Coalition minister urges Israelis: "Come to the Temple Mount!"

Coalition minister urges Israelis: “Come to the Temple Mount!”

National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf hails “revolution” that now permits Jews to finally pray at Judaism’s holiest site.

Ryan Jones

May 13, 2026 at 2:14 pm

| Topics: Temple Mount

A “revolution” at the Temple Mount in recent years has put an end to the decades-long status quo that forbade Jews to pray at their holiest site, said Israel’s Minister for the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience, Yitzhak Wasserlauf.

After himself praying atop the Temple Mount on Wednesday, Wasserlauf urged Israelis to visit the biblical compound for Jerusalem Day, which begins on Thursday evening and runs through Friday.

“I call upon all the people of Israel to ascend the Temple Mount and see with their own eyes the revolution led by Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on the Mount. Jews no longer walk around the mount like thieves and no longer need to hide,” said Wasserlauf. “It is moving every single time to see many Jews praying and prostrating on the Temple Mount, the holiest site for the Jewish people.”

שר הנגב, הגליל והחוסן הלאומי יצחק וסרלאוף (עוצמה יהודית) עלה הבוקר להר הבית לקראת יום ירושלים. pic.twitter.com/D0Ncv0iPoB

— חזקי ברוך (@HezkeiB) May 13, 2026

Jews were barred from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount for centuries following the Christian and Muslim conquests of the city. When in 1967 Israel reunited the city under Jewish rule for the first time in millennia, many believed the ban would finally be lifted and Jews would once again be able to pray atop the same sacred plateau where their forefathers worshipped the Almighty.

But Israel’s leadership at the time decided to establish a “status quo” maintaining Islamic oversight and forbidding Jewish worship so as to not “provoke” the Muslim world. And so for decades Jews could visit the Temple Mount, but were closely monitored while there, and quickly ejected at even the slightest hint of prayer or other expressions of Jewish faith.

That all changed when Itamar Ben-Gvir became Minister of National Security in the current Netanyahu government and made freedom of religion for Jews at the Temple Mount his primary goal.

Israel has not officially changed its policy, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the old status quo remains in place, but the Israel Police, which fall under Ben-Gvir’s authority, have stopped taking action against Jews who do pray at the Temple Mount, even when they do so in a very obvious manner.

Want more news from Israel?
Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates