Yehuda Glick
Yehuda GlickYonatan Sindel/Flash90

MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) announced that he will relocate his office to the entrance to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem tomorrow (Monday), near the location where the paratroopers first announced "The Temple Mount is in our hands" in 1967.

MK Glick will work at the location for one day in protest against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's ban on MKs visiting the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The ban has been in effect for the last year and a half. Glick known for Temple Mount activism before he became an MK, finds the ban particularly difficult.

"The prime minister's decision is against the law and is contrary to his commitment to the Supreme Court," Glick said, "and I will therefore persevere until the Temple Mount is open even to MKs."

Ascending the Temple Mount is a subject of controversy among Religious Zionist rabbis. The late iconic rabbinic figures Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef and Rabbi Avraham Shapira said it was prohibited, while Rabbi Shlomo Goren claimed to have measured and discovered where people were allowed to walk without fear of karet.

Two weeks ago, the Sephardic rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, criticized Jews who ascend the Temple Mount.

Rabbi Amar wrote: "There are people in our generation whose passionate love of the Land of Israel takes their good judgement from them, such that it is easy for them to commit a grave offense for which there is fear that a karet prohibition is entailed, as long as we don’t let go of our hold on the most sacred place for the People of Israel.” (“Karet” is one of the more severe punishments listed in the Torah; it entails the soul of a Jew being spiritually “cut off” from the rest of the Jewish People, ed.)

In his words, Rabbi Amar explained that the attempt to secure our hold on the Land of Israel by ascending the Temple Mount only distances us from it. "This grave offense not only will not help, but may even make things worse, G-d forbid."

The rabbi said he was sorry to hear about Jews ascending the Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av, and made it clear once again that a severe halakhic prohibition was entailed. "It is strictly forbidden to ascend the Temple Mount, and there is danger of transgressing the prohibition of karet, Heaven help us. And he who guards his soul will keep away.”