nothing less than items rescued from the first Jewish Temple during its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. With the CSP’s tantalizing prospect of giving Biblical revelation tangible evidence, Neese’s “faith had experienced a cerebral revival.”

As Neese elaborates, the

Copper Scroll Project bred a contagious hope among Bible enthusiasts—a hope that the Bible would definitively be proven true.  A hope that laying eyes on the Temple’s lost treasures would restore the faith of all unbelievers. And a hope that Israel, a nation that has known its share of persecution, would, upon receiving remnants of its glorious past be reassured of God’s fidelity to her exceptional covenant.

Yet as Neese discusses, academics such as Robert Cargill have detailed scathing attacks on Barfield’s “sensationalist archeology.” Cargill, for example, denounced Barfield’s “absurd claim” dating the Copper Scroll to the era of the prophet Jeremiah and the first temple’s destruction; all scholarly analysis places the scroll around the first century CE. Cargill noted in 2009 that Israeli antiquity authorities ultimately cut contacts with Barfield, a man with no academic qualifications in archeology or other pertinent fields.

Other individuals appearing in Neese’s book raise similar concerns, such as one American amateur archeologist who illegally explored caves within an Israeli Defense Forces artillery and tank firing range. Equally dismissed by Cargill, Barfield’s onetime mentor Vendyl Jones suggested before his 2010 death that he was the real-life model for the Indiana Jones movie character. Neese writes that Jones “strongly believed that once he recovered the Copper Scroll treasures, the secular and democratic government of Israel would dissolve, and the Sanhedrin would take its rightful governing place.”

Whatever doubts may surround Barfield, such Christian Zionists take sides in conflicts surrounding Israel that are all too real. Neese notes that he once spoke at the Oklahoma state Senate, where several conservative members “expressed their strong hope that a discovery would neutralize the international political pressures placed on Israel.” Many of these pressures concern Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the former site of the first and second Jewish Temple, the latter destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Muslims have dominated the Temple Mount for most of the centuries following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and the wider Holy Land in 638. Umayyad caliphs built the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque on the mount in 691 and 705, respectively. The second Temple’s remaining Western retaining wall (Kotel) emerged as a Jewish prayer site in 1546 during Jerusalem’s four centuries of Ottoman rule (1517-1917). Neese notes that often “local Muslims treated the area as a refuse dump in order to humiliate Jewish worshipers.”

Today, Neese observes, the “glinting Dome dominates panoramic views of the Old City. Five times a day the Muslim crier silences the competing prayers of Jerusalem’s Jews and Christians.” This demonstrates the Dome of the Rock’s purpose “to symbolize Islam’s victory over her Christian and Jewish enemies,” as indicated by the anti-Christian Quran verses inscribed in the building. “The structure was built directly atop the area identified with Solomon’s Temple” and “designed to eclipse the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

Israelis rejoiced when victory in the 1967 Six Day War brought Jerusalem’s Old City with the Temple Mount under Israeli control after Jordanian forces had cruelly occupied the area beginning in Israel’s 1948 war. Although, Neese writes, “Israel annexed the Western Wall and Old City, they feared the righteous indignation of the whole Arab world if they did the same to the Temple Mount.” Thus the Israelis agreed to retain Jordanian Waqf religious authority control over the Mount and prohibit Jewish prayer there. “Six days after the ceasefire, a quarter of a million euphoric Jews congregated at the Western Wall to celebrate Shavuot. A few ignored the warnings and ascended the Temple Mount.”

Neese describes the current Temple Mount status quo such that the

holiest place in the Jewish religion, regrettably, is a hostile environment for Jewish people. On the best of days, non-Muslims are restricted to a two-hour window in the morning and one hour in the afternoon to visit the site. They can access the holy plateau through only one gate while Muslims choose from ten gates. The Waqfcriminalizes non-Muslims for praying, prostrating, dancing, kneeling, or visibly mourning. Torah scrolls or Jewish prayer books are confiscated at the entrance.

Hostility from individual Muslims on the Temple Mount further burdens Jews, Neese adds:

If visitors look overtly Jewish, such as wearing a kippa or menorah necklace, they require an Israeli police escort….If Muslims harass Jews on the Temple Mount, the standard procedure for the patrolling Israeli police is to clear the area of non-Muslim visitors. Their priority is to preserve order and protect public safety, but the consequences are disproportionately shouldered by Jewish worshipers.

While Palestinian authorities and even the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) practice ludicrous “Temple Denial” of any Jewish temple history, Jewish connections to the mount are growing. Despite conflicting rabbinical opinions over whether Jews may enter the Temples’ former area, Neese notes that “Jewish visits nearly doubled from 2009 to 2014” to some 11,000 annually. “A new tradition is developing for Israeli brides and grooms, across the religious spectrum, to visit the holy precinct before their nuptials.”

Accordingly, Neese relates that

Jews are revisiting the debates of 1967 and discussing topics that were once taboo: Is the Temple Mount likely to be transferred to a new Palestinian state in final status negotiations? If the Temple Mount is the preeminent holy site for Jews, why is their worship restricted to one of its retaining walls? Why are Israelis disenfranchised at the site? Since Israel captured the complex in 1967, shouldn’t the state exercise that sovereignty, rather than relinquish it?

These discussions also involve Jewish Temple Mount activists like Yehuda Glick, who have made various proposals to rebuild a Jewish temple despite their explosive implications for Muslims and numerous rabbinical objections. “Rather than emphasizing construction of a Third Temple, a seemingly impossible task,” Neese observes, these activists “are now advocating for a less eschatological cause: unrestricted Jewish access to the Mount and the right to worship.” With these “more peaceable and short-range goals, the call for Jewish civil rights on the Temple Mount is inching toward the mainstream.”

Among the colorful characters and conflicts in Neese’s book, Glick’s beliefs and behaviors are perhaps the least outlandish or outrageous. As one report has noted, Glick is a “gentle and benign man who seems sincerely interested in enabling members of all religions to coexist on the mount” with, for example, Third Temple concepts that would respect existing Muslim structures. Although perhaps nothing less than a miracle can realize his peaceful vision, he tells her in the book that the “Temple Mount will be the source of God’s wisdom to radiate out over all the nations.” Then the Temple Mount “will one day be the ultimate source of peace. Jews, Muslims, and Christians will worship there together…all the nations, even Muslims, will turn to the Jewish people for instruction when they finally realize that God is with us.”

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Hitch Your Reading Shovel

By Arlene Bridges, Juicy Ecumenism —-

Hitch your reading shovel to The Copper Scroll Project and dig into a story about the most renowned treasure hunt in history!  Remembering the excitement of childhood treasure hunts, I eagerly read Shelley Neese’s landmark book, The Copper Scroll Project. Her decade of research and first-hand experience details the most sought-after treasures in world history. The book offers up a resplendent adventure to match wide-ranging interests whether in archeology, Israel and the Middle East, secular or religious history, the Bible, theology, wordsmithing skills, or a captivating mystery.

The Copper Scroll Project is not fiction. The copper scroll itself is an authentic cousin to the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Placed on a cave shelf by ancient hands 2400 years ago, the copper scroll was discovered in 1952 in Qumran, Israel by a French archeologist. The copper artifact is the only one of its kind- not written on leather or papyrus-and not a book or segment of the bible.  Engraved in an early form of Hebrew, the fragile copper scroll is singular in its existence. It’s the most astounding list ever written; a list of tabernacle and Temple artifacts, coins, silver, jewels, and clothing; full of shrouded clues as to their location. And still yet to be discovered.

Since the copper scroll’s discovery in 1952, it has generated countless avenues of scholarly discussion, disagreements, archeological, and financial challenges.  As well, Bible-believing Christians worldwide remain curious and fascinated by the whereabouts of these treasures. Questions abound: Are the treasures scattered or buried across deserts from Israel to Iraq? Did Roman soldiers steal and sell Second Temple artifacts? Are they located in Qumran? Who engraved the copper scrolls? The Copper Scroll Project will answer many of your questions.

Make no mistake though. While Shelley’s research took her to Qumran in the Israeli Judean desert, her book is not a dry, dull archeological treatise.  Shelly’s writing itself is a feast of fresh, descriptive story-telling creating what every reader wants…the kind of book that opens doors to savor each word while holding back the desire to rush excitedly to the next intriguing chapter.

The main character, among others significant to the story, is Jim Barfield, a devoted Christian from Arkansas. He’s a retired fire chief and specializes in forensic investigative work.  Jim’s skills may seem unusual for an archeological pursuit, but reading Shelley’s account of Jim’s undertaking, it makes sense. Jim’s passionate devotion to Israel, professional background, and attention to every miniscule detail has advanced the search for the elusive, profound objects on the copper list.  His quest for the copper scroll is reminiscent of God’s habit of tapping an ordinary Christian on the shoulder giving directions to pursue an extraordinary task.

Some of the additional characters represent another kind of list: top experts in their fields including Henry Wright Baker-Engineering professor at Manchester College, Yaakov Dahan- Director of Qumran, Shuka Dorfman- Head of Israeli Antiquities Authority, and Gabriel Barkay- Israeli Archaeologist in charge of Temple Mount Sifting Project.  Shelley vividly and masterfully writes about each character’s part in Jim’s eight-year journey; an exercise in faith, persistence, sincerity, and obedience to the role God delegated to him.  His journey in life is sure to inspire yours while reading about the lead-up in this book to the greatest discovery yet to be made; holy artifacts that could span history from the Exodus to Babylonian captivity.

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Why was Moses Chosen?

Exodus is the most supernatural book in the Hebrew bible. But it is also the climax, the pinnacle of Israel’s story. All roads in the Torah either lead to the Exodus or link back to the Exodus. Before earth-shaking plagues and parting seas, however, the patriarchs learned of God’s covenant promises through quiet acts like night-time wrestling, star gazing, and angelic visitations. The quiet acts may have been enough to prod the conscious of those sensible to matters of faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The unbreakable imperial Egyptians, on the other hand, required unprecedented signs and punishments that go beyond the explainable.

Still, in all of this, God did not open up the heavens and directly order Pharaoh to let his people go. That message was repeatedly given only through Moses, the intermediary chosen by God. Unlike God’s selection of Abraham, who the Bible gives no backstory, we know why Moses was chosen. Exodus selects specific moments in the Moses biography to present his resume. One key point shines through: Moses was a defender of justice. His every instinct pushed him to fight against oppression. Three times we witness him intervening on the part of the weak.

First, Moses avenged the death of a Hebrew slave by killing the guilty slave master. When he fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh’s retaliation, he defended Jethro’s daughters against greedy shepherds. Moses apparently does not only intervene on behalf of Hebrews, but he stands up to bullies in defense of non-Hebrews as well. Only two chapters into Exodus, Moses checked all the boxes for God’s chosen messenger: defender of the weak and friend of the slave. In short, Moses was a revolutionary.

Moses did not even stop his fight for justice with God. In the fifth chapter of Exodus, Moses challenged God, “why have you brought trouble on your people? I went to speak with Pharaoh. But you have not rescued your people at all.” God responded to Moses in absolute terms. He assured Moses that he heard the cries and groans of the Hebrews. He remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised to lift his mighty arm and set the people free from Egypt. But when Moses delivered this promise to the Hebrews, the Bible says they remained obstinate in their destitution. It says, “They would not listen to him, (Moses) because their spirit had been broken by their cruel slavery.”

And their lies the last reason for Moses’s divine selection. He was a Hebrew. But he was raised in the house of Pharaoh. He never tasted the bitterness of slavery. His spirit was not killed by oppression so he retained the will to fight it. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin says that because Moses was never a slave, he had a different self-image than his kinsmen. It would take the rest of his Hebrew brothers forty years to shake the slave mentality and see themselves as a free people.

Shelley Neese is president of the Jerusalem Connection and author of The Copper Scroll Project.

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Jethro’s Legacy

By Shelley Neese

The 54 weekly Torah readings, or Parashat Hashavua, each get their own title. The titles are commonly derived from the first meaningful word or words in the text. Mostly, the titles translate to unrevealing phrases like “And he called,” “Elevate!” or “Send for yourself.” Only five sections are named for biblical characters. In the fifth reading of Exodus, that rare privilege goes to Jethro: a non-Israelite, the father-in-law of Moses, and the priest of Midian.

The Jethro Torah portion (Yitro in Hebrew) covers Exodus 18:1 to 20:23. The section begins where Pharaoh ends. The Israelites are encamped opposite Mount Sinai, gathering their daily portions of manna and quail. As they enter their seventh week of freedom, God is about to call them into covenant as a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” God’s people—His “treasured possession”—are primed and ready to receive their foundational laws. But before the earth-shaking events of Sinai, Exodus takes a pause to expose a hiccup in Moses’ leadership style and detail the recipe for its correction.

Jethro is the father of Moses’ wife Zipporah. Jethro is first introduced in the Bible when Moses escapes Egypt and flees to Midian—somewhere in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The justice-driven prophet Moses instinctively defends Jethro’s daughters from rowdy shepherds, even though he is on the run from Egyptian law. Grateful, Jethro opens his home to Moses, despite his refugee status, and gives him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. Moses lives in Midian and works as a shepherd for 40 years. When Moses hears from God through the burning bush, he first consults Jethro. Jethro understands and supports Moses’ return to Egypt, despite his leaving behind Zipporah and his children.

When Pharaoh and the mighty Egyptian army are humiliated by a group of monotheistic slaves, news quickly spreads throughout the land of the accompanying plagues and miracles. Jethro hears the rumors and sends word to Moses that he is coming to their wilderness encampment. He brought with him Zipporah and Moses’ two sons.

The Bible says nothing about Moses’ reunion with his wife or sons. However, Moses kneels before his revered father-in-law. He escorts him into his tent and relays all the details of the Israelites’ safe passage out of Egypt. Jethro listens and proclaims, “Now, I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly.” Jethro was so moved that he offered a sacrifice to God. Aaron and the 70 elders of Israel shared a meal with Jethro; the Bible notes that the presence of God was there in the tent.

The next day Jethro observes Moses in his daily role of judge over all the Israelites. Moses hears the disputes between the people from morning to evening. Jethro, a seasoned leader of his own tribe, perceives that Moses is leading without delegating. He is destined to wear himself out. Jethro, acting as an executive consultant, specifies the judicial system necessary for such a large group of people. He advises Moses to appoint a hierarchy of wise elders to hear minor disputes. The major issues are reserved for Moses. Moses chooses capable men from all Israel and makes them officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

In the first chapter of Deuteronomy, the Torah repeats the invention of the Israelite judicial system again, with the same organizational details. In Deuteronomy, however, the idea comes directly from God after hearing Moses complain of his workload. No mention is made of Jethro. So why would the Exodus account give credit to Jethro and the Deuteronomy account omit the role of a Midianite?

The author’s omission in Deuteronomy likely has something to do with the fact that the Israelites’ relationship with the Midianites grew complicated. Intermarriage with Midianites brought idolatry into the Israelite camp. In Moses’ last battle, he severely punished the Midianites for their corruptive influence. Hundreds of years later, Gideon and his undersized army put a final end to Midianite attack. Attributing the invention of Israel’s judicial system to the leader of an enemy people was likely an unsettling detail. The fact that Jethro’s contribution is preserved in Exodus gives immense credit to the reliability of that oral tradition.

Today, in Israel, there is a non-Jewish minority group, the Druze, who identify as descendants of Jethro. Jethro is not only regarded as their ancestor but also their chief prophet and spiritual founder. The Druze people number around 120,000; they mostly live in hillside villages in northern Israel. The larger Druze community crosses over the borders into Syria and Lebanon and edges towards one million. Ethnically, they are Arab. Strict monotheists, the Druze religion is secretive and difficult to label, but it blends Greek thought with Islamic ideas, although they do not identify as Muslim. Druze men are easily recognizable by their mustaches, puffy pants and white turbans. Famous for their hospitality, Druze do not proselytize and their texts are secretive, so questions about the religion often go unanswered to outsiders.

The traditional tomb of Jethro, in Tiberias overlooking the Sea of Galilee, is the holiest site for Druze. Every year, on April 25, Druze assemble in the courtyard at the tomb of their chief prophet to arrange their community affairs. The Druze religion opposes pilgrimages, but the April festivities have a certain pilgrimage quality to them. The Druze community officially broke with Arab nationalism when Sunni Muslims tried to seize the venerated tomb. From then on, the majority of Israeli Druze have fiercely attached their future to the democratic Jewish state. Israel, in turn, recognizes the Druze as a protected religious community.

Since 1948, Druze soldiers have fought alongside Jewish Israelis, and died, in every one of Israel’s wars. Druze today have disproportionately high numbers in the most elite combat units. They hold high positions in Israel’s government. They cross party lines in the Knesset. On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Druze police are charged with maintaining law and order. Their presence is seen as less provocative than having Jewish police on the sacred site.

Jewish and Druze soldiers say they are bound by a “covenant of blood.” The blood covenant reflects their belief that Jethro is their progenitor. Therefore, they too, in their own reincarnated beliefs, are descendants of Abraham. Midian was one of the five children Abraham had with his second wife, Keturah.

In 2014, rabbis and students stood reciting their morning prayers in a Jerusalem synagogue when Palestinian terrorists wielding knives and axes burst into the room. In their frenzied murdering spree, they killed four rabbis. Bloodied tefillin and prayer books scattered over the floor. The first responder was a Druze traffic officer, Sergeant Zidan Saif. Saif rushed into the synagogue alone and engaged the terrorists in a gun battle. Eyewitnesses said that because of Saif’s bravery, the terrorists were prevented from moving upstairs where there were even more worshippers. Saif later died from his wounds.

Saif’s funeral was held in his Galilee hometown. He left behind a young wife and baby girl. Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in buses traveled the 95 miles from Jerusalem to attend the funeral of the slain officer who came to their defense. Thousands of Druze were present. The two tight-knit communities from the extreme opposite poles of the religious spectrum reached out of their own comfort zones and grieved as one. A flood of white turbans converged with a wave of black hats: a covenant of blood.

For those who follow the story of modern day Israel, it often feels as if new chapters of the Bible are being written right now. It is not difficult to imagine a scribe, chronicling how the 21st-century descendants of Jethro now fight as protectors of the same justice system that their great ancestor once helped create. Jethro’s legacy lives on.

Shelley Neese is the President of The Jerusalem Connection and author of The Copper Scroll Project.

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The Temple Mount and Mentos

By Shelley Neese

Over the last seven years, Jewish visits to the Temple Mount have increased from a paltry 2,000 visitors in 2004 to 30,000 in 2018. While that uptick pales in comparison to the numbers of Jews who pray at the Western Wall, it is a real and noticeable shift in what Israel calls the Status Quo. The Western Wall is for Jewish worship and the Temple Mount is for Muslim worship.

Whatever the motivation for increased numbers of Jews visiting the Mount, be it curiosity or religious piety, the shifting demographics on the Temple Mount have created significant Palestinian agitation. As recent history has proven: episodic reigns of Palestinian terror are best incentivized by rumors of Jewish plots to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

From September 2000 to November 2003, during the Second Intifada—also called the Al-Aqsa Intifada—the Temple Mount was closed to Jews. The official Palestinian line was that Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Mount provoked a spontaneous Palestinian uprising. That narrative worked, but only by ignoring Yasser Arafat’s ready-made army of suicide bombers. His cry for Al-Aqsa was a diversion to cover his own hand in signaling a violent escalation.

When the Temple Mount reopened to non-Muslim visitors, public perception in Israel slowly shifted. A growing minority of religious Israelis expressed a desire to reconnect with this preeminent place in their religion. In cafés from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Jews revisited the debates of 1967 and discussed topics that once were taboo. Is the Temple Mount likely to be transferred to a new Palestinian state in final status negotiations? If the Temple Mount is the preeminent holy site for Jews, why are Israelis disenfranchised at the site? Since Israel captured the complex in 1967, shouldn’t the state exercise that sovereignty, rather than relinquish it?

As more religious Jews began to ascend the Temple Mount during limited timeframes allotted to them, tensions over the sacred space increased, reaching a critical climax in 2014. The ripple effects of those waters have still not settled. During the Jewish High Holidays in 2014, Hamas and other terrorist groups prepared for the encroachment of Jewish visitors by improvising barricades and stocking up on small explosives. The Temple Mount became, figuratively and almost literally, a powder keg.

The Israeli police altered their tactics for dealing with the Palestinian incitement. Anyone under the age of fifty was prohibited from ascending the esplanade. In order to allow limited Jewish entry on one of the holy days, the police used anti-riot equipment to detain Muslim extremists inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch explained the unprecedented act to reporters: “If the Jews cannot go up to the Mount, the Muslims will not go up to the Mount.” In a fiery speech, President Abbas proclaimed that the Jews had no right to enter the Temple Mount and desecrate it. To protect the site from sacrilege, he ordered an onslaught of Palestinians to seize the site and repel the “herds of cattle” by all means.

For the following month, a fit of terror overtook Jerusalem’s streets. Rogue Palestinian motorists used their accelerators as weapons, mowing down Israeli soldiers and pedestrians on sidewalks, including a three-month-old baby girl in her stroller. A rash of terrorists pulled knives on unarmed Jews at bus stops and city streets. On November 18, two Palestinians from East Jerusalem—armed with guns, axes, and meat cleavers—entered a Jerusalem synagogue and murdered four rabbis conducting their morning prayers. Photographs of bloodied tefillin penetrated the Jewish collective conscience. Ten days later, Sheik Omar Abu Sara, during a spontaneous sermon in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, called on Allah to hasten the slaughtering of Jews without mercy. Referring to Israelis as monkeys and pigs, he commanded his followers to halt the Jewish advance on Haram al-Sharif, the Arabic name for the Temple Mount.

Although Netanyahu deployed emergency measures to quell the spasmodic violence taking over the capital, in a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Netanyahu promised that Israel retained its long-term policies toward the Temple Mount. Netanyahu promised every world leader put in his path that the Status Quo held firm.

On July 14, 2017, three armed Israeli-Arabs approached the Lions’ Gate and opened fire on Israeli police, killing two officers and injuring two others. When it became clear that these terrorists received help from the Waqf in hiding their submachine guns on the Temple Mount, Israel installed metal detectors and security cameras on the Temple Mount by the Muslim entrances. Previously, only non-Muslims were required to pass through metal detectors. The entire Muslim world convulsed over the new security measures and a week-long bloody standoff ensued. Israel’s security cabinet capitulated and the metal detectors were dismantled, so as to keep the Status Quo.

Fast forward to the eve of April 2019 elections in Israel. The Waqf, the Islamic trust given charge of the Mount since 1967, is openly challenging Israel over the Temple Mount in a brazen attempt to provoke another round of violence. Last week, Islamic officials unilaterally declared the area by the Golden Gate a new outdoor mosque, the fifth mosque on the Temple Mount. When Israeli police didn’t take their shoes off in the impromptu mosque, images of a uniformed Israeli desecrating the faux mosque were shared on social media. The shrill outcry prompted a fire-bomb attack on the Israeli police station on the Temple Mount. Do these actions comply with the Status Quo?

My favorite science experiment as a child, since popularized on Youtube, involves a liter of Diet Coke and a roll of Mentos, flavored mints. Open the lid and drop in a tablet of Mentos. Seconds later a volcanic burst of carbonation will launch skyward. The experiment works without fail, as long as the Diet Coke bottle is freshly opened and Mentos are on hand. The Temple Mount will always be a terrorist’s tool for chaos. It will always be the Mentos that Palestinian leaders drop into the bottle when no one is looking. Their chaotic version of the Status Quo involves organized harassment punctuated by calculated explosions.

If Israelis leave the Temple Mount alone and accept the Status Quo, Muslims will say the Jews never had a claim to the Temple Mount in the first place. Recall Yasser Arafat’s claim that there was never a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. If more and more Israelis continue to visit the Temple Mount, they are accused of an incendiary plot to destroy Al-Aqsa. All they need is a Jewish woman holding a prayer book or a Jewish man wearing a kippa for the Waqf to claim the Jews are desecrating Haram al-Sharif.

In a letter to Netanyahu in 2014, a former Member of the Knesset responded to what he understood as the Prime Minister’s flawed commitment to the Status Quo. He wrote, “Israel has been deceiving itself into thinking that it can manage the height of the flames on the Temple Mount without restoring its control there.” That message rings even louder five years later.

The Status Quo is not sacred. The Temple Mount is sacred. It is not a roll of Mentos.

Shelley Neese is author of The Copper Scroll Project and President of The Jerusalem Connection.

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Wall Street Journal and the Dead Sea Scrolls

By Shelley Neese

Archbishop Mar Samuel, head of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem, was one of the first to purchase Dead Sea Scrolls off the black market. Unlike the other scroll dealers, Mar Samuel didn’t like dealing directly with Israelis. To him, all Jews were representatives of the enemy nation.

Mar Samuel brought the scrolls to America to try and secure a western buyer. Despite the intense interest in the ancient Hebrew scrolls, universities and museums were hesitant to make the purchase. Frustrated and out of options, Mar Samuel published an advertisement on page fourteen of the Wall Street Journal: “Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 B.C. are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group.” As fate would have it, the Israeli archaeologist and army General Yigal Yadin was in New York giving a lecture the day the ad appeared. Yadin was the son of Professor Eleazar Sukenik, the very scholar who Mar Samuel had refused in negotiations over the manuscripts.

Combining his experience as an intelligence operator and utilizing his connections in the world of academia, Yadin arranged for a Jewish American professor to assume a fake (gentile) identity, meet with Mar Samuel to authenticate the scrolls, and then surreptitiously purchase the scrolls—collectively known as the Dead Sea Scrolls—on behalf of Israel for 250,000 dollars. As an extra precaution, they were flown back to the Jewish nation on three separate airplanes.

And that is how it’s done.

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The Scapegoat and Atonement

By Shelley Neese

In 69 CE, Roman legions circled the walls of Jerusalem, poised to attack. Nervous Jewish factions fought among each other, clashing over the best way to prevent a violent end to their four-year rebellion. Amidst the turmoil, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar approached, Yom Kippur. On this day, nothing was more important for the white-robed High Priest than flawlessly following the liturgy for the Sabbath of the Sabbaths. The strict emphasis on the ceremonial details is reflected in Jewish oral tradition: “Every act of Yom Kippur is done in order; an act done out of order is invalid” (Mishnah 5:7). The stakes were high: the fifteen animal sacrifices, performed throughout the day, made atonement for all of Israel.

The day’s sanctity required a unique, and admittedly mysterious, order of service involving two goats. We know much about the Azazel Goat ceremony because of the biblical requirements carefully outlined in Leviticus 16. Other post-biblical traditions rose up around Yom Kippur over the centuries and were codified in rabbinic and historical texts. One geographic aspect of the two-goat ceremony, however, has been lost to history.

Leviticus instructs that on Yom Kippur, also called the Day of Atonement, Aaron the High Priest was to ritually bathe and dress in his priestly linen garments. Next, he sacrificed a young bullock as a sin offering for himself and his household. Aaron then brought two goats—similar in size and appearance—to the entrance of the Tabernacle. Lots were cast to determine the fate of each goat. One lot was inscribed “to Yahweh” and the other said “to Azazel.” When the priest pronounced the hallowed name, nearby worshipers bowed to the ground and responded: “Blessed be the Name; the glory of His kingdom is forever and ever.” The goat designated “to Yahweh” was slain, while the Azazel goat was escorted into the wilderness and released. We get the English word “scapegoat” from a basic misunderstanding of this goat’s purpose and fate.

On every other day of sacrifice, the priest confessed the sins of the people over the animal to be placed on the altar. On Yom Kippur, however, the goat designated for Yahweh was sacrificed without the confession ritual. Instead, Aaron laid both hands on the live goat’s head and declared the sins of the nation. Concurrently, the dispatched goat was led by someone “appointed to the task” to a remote place in the wilderness. Little else is known about the Yom Kippur Tabernacle ritual. The difficult-to-interpret word Azazel is only used in this section of Leviticus and nowhere else in the entire Bible. Many Hebrew scholars contend that the word derives from a Hebrew verb “azal” which means “to go away.” The rarity of the word was in some traditions interpreted as a proper name. The ancient book of Enoch, for example, refers to a fallen angel named Azazel who is blamed for the proliferation of weapons.

The collection of Jewish oral traditions, known as the Mishnah, provides additional insight into the details of the Yom Kippur service from the Second Temple period. The Yom Kippur goats were sold on the same day for the same price at the eastern gate of the Temple. The lots described in Leviticus were pulled out of an urn. The high priest prepared the goat assigned to Yahweh to be ritually sacrificed on the Temple altar. A piece of scarlet thread was tied around the goat’s neck. The veil to the Holy of Holies was pulled back and the high priest entered the sanctuary alone. He carried a bowl of the goat’s blood and sprinkled it along the edge of the curtain and on the altar of incense. This was the only day of the year that the high priest was admitted into the Holy of Holies.

For the Azazel goat, the priest tied a scarlet thread around its horns. While the multitude watched, the high priest placed his hands on the live goat, repeated the holy name of God, and imparted Judah’s iniquity onto the goat on behalf of the people. The congregants petitioned God with their own prayers. A person specially appointed for the task escorted the goat out of Jerusalem, through the eastern gate and toward the Mount of Olives. Ten stations were set up along the way, marking the path for the escort and goat. Accompanied by Jerusalem notables, the escort was offered food at each station, but he ceremonially turned down replenishment.

Once the priest reached a certain destination at a high cliff in the Judean wilderness, a portion of the scarlet thread was removed and tied to a nearby rock. The sin-burdened goat was pushed off a precipice to its death. A series of waving flags telegraphed the completion of the task back to the priests waiting in the Temple. The witnesses anxiously awaited a report from the priest who inspected the thread. If the thread turned white, the thread symbolized the forgiveness of their sins. If the thread remained scarlet, it meant God had withheld his atonement. The tradition is connected to scriptural imagery of sins being washed away, like in Psalms 51 and the Isaiah prophecy: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” For a period in Israel’s Second Temple history, when the Temple priest was well known for his righteousness, the Talmud reports that the thread always turned white. But for the last forty years of the Temple’s existence, the thread each year remained scarlet. The Temple was destroyed and the Yom Kippur rites as delineated in the Bible ended.

While Jerusalem was center stage for the ceremonial drama, the day’s events also featured a side stage, somewhere in the Judean wilderness. But where exactly?

Though rabbinic sources provide details for the order of the expiatory service, the exact destination of the Azazel goat is long forgotten. What we do know, according to the Mishnah, is that the goat had to be escorted five sabbath’s days’ journey (approximately twelve miles) outside of Jerusalem to the wilderness of “Tsuk.” Talmudists describe it as a “rough and rocky place.” The escort walked with the leashed goat across the Kidron Valley and continued to the east to a predetermined cliff in the Judean wilderness where the goat was pushed into a ravine.

The Mishnah’s reference to the desert of Tsuk is not found in biblical sources. The only other source that uses the place name Tsuk is the Copper Scroll, an ancient treasure map inscribed on copper and found in a cave near Qumran with other Dead Sea Scrolls. It cites Tsuk twice for two different burial locations. In both cases, the location is described as “the mouth of the Tsuk.”

According to Jim Barfield, an Oklahoma arson investigator

Was Qumran the ultimate destination for the Azazel goat? Were the Essenes, the presumed inhabitants of the compound, the witnesses to the culminating rite for the Yom Kippur ceremony? The suggestion is certainly tantalizing.

The high priest in 70 CE had no idea that, in short order, the Temple would be up in flames. Being a priest and not a prophet, he did not know he was the last to officiate the divine ordinances on Yom Kippur. He could not have fathomed how Judaism would have to forever redefine the sacred day’s rituals. With no Temple, Jewish focus would shift to rigorous fasting, prayer, and synagogue services.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection provide the means for my atonement. I know that because of the language and ideas set forth in the Jewish rituals and the Hebrew Bible. Without the Levitical explanations of Yom Kippur, and the Jewish teachings of substitutionary sacrifice as a means of communion with God, I would have no context for the salvific qualities of Christ’s shed blood. In case the Messianic overtones of the Yom Kippur service were lost on Gentile believers, the writer of Hebrews spelled it out. Describing the animal sacrifices conducted in the Tabernacle, Hebrews states, “the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Hebrews concludes that if the blood of goats and bulls sanctified the children of Israel year after year, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

The Azazel goat, without blemish of its own, was a tool of annual intercession that allowed for the symbolic removal of sin to rejoin God to his people. The High Priest, on the eve of the Temple’s destruction, performed the last official sacrifice on the Temple Mount. For Christians, the final atoning sacrifice happened forty years earlier when the death and resurrection of the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world. That is the ultimate promise of Yom Kippur.

Shelley Neese is President of The Jerusalem Connection and the author of The Copper Scroll Project: An Ancient Secret Fuels the Battle for the Temple Mount.

 

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Martin Luther, Revisited

At 34 years of age, the Martin Luther of 1517 was a little known Augustinian monk plagued by thoughts of his own sins and failings.

Luther, in his own words, suffered from an “extremely disturbed conscience.” When his private meditations on the scriptures revealed to him that righteousness was a gift from God, born out of grace through faith in Jesus, he was relieved from his own damnation, but convinced more than ever that he had to work to eradicate false doctrine.

The Ninety-Five Theses is credited for sparking the Protestant Reformation. However when Luther nailed the Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, his intention was merely to hold a public scholarly debate on the commercialization of the Church by its selling of indulgences.

In the rapid succession of events that followed, Luther was propelled from challenging Church practices to condemning the Church itself. Aided by the rise of the printing press, the prolific writings of Luther spread like a firestorm throughout Europe to a growingly literate public starved for teaching. In 1521 Luther was summoned to trial by Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. Asked if he was willing to recant and retract his opinions on the Catholic Church, Luther famously replied, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”

With this rebuttal, Protestantism – the Christian doctrine to which I have always subscribed – was born.

LUTHER AND THE JEWS

As a Protestant, I have tortured feelings regarding the person of Martin Luther.

Luther must be credited for the revolution in Christianity that brought the Bible back to center stage. His eloquent teachings on salvation and justification may be taken for granted today but they were nothing short of earth-shattering in 16th-century Europe.

However, Luther had many personal shortcomings.

A hypochondriac known for his hot temper and manic behavior, Mark A. Noll in his book Turning Points writes, “it is not for propriety or diffidence that Luther is remembered in the history of Christianity.”

However, it is Luther’s hateful teachings on the Jews that forever blacken his name, tainting his Reformation success.

In the earlier years of his life, Martin Luther condemned the Catholic Church for its treatment of the Jews and deemed Jewish obstinacy toward conversion as reasonable given their torturous treatment at the hands of the papacy. In his article “Jesus Christ was born a Jew,” written in 1523, Luther sympathized with Jewish history, saying, “if I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian.”

Because of statements like these and his love for Hebrew, Luther’s Catholic enemies accused him of being a crypto-Jew trying to destroy the papacy.

Luther, no doubt, believed that a Reformed Christianity stripped of false doctrine and bound to the Scriptures would attract Jews to convert voluntarily. He often protested against forced conversion. He defended Jewish integrity saying, “the Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it proper to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than we.” At some point, Luther even met with Jewish apologists to explain his interpretation of certain Old Testament messianic passages. When they refused to accept his exegesis over their Talmud, Luther refused to ever meet with Jewish leaders again.

When Jewish converts never materialized and Jews were no more inclined to Protestantism than Catholicism, Luther’s views changed radically. A disillusioned Luther became a loudspeaker for the world’s most ancient hatred. He began preaching violent anti-Semitic rants, publishing five treatises on the subject. In 1543, three years before he died, Luther wrote On the Jews and their Lies. Luther was known for a coarse writing style – a style popularized in that century with its many pamphlets – but this paper went to new depths and can arguably be called the first popular work of modern anti-Semitism.

He warned Christians to be on their guard against Jews since in their synagogues “nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously.” Luther claimed the Jews had sunk into “abysmal, devilish, hellish, insane baseness, envy, and arrogance.” He said they were “full of the devil’s feces” and the synagogue was an “evil slut.” He went on with such poisonous rhetoric for 65,000 words.

Luther called on princes and nobles to burn down synagogues and Jewish schools, raze Jewish homes, forbid Jewish teaching or texts, confiscate Jewish wealth, and expel Jews from Germany. He at one point even regrets their survival: “we are at fault in not slaying them.” Luther’s last words ever spoken from a pulpit was a declaration that if Jews refused to convert “we should neither tolerate nor suffer their presence in our midst!” Going beyond mere suggestions, Luther was complicit in driving Jewish citizens from Germany where he could.

It’s difficult not to read Luther’s invective – calling Jews “poisonous envenomed worms” – as a blueprint for the Nazi Final Solution which came four centuries later. British historian Paul Johnson said Luther provided “a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust.”

Luther’s biographers offer various explanations to justify his radical shift from praising the Jewish contribution to Christianity to calling for their expulsion from Germany. Reformation historian Heiko Oberman in his book Luther: Man between God and the Devil paints a portrait of a man who could work himself up into a tirade about almost any subject, from papists to lawyers to Turks. Analyzing his diatribes against the Jews, Oberman believes Luther was against Jews from a theological standpoint – hating them for their alleged heresy – but not anti-Semitic in the modern racial sense. Either way, Luther’s hatred fits the general definition of anti-Semitism as an irrational hatred of Jews.

Some of Luther’s defenders dismiss his late-term Jewish obsession as a result of his many maladies. Historian Mark U. Edwards claims the increasing vitriol in Luther’s later writings directly matches the deterioration of his health. At best, this defense only tries to clear his name by pleading insanity.

Many scholars have written on the relationship between Luther’s writings and the Nazis’ racial anti- Semitism, a task which fills volumes as one must account for the vast changes in political and religious life in Germany over four centuries. Without recapitulating those contents, the general consensus is that the writings of Luther stoked the flames of anti-Semitism early in Germany’s history. At the very least they provided ready-made propaganda to warrant Hitler’s program of Jewish annihilation.

Though On the Jews and their Lies had been dormant for 200 years, the Nazis resurrected Luther’s texts for their own purposes, displaying them during Nuremberg rallies. Hitler’s education minister, Bernhard Rust, claimed Luther as a German nationalist, saying “I think the time is past when one may not say the names of Hitler and Luther in the same breath. They belong together; they are of the same old stamp.”

Pastors in Germany’s Lutheran churches during the 1940s invoked Luther’s teachings to turn even racially Jewish Christians away at their doors. In one of his speeches, Hitler himself described a new German religion: “I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later – once we hold power – Christianity will be overcome and the German Church established. Yes, the German church, without a pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing.”

An anachronism, to be sure, but those coarse words still make this Protestant cringe with wonder.

Although the fact that Nazis fostered a secular racism is a redundancy worth continually repeating, the earliest seeds of Jew hatred go back deep in Christian history.

Hitler, crediting his own Catholic faith, once noted, “I am moving back toward the time in which a 1,500-year-long tradition was implemented – and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service.”

However, what the Reformation’s tainted history proves is that the roots of the Holocaust reach deep into the Catholic and Protestant traditions.

In their book Why the Jews? Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin note, “it is instructive that the Holocaust was unleashed by the only major country in Europe having approximately equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants.” Both faiths share the blame for breeding a culture of anti-Semitism that readied the majority of Christian eyes to go blind when it came to the Nazi roundups of their Jewish neighbors.

THE REFORMATION AND THE JEWS

In the short term, Luther and the shakeup of the Reformation had a negative effect for the Jews of Germany and Europe. In the wake of the 16th century’s religious upheaval came political and geographical changes and the birth of German nationalism. The German nobility quickly rallied to Luther’s aid with the aim of throwing off Rome’s heavy hand altogether.

Luther believed the alliance to be beneficial in that the nobility could use their positions to assist with Church reform.

Jews were forced to show their hand and pick a side: Emperor Charles V and his imperial army or the German nobility with their Protestant patron. They choose to provide the emperor with money and supplies because of his recent acts of protecting them against expulsion. After the German nobility’s victory over the Holy Roman Empire, the Jews were left on the losing side and labeled enemies of the state.

In the long term, however, the Reformation in many ways benefited the Jews – if for no other reason than that it divided the house of Christendom. The Reformation in Germany spawned a radically new Christian religion and unintentionally that breakaway movement splintered off into other separate movements (Calvinism being the prime example).

In general, anti-Semitism did not plague the English, Dutch, or Swiss Reformations the same way it did German Lutheranism. Second generation Reformer John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli never articulated a Luther-like theology towards the Jews. Even so, the most promising effect for the Church’s most ancient enemy was the eradication of a universal Christian church and the beginning of secular government freed from Church control. In Johnson’s tome The History of the Jews, he says that the breakup of the monolithic unity in Europe “ended the exposed isolation of the Jews as the only nonconformist group.”

Jews also stood to benefit from the Protestants’ emphasis on Scripture, all of it. These Protestants wanted to bring Christianity back to the point where they believed everything went wrong and set it aright.

This meant casting aside the rituals and hierarchy of Catholicism and reinterpreting the New Testament through the lens of the Hebrew Scriptures. Increasingly literate laypeople were consuming with enthusiasm the stories of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and prophets.

Jewish practices and beliefs became less foreign as Protestants celebrated the Biblical narrative which was now available to them in their own language.

Within Protestantism a subset of scholars arose that although not totally philo-Semitic at least felt there was something to learn from the Hebrew roots of Christianity. Johannes Reuchlin and Andreas Osiander – scholars whose tradition I more closely follow – are prime examples. To read the Hebrew Scriptures in their original language and historical context, Hebraists (as these Christians came to be known) solicited the teaching of rabbis and Jewish theologians.

Rejecting the Holy See’s traditional interpretations, they wanted to find the lost meanings of the Bible.

Some of these Hebraists – like the Anabaptists – went so far as to adopt certain Jewish laws, like circumcision and the Sabbath of rest. For this, Protestantism was accused by Catholics as being a Jewish movement.

Luther was horrified to find the extent to which some of his followers were taking their Old Testament studies. He worried that these Christians were vulnerable to Jewish proselytizing and already contaminated by Jewish thought. In reaction he wrote in 1538 Against the Sabbatarians, where he gave his scriptural argument for why God had “forsaken” the Jews. He also said that it was reasonable to assume that for the 1,500 years since Jesus, God had paid the Law “no heed.” After Luther published Against the Sabbatarians, he vowed “to write no more either about the Jews or against them.” How I wish that the principal architect of Protestantism paid heed to his own advice.

Some Protestants choose to highlight Luther’s earliest writings where he defends and affirms the Jews. They ignore his later writings, dismissing them as a product of his old age or worsening mental defects. Many have simply never heard about the monk-turned-reformer’s position on the Jews, and once confronted are tempted to defend the early Luther and reject the later. It is for those Christians that I am writing.

The reality is that Luther’s anti-Semitism can’t simply be ignored or dismissed on account of his perceived senility. The haunting persistence of his end-of-life diatribes were the putrid Protestant fertilizer that allowed the roots of anti-Semitism to thrive in 20th-century German soil. We, Protestants, must accept Luther’s Jewish theology for what it was and reject it for what it isn’t: anything resembling the loving essence of the Christian faith founded by a Jewish messiah.

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UNESCO’s Folly

In October 2016, UNESCO’s executive board ratified a resolution that attempted to erase 3,000 years of Jewish religious history in Jerusalem.

The resolution was drafted by Jordan and submitted by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan — with the enthusiastic support of the Palestinian Authority, a full member of UNESCO since 2011.

The central aim of the resolution was to formalize criticism of Israel’s conduct in Jerusalem. It referred to Israel as the “occupying power” and blamed the Jewish state for the spike in violence in the region.

Condemnation of alleged Israeli aggression has long been a standard talking point in the United Nations; that alone did not set off any alarms. What disturbed Israelis about the UNESCO resolution was that it made Jerusalem’s Holy Basin an exclusively Islamic prerogative. By only referring to the Temple Mount by its Arabic name “Al-Haram al-Sharif,” the resolution’s language severed ties between Judaism and the Temple Mount. The Western Wall was reduced to Al-Buraq Plaza — the place where Muhammad tethered his horse.

In the resolution, the Arabic name was only twice followed by the Western Wall’s Hebrew name; but when that happened, it was placed in quotation marks — a grammatical detail that Israelis took as direct belittling of Judaism’s linkage to the site.

The resolution made no mention of the Jewish temples that stood at the site for a thousand years, or the next 2,000 years of continuous Jewish attachment to Jerusalem. Only once did the drafters soften their bias by making a generalized reference to the importance of the Old City and its walls to “the three monotheistic religions.”

The resolution also accused Israel of restricting Muslim worship on the Temple Mount and inciting violence. Yet no mention was made of the ban on Jewish worship or the regular assaults on Jewish visitors to the site. The same week as the vote, two Israelis were killed in Jerusalem by a Palestinian man on a rampage with a knife.

Twenty-four countries voted in favor of the resolution, 26 abstained, and six countries voted against it, including the US, UK, and Germany.

It was considered a diplomatic victory in Israel that the 33 countries that originally supported the draft resolution dropped to 24. France and Spain’s abstentions were especially appreciated. Even the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, made statements after the vote that reflected her disapproval. In her official statement, she said, “To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified the Temple Mount’s inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list.”

Bokova received death threats from Islamic terrorists shortly after her statement.

The UNESCO resolution was more than a public insult. It raised the stakes in the battle over the Temple Mount. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied UNESCO’s authority to rewrite human history. He stated, “These distortions of history are only reserved for the Jews. Does anyone claim that the pyramids in Giza have no connection to the Egyptians? That the Acropolis in Athens has no connection to the Greeks? That the Coliseum in Rome has no connection to the Italians? It is ridiculous to try and sever the connection between the Temple Mount and the Jewish people.”

And Israelis refused to cower and lick their wounds. Two days after the ratification of the resolution, 50,000 Jews gathered at the Western Wall to receive the blessing recited annually during Sukkot. A record number of Israelis — 3,000 in three weeks — also ascended the Temple Mount, including IDF soldiers in uniform. The message was clear: Jerusalem is the center-point of the Jewish faith; its holy places are not the exclusive domain of Islam.

Since UNESCO’s public insult, Jewish visits to the Temple Mount remain historically high. Though the drafters of the UNESCO resolution tried to abuse an international body to sever the ties between Judaism and the Temple Mount, the results have had the opposite effect, at least for Israelis.

One year ago, Donald Trump announced that the United States was pulling its membership from UNESCO and canceling the $80 million that we paid in dues each year. In fact, even under Obama, the US had withheld its dues since 2011 because of a US law passed in the 1990s that allowed our country to withhold American funding to any international institution that unilaterally recognized an independent Palestinian state. That meant that we owed $500 million to UNESCO in back dues. President Trump declined the bill.

This, however, hasn’t stopped UNESCO’s anti-Israel aggression.

UNESCO has most recently gone after Hebron and Bethlehem. On October 10 of last year, UNESCO’s executive board adopted two resolutions labeling the two holy cities as Palestinian. Praising their consensus-building efforts, current UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay proudly endorsed the outcome as a result of UNESCO’s ability to “foster international dialogue and cooperation” and “show goodwill.”

Is it any wonder why Israel joined the US and formally severed ties with UNESCO? The Psalmist said it best: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.”

Note: My article was originally published in Algemeiner.

Shelley Neese is President of The Jerusalem Connection International and author of the new book The Copper Scroll Project: An Ancient Secret Fuels the Battle for the Temple Mount, available at your local book store and Amazon.

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Christmas Carols

Last week, I talked about the story of Hanukkah. In general, my goal is always to impart knowledge of Jewish feasts, festivals, traditions, and commentary to Christians who are trying to dig deeper into the Bible and to understand the Jewishness of their Messiah and the roots of their own faith practices.

However, right now, Christmas is upon us. I want to be sure that I am not just the Zionist who references all things Jewish and looks over the Christian holidays. I am a Christian and I believe the story of Jesus’s birth, life, and death is a life-giving theology with transformative power.

On Sunday night, I went to an evening of caroling at my church. We sang all of the carols that you may expect. I am pretty tone deaf so I prefer a good group sing where my own voice can be drowned out by the sound of other talented singers.

To me, the climax of the evening came with two songs: O Come, O Come Emmanuel and O Holy Night. These are the two carols that hit me like a ton of bricks.

In my family, we do advent and each week as we light a new candle in the advent wreath, we add another verse to the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. By the end of advent, we are singing all four verses.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel is the carol to me that pulsates with Messianic hope; it encapsulates the anticipation for the Messiah that runs throughout the prophets. It threads the promises of the Old Testament and blends them into the New. We sing the words of Isaiah, “O Come Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s Tyranny.” In subsequent meters, Jesus is referred to as the “Dayspring from on high”; the “Key of David” that opens wide our heavenly home, and to “Adonai, the Lord of Might, who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height gave the law in cloud and majesty and awe.”

I love how the song paints the picture so beautifully of what Jesus was tasked to do as the long awaited, although little recognized, Messiah of the Jewish people. I appreciate the way the song honors the law given at Sinai.

I picture a song like this being so similar to the way Jesus chose to announce the beginning of his own ministry. In Luke 4, Jesus was in Nazareth and read from the prophecies of Isaiah in his hometown synagogue. Referencing the year of Jubilee, the cancellation of debts and the liberation of slaves, Jesus proclaims it the year of the Lord’s favor.

And then there is O Holy Night. Has there ever been a Christmas poem that so perfectly encapsulates the beauty of God’s redemptive plan? The music was composed by a Frenchmen in the 1800s and John Sullivan Dwight wrote the English lyrics that we sing today.

I love the verses, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” Our message to all the lost and hurting during this Christmas season should be that: Abide in Jesus and may your soul feel its worth.

I could not help but to literally fall on my knees in awe of the work of redemption, as the church belted out the last lines of O Holy Night:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

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