The late Shlomo Goren, Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, said that the Dome of the Rock mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount was built originally for Jewish worship. The standing evidence for this is the fact that it does not face toward Mecca. "Latest research regarding the construction of the Dome of the Rock ... shows that it was originally built not for Muslims at all. Rather, it was built for the Jewish People! We herewith present the sources for this novel concept. The late Rabbi Shlomo Goren, a Temple Mount expert and Chief Rabbi of the IDF and later of Israel, wrote in his classic work The Temple Mount (Ha'Idra Rabba Publications, Jerusalem, 2005, 2nd ed., p. 327) as follows: 'The Al-Aksa Mosque [at the southern end of the Mount, opposite the Dome of the Rock] was built as a Muslim house of prayer outside the boundaries of the original Temple Mount, and therefore it points southward towards Mecca. And at the request of the Jews, Omar built the Dome of the Rock sanctuary to serve as a house of prayer for the Jews. This was after the Jews showed him the site where the Holy Temple had stood--and it does not point to Mecca.' Rabbi Goren clearly delineates between the two buildings: One is in the direction of the holy Muslim city of Mecca, and is to serve as a mosque--while the other was built without regard to Mecca, and only at the guidance and request of the Jews. Rabbi Goren did not list all of his sources, but most certainly one of them was the Byzantine historian Theophanes" (Hillel Fendel, "Status Quo? The Dome of the Rock was Built for Jews," Part 3, Arutz Sheva, Nov. 19, 2014). (Friday Church News Notes, December 5, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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