Thirteen youths were arrested on suspicion of breaking onto the Temple Mount premises and attempting to offer a Shavuot sacrifice on Friday.
Officers from the Jerusalem District’s David Sub-District arrested the youths, claiming that they charged through a Temple Mount gate, breaking through police barricades, as well as the police officers stationed there.
Police further stated that soldiers pursued them, caught them, and quickly removed them from the Temple Mount before detaining them for questioning.
The youths allegedly entered the compound with the intention of performing a sacrificial ritual for the Shavuot holiday. While fringe activist groups frequently attempt to smuggle live animals, like goats or lambs, onto the mount during various festivals for sacrificial purposes, this Shavuot incident is different in a distinct way.
The “Shavuot sacrifice” they intended to offer were loaves of bread, as per the biblical commandment found in Leviticus 23:17 – “From the land upon which you live, you shall bring two loaves of bread as a wave offering.”
This type of offering is specific to the holiday of Shevuot
This Friday’s incident marks the third time in a span of just two months that Jewish activists have been arrested for attempting to revive sacrificial rituals at the volatile site.
Just weeks earlier, on May 1, Jerusalem District police arrested 21 people who attempted to smuggle a goat through one of the compound’s gates with the intention of performing a Passover sacrifice.
Public Jewish prayer, and especially rituals like sacrifice, has been prohibited at the Temple Mount since the 1967 “Status Quo” laws were established over fears that Jewish worship at the flashpoint would trigger severe disturbances and threaten national security.
Outside of secular legal prohibition, Halacha and the Rabbinate explicitly forbid ascent to the Temple Mount because of the uncertainty of the location of the Temple’s “Holy of Holies,” which no one save for the High Priest is permitted to enter once a year, on Yom Kippur.
