http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_GorenActivismGoren was also well known for his controversial positions concerning Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount. On 15 August 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, Goren led a group of fifty Jews onto the Temple Mount, where, fighting off protesting Muslim guards and Israeli police, they defiantly held a prayer service.[4] Goren continued to pray for many years in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount where he conducted yearly High Holiday services. His call for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount has subsequently been reiterated by his brother-in-law the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, She'ar Yashuv Cohen.[citation needed]
Goren was sharply criticized by the Israeli Defense Ministry, who, noting Goren's senior rank, called his behavior inappropriate. The episode led the Chief Rabbis of the time to restate the accepted laws of Judaism that no Jews were allowed on the mount due to issues of ritual impurity. The secular authorities welcomed this ruling as it preserved the status quo with the Waqf, the Islamic authority. Disagreeing with his colleagues, Goren continually maintained that Jews were not only permitted, but commanded, to ascend and pray on the mount.
The actual question of Goren's radicalism remains controversial. One widely-repeated story about Goren claims that shortly after the Israeli capture of the Temple Mount, the rabbi either argued that Israel should destroy the al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, or simply said that it would have been a "good thing" if they had been accidentally destroyed.[5] The charge, made by General Narkiss, an eyewitness, in an interview with Haaretz [6] that Rabbi Goren calling for the destruction of the mosques has been used to claim there is a Jewish extremism comparable to Islamic extremism. Goren's close assistant Rabbi Menachem Ha-Cohen who was with Rabbi Goren throughout that historic day denied ever hearing Goren make such a remark. Goren himself personally denied this charge several times.[7] However Goren did make a speech later that year to a military convention, recorded and later broadcast on Israel's army radio[8] in which he said of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque that: ‘Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy that we did not do so.’ [9]
Another possibly apocryphal story claims that Goren accidentally entered Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs on 8 June 1967, before the IDF had captured the city, and was greeted with white flags.[10] The city was taken by forces under Colonel Amitai, the Jerusalem area commander, by the evening of 7 June against only scattered light resistance.[11]
Goren repeatedly advocated or supported building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount from the 1960s onward, and was associated with various messianic projects involving the site. In the summer of 1983, Goren and several other rabbis joined Rabbi Yehuda Getz, who worked for the Religious Affairs Ministry at the Western Wall, in touring a chamber underneath the mount that Getz had illegally excavated, where the two claimed to have seen the Ark of the Covenant. The tunnel was shortly discovered and resulted in a massive brawl between young Jews and Arabs in the area. The tunnel was quickly sealed with concrete by Israeli police.[12] The sealed entrance can be seen from the Western Wall Tunnel, which opened to the public in 1996.
Goren also made headlines after his term as Chief Rabbi had expired. He was deeply opposed to the Oslo Accords and in 1993 declared that it was Halakhically forbidden to dismantle any settlements in the Biblical land of Israel, and encouraged any soldiers ordered to do so to refuse. In 1994 he announced that Halakha made it a "duty" for Jews to kill Yasser Arafat. Goren, who was a strong supporter of alliances between Evangelical Christians and Israel, also denounced meetings between Israel and the Holy See, calling it "blasphemy beyond expression."[13]
Goren has spoken out against Jewish terrorism. In 1981 he and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef officially condemned a shooting attack on the Temple Mount by an American immigrant which resulted in the death of one Muslim and the wounding of several others. In a joint statement released by the Chief Rabbis, they declared that "We and the entire Jewish people attack and deplore the criminal act of murder in every possible way. Through this abominable act [Alan] Goodman has removed himself from the Jewish people...".[14]
Please note that the Wiki page is obviously incorrect... It states that Jewish Law (Halacha) forbids Jew from ascending to the Temple Mount... This is not true, the issue is open to debate as many great Jewish Halachic authorities actually permit Jews to ascend to the Mount as long as they avoid certain areas and are ritually clean (having immersed in the mikvah).... It is a lie perpetuated by weak Jews and Jew haters that we are not permitted by Jewish law to ascend.
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