Yisrael Ariel

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Yisrael Ariel. His surname Ariel, adopted as a rabbi, is a name for Jerusalem in the Bible (Isaiah 29: 1) .

Yisrael Ariel, ישראל אריאל, originally: Yisrael Stieglitz (born August 15, 1939 ), is an Israeli rabbi , halachic decisor and politician .

Life

Yisrael Ariel (Goldfinch) was the youngest son of a distinguished religious-Zionist Jerusalem family. He has an older brother Yaakov Ariel , who later became the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan and was even discussed as Chief Rabbi of Israel in 2003. Both brothers received their training in the yeshiva Merkas haRav .

Six Day War 1967

In July 1967, Israeli families also took the opportunity to tour the temple area.

As a young military chaplain, Yisrael Stieglitz was tasked with guarding the entrance to the Dome of the Rock in 1967 after the Israeli army took Jerusalem's old town . He said he was convinced that Israeli soldiers would then tear down the Dome of the Rock. That didn't happen; Stieglitz was able to observe that members of the military as well as high-ranking rabbis ( Isser Yehuda Unterman , Yitzhak Nissim , Zvi Yehuda Kook ) entered the temple grounds at that time. In doing so, they had set a precedent that Ariel could later refer to in his halachic argument. For Ariel it was incomprehensible that the authorities of the yeshiva Merkas haRav did not, as he had expected, taking advantage of the hour and advancing the construction of the Third Temple in 1967; instead they were silent. Yisrael Ariel remained in the army until 1975, but at the same time worked in the chief rabbinate.

1982: Soldiers carry a protesting settler to the Jamit evacuation center.

Head of the yeshiva of Jamit on the Sinai Peninsula

At the beginning of the 1970s, Ariel was commissioned by then Defense Minister Shimon Peres to establish a yeshiva in the Yamit settlement on the Sinai Peninsula . In 1977 the yeshiva was inaugurated in the presence of Menachim Begin , which was initially directed jointly by the Ariel brothers. When it became foreseeable that the settlement would have to be evacuated as part of the peace treaty with Egypt, the brothers took different positions: Yaakov Ariel rejected any resistance to the Israeli military, while Yisrael Ariel radicalized himself, left the yeshiva and became the most militant opponents of the withdrawal from Sinai.

Kach party and "Jewish underground"

In 1977 and 1981 Ariel ran for the Kach party and in 1981 was second on the list after Rav Meir Kahane .

That Gush Emunim could not stop the evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula disappointed Ariel. He settled in the old city of Jerusalem and taught at the Haidra Yeshiva, which was directed by Schlomo Goren .

When the Jewish Underground organization was exposed in 1984, which had carried out a series of acts of revenge against Arabs (including an attack on the Islamic college in Hebron in which three students were shot on July 26, 1983) and the mosques on the Planned to blow up Temple Square, Yisrael Ariel was one of the few voices to approve of these actions. He even started a magazine (צפיה Zefiyah ) devoted to justifying the convicted and encouraging the building of the Third Temple.

Establishment of the Temple Institute

In 1984 Ariel founded the Temple Institute in Jerusalem's Old City; activities there did not begin until 1987, however. Until then, Ariel had sought the broadest possible support from Jewish organizations for his institute. Accordingly, he emphasized at this time that the institute was dedicated to educational and folkloric tasks, informed about the past and did not undertake any planning to change the status quo on the Temple Mount. So Ariel distanced himself z. B. in an interview with the New York Times about violent actions and stressed that we should comply with applicable law: '' We don't want to blow up the mosque. Our intention is to do everything that we can within the law. We'll prepare whatever we can so that we can eventually worship there again. ''

The Temple Institute has held an annual temple research conference since the late 1980s, which over time has won the support of the Chief Rabbinate, the City Council, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. For example, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau gave a lecture on the obligation to make a pilgrimage in the present . In 1992 the Temple Institute was able to move into new and larger rooms and at the same time expand its educational program.

Head of the "Sanhedrin"

Meeting of the "Sanhedrin" (screenshot from a promotional video of the organization)

In 2004 Ariel and other rabbis revitalized the institution of the Sanhedrin , which decided legal issues at the time of the Talmud. This body, headed by Ariel and not recognized by the state or Jewish organizations, called for the law of the Torah to be enacted in place of secular Israeli law; in February 2010 it decided: “ it is obligatory for every Jew to exclude himself from the secular Israeli judicial system in every matter.

In 2006, Ariel was temporarily arrested by Israeli police after failing to appear on a subpoena; The aim was to clarify Ariel's instruction to the synagogue management of Ma'ale Michmash not to call a parishioner to the Torah because this person, as a military lawyer , had issued orders directed against settler activists. Ariel also called on Siedler to use force against Israeli soldiers in self-defense during the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Ariel's main concern is that as many Jews as possible visit the temple grounds. Kippa and tzitzit may be worn, religious texts and any religious act are forbidden for non-Muslims.

Religious positions

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel prohibits Jews from visiting the entire temple area.

Ariel defined it as a mitzvah to liberate the land of Israel and especially Jerusalem. This is incumbent on the Jewish people in the present. That Muslims pray on the Temple Mount is a desecration of the sacred: “It is a commandment for the government, rabbinical institutions, and each person of Israel to do, each according to his ability, what they can to expunge this disgrace from the site of our Temple. " (Yisrael Ariel)

Against the consensus of the halachic authorities, Ariel developed his argument that even in the state of ritual impurity, in which all Jews have been since the destruction of the Second Temple, it is allowed to enter the sacred temple area in order to strengthen Israel's sovereignty over this area. The more people acted in this way, the stronger Israel’s sovereignty in Temple Square becomes. Everyone is called upon to make their contribution here.

Political positions

Together with Rabbis Dov Lior and Yaakov Ariel , Yisrael Ariel declared that Lebanon was part of the Land of Israel and that it belonged to the Zebulun , Naftali and Ascher tribes . Yisrael Ariel devoted several years of research to the topic of Israel's borders, as a result of which he was able to present a two-volume atlas. Accordingly, the land of Israel included: parts of Syria , parts of Iraq , parts of Kuwait and the Sinai Peninsula . In October 1982 he called for the Israeli annexation and settlement of Lebanon.

Ariel interpreted Maimonides to mean that a Jew who kills a non-Jew would not be subject to human prosecution and would not have violated the commandment ' You shall not kill '. With this argument, in his publication Zefiyah, he repeatedly defended members of the “Jewish underground” who had killed Arabs. (These were Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir, and Uziah Sharabaf, who were convicted of murder on July 10, 1985.)

Works

  • Yisrael Ariel: אטלס ארץ-ישראל לגבולותיה: על-פי המקורות Atlas of the Land of Israel, Its Boundaries According to Sources, Vol. 1, Jerusalem 1988; Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1993

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Eliav Taub, Aviad Yehiel Hollander: The place of religious aspirations for sovereignty over the Temple Mount in religious-Zionist rulings . In: Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, Leonard Hammer (eds.): Sacred Space in Israel and Palestine: Religion and Politics . Routledge, 2013, pp. 146 .
  2. Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? New York 2009, p. 32 .
  3. ^ Gershom Gorenberg: The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount . Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 100 .
  4. a b c Eliav Taub, Aviad Yehiel Hollander: The place of religious aspirations for sovereignty over the Temple Mount in religious-Zionist rulings . S. 147 .
  5. Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 37 .
  6. Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 38 .
  7. a b c Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 38 .
  8. Eliezer Don-Yehiya: The Book and the Sword: The Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel . In: Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby (Eds.): Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements . Chicago 2004, p. 278 .
  9. ^ Richard Bernstein: 3 Slain as Gunmen Attack Hebron Islamic College. July 27, 1983, accessed January 2, 2018 .
  10. Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 39 .
  11. Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 44 .
  12. Rebuild Herod's Temple? A Few Israelis Hope. In: New York Times. April 9, 1989, accessed January 1, 2018 .
  13. a b Motti Inbari: Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount . S. 44 .
  14. Jeremy Sharon: Far-right rabbinical group pens letter calling Jewish terror suspects 'praiseworthy'. In: Jerusalem Post. August 25, 2015, accessed January 1, 2018 .
  15. ^ Matthew Wagner: Police arrest Sanhedrin rabbi. In: Jerusalem Post. December 7, 2006, accessed January 1, 2018 .
  16. ^ Ian Lustick: For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel . New York 1988, p. 107-108 .
  17. Peter Lintl: Fundamentalism - Messianism - Nationalism: A comparison of theories using the example of the Jewish settlers of the West Bank . Diplomica Verlag, Hamburg 2012, p. 205 .
  18. ^ Thomas L. Friedman: Jewish Settlers are Convicted in Terror Cases. In: New York Times. July 11, 1985. Retrieved January 2, 2018 .