Over two thousand Jews have visited the Temple Mount so far this Pesach (Passover), and on Monday, hundreds of residents of Har Bracha in Samaria traveled to Jerusalem to ascend to the Temple Mount to recite prayers and learn the Jewish laws relevant to the Holy Temple on the festival.
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the rabbi of Har Bracha, had called on the town’s residents to ascend to the Temple Mount. Accordingly, a convoy of buses and private vehicles set out early on Monday morning.
Rabbi Shimshon Elbaum, head of the Temple Mount Administration, greeted the visitors, saying, “It’s so very exciting to see how many people are ascending to the Temple Mount, and even more so to see this pioneering community returning to the Temple Mount, together with and led by their rabbis.”
Rabbi Elbaum also blessed the visitors, saying that, “In the merit of their ascent to the Mount, in larger numbers and more often than ever, may we see the restoration of the sacrifices in their proper time.”
Other visitors to the Temple Mount on Monday included the dean of the Kiryat Arba yeshivah, Rabbi Noam Waldman, along with his family the dean of the Mahanayim yeshivah, Rabbi Villak, and his wife and many Jews for whom this was their first visit to the holy site.