A vigilant bystander caught shocking footage of the Israel Police arresting an English-speaking religious Jew Sunday, for saying a pasuk and attempting to give over words of Torah at Judaism's holiest site.
In the footage, officers at the Temple Mount are seen arresting the man for expounding on the verse "אנא ה' הושיע נא," "Please G-d save me now," as horrified bystanders look on.
Video credit: Avraham Bloch.
The man, in his forties, explained to the officers that expounding on a verse does not constitute prayer - but they cut his speech short and took him away without fanfare.
When the other members of the group attempted to explain that the man was, indeed, not praying, the police officer declared: "I decide what prayer is here."
Attorney Rehavia Piltz from the Honenu legal rights organization is en route to the scene now.
"The State of Israel and Israel Police's conduct towards a man suspected of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is, first and foremost, ridiculous, and in addition, is discriminatory and predatory," Honenu said in a statement. "It cannot be that a law-abiding man will be arrested like a common criminal for giving an explanation of a verse from Psalms."
"In other countries, such an arrest would be defined as anti-Semitic."