Leading rabbis rule Temple Mount is off-limits to Jews

[Scurrilous]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/528413.html

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"Chief rabbis Yonah Metzger and Shlomo Moshe Amar, and a number of important rabbinical figures associated with the national religious world, have issued a halakhic ruling reiterating that it is forbidden for Jews to enter any part of the Temple Mount in our times. A similar halakhic ruling was issued a few months after the Six-Day War in 1967.

The current ruling was signed also by former chief rabbis Ovadia Yosef, Avraham Shapira, Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, the rabbi of the Western Wall, and heads of well-known national religious-oriented yeshivas.

It is seen as a blow to the members of the Temple Mount movements who have been trying for years to get a wider circle of rabbis to endorse the present-day entry of Jews to the holy site.

The ruling points out that Jews must avoid the entire site of the Temple Mount.

"Over the years," the rabbis state, "we have lost the exact location of the Temple, and anyone entering the Mount could unwittingly enter the area of the Temple and the Holy of Holies. With this in mind, we reiterate our warning ... that no man nor woman should set foot in the entire area of the Temple Mount, irrespective of which gate is used for this purpose."