Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount. Note the dearth of Muslims and nearly as many police as Jews in this group.
(Photo: Arutz Sheva)
Today is Rosh Chodesh Av – the first day of the month of Av on the Jewish calendar. It begins the Nine Days leading to Tisha B’Av, when we mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, among other calamities that have befallen the Jewish nation throughout history.
As Jerusalem’s Temple Institute Co-founder Rabbi Chaim Richman said, “We are no longer in exile: Sixty-nine years ago we miraculously returned to our land and re-established Jewish sovereignty. Fifty years ago we were reunited with Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.”
“It’s time to wake-up and re-frame Tisha B’Av into a day of hope. We cannot continue to mourn robotically as if nothing has changed in the last century.”
In that spirit, the Temple Institute presents the following short video.
In response to the brutal murders in Halamish Friday night, Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home), called for the construction of a synagogue on the Temple Mount.
MK Smotrich said, “The Zionist response would largely be to make the other side understand and feel that they have lost. They must understand that they gain nothing from terrorism. They are the only ones who will lose, and this will happen on three levels.”
These three levels include:
1. Build a synagogue on the Temple Mount
2. Exact a very steep price from the (Arab and Muslim) population in Judea and Samaria.
3. Build in Judea and Samaria.
Three steps we wholeheartedly agree with.
It is in these areas, in the Golan, in Judea and Samaria, in eastern Jerusalem, that AFSI has concentrated its efforts over the past 22 years when we have conducted our missions on a semi-annual basis. Now that the jubilation of the victories has been enjoyed, it is time for Israel to decide what it “will do with all that.” AFSI says it is time to proclaim victory, to declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, to make it clear that the Golan will never be relinquished, and to assert that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel, with the Temple Mount permanently “in our hands.”
A visit to Nazareth Illit followed, where we learned that the city is threatened by Arab encroachment. A beautiful Shabbat was spent in Tsfat, and 
In Shilo we met Elad Ziv, from the expelled Amona community. We saw the barren hilltop in Shilo where promised new homes are supposed to be built, but where officials are killing the plans. The expelled families are living in two room dormitories in Ofra, without kitchens. This is a shameful situation.
The next stop was the city of Ariel, and then on to Yerushalayim. The next morning, we joined with Regavim to see the rampant illegal Arab building in the E1 corridor, connecting Yerushalayim with Maaleh Adumim.
On May 23, we made the mandatory 
Arieh King, Jerusalem Councilman, then met the entire group and drove with us to the Atarot and Kalandia areas of northern Yerushalayim. The explosion of Arab building there, much of it on JNF land given to the Arabs, seems out of control.
The Ateret Cohanim dinner honored Cherna Moskowitz and her daughter, Laurie, with unending praise for the work that they and Dr. Irving Moskowitz, z”l, did over so many years in redeeming Jewish homes in the Old City and eastern Yerushalayim.
The following day, May 25, was Yom Hebron – the day Rabbi Goren single-handedly liberated Hebron. Organized by David Wilder, we met in the Maarat HaMachpela with the heroes and heroines of the early days of the settling of Hebron. Noam Arnon, head of the community, introduced Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, Elyakim HaEtzni, Yehudit Katzover, and Sarah Nachshon. Each one told their remarkable story of how the “Mitnachalay Hebron” – the return to the land of one’s inheritance – Hebron – was begun at Pesach time in 1968. This was the continuation of the 4000 years of Hebron’s Jewish history.
