Day 567: Why MKs praying on Temple Mount doesn't shift status quo

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's newest podcast series, Friday Focus. Each Friday, join diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman and host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe.

Over the Passover holiday, some 6,315 Jews visited the Temple Mount, a 37% rise over last year. Among them, Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot, where he participated in a prayer service and prostrated himself on the ground in worship — activities that are nominally prohibited for Jews at the flashpoint holy site.

Sukkot hailed the “tremendous change” since he was arrested for the same act 14 years ago.

Meanwhile, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees the Israel Police, which enforces law and security on the Mount, boasted that a shift in the unwritten status quo that governs the site was a result of his policies. He was up on the mount earlier in the month.

In a statement, Ben Gvir said, “I’m happy to see that MK Zvi Sukkot, like many thousands, is prostrating himself and praying at the Temple Mount.. What wasn’t done for 30 years is being done on my watch, and I’m glad to have the honor, by the grace of God, to lead this huge change.”

So this week, Berman delves into whether this is such a "huge change" and how we arrived at the current precarious balance.

Friday Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and the video was edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: Jewish visitors walk protected by Israeli security forces at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, also known as the Temple Mount complex to Jews, in Jerusalem on April 9, 2023, during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, also coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's Friday Focus.
0:05.7	Today is Friday, April 25th, Day 567 of the war.
0:11.0	I'm your host, Deputy Editor Amanda Borschell, Dan, joined by our diplomatic reporter, Laser Bearman.
0:17.3	Laser, I'm so glad to be back with you for the Friday Focus.
0:20.9	Hi, Amanda, good to be back. I think I've been away for two of these. I'm sure the other
0:26.9	reporters filled in admirably, but I'm glad to be back with you and with all of our listeners.
0:32.7	So there's some incidents that happened while you're gone, including an incident on the Temple
0:38.3	Mount, in which religious Zionist M.K. Tsvi Sukkot visited the holy site during Passover,
0:45.8	and there he participated in a prayer service and prostrated himself on the ground.
0:51.7	Now, in years past, about 14 years ago, this same Sukkot was actually
0:57.0	arrested for doing the same thing. So he is proclaiming that there is a tremendous change in
1:03.8	policy. And in fact, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvier, who he himself was on the Temple
1:10.7	Mount a couple weeks prior to
1:12.6	Sukkot's visit, is also touting a change and, of course, taking the credit for it.
1:18.7	Now, Laser, I was there about, I was there in June 2018, and I witnessed with my very own
1:27.0	eyes Jews praying on the Temple Mount then.
1:30.2	So we're going to talk about the status quo, what is the status quo, and whether there is
1:35.3	such a change happening in the air on the Temple Mount when we're back.
1:49.0	This month on Wandering Jews with Mikhail and Noam,
1:55.0	award-winning author Dara Horn joins hosts Mikhail Bitton and Noam Weissman to explore one of the most provocative questions in Jewish life today. Has decades of Holocaust education truly helped fight anti-Semitism,
2:03.6	or has it backfired? Together, they unpack the unintended consequences of how the Holocaust
2:09.6	has been taught, how a story about Jews and anti-Semitism gradually became a universal tale of tolerance, often leaving the specifically
	...

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