Israel - A First Visitor's View

Just a few days ago, I visited the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.  I was part of a week-long trip to Israel organized by my synagogue, in part to tour areas damaged by Hamas rockets, and also to visit with wounded IDF soldiers and Israeli victims of terrorism. This was my first trip to Israel. The Temple Mount stop was supposed to be pure tourism--a nice change after visiting Sderot and the West Bank.  But, as I learned, nothing in Israel, is uncontroversial, especially its holiest sites. The Temple Mount is the site of the first and second ancient temples.   Now the Dome of the Rock sits there, which is not a mosque but a shrine, and which contains a rock from where the Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into the heavens. It is also the site where Jews believe Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac. Naturally the site draws many Jewish tourists.  But as I discovered, for Jews to get to the Temple Mount, they have to hand a guard their I.D, and wait around for half an hour or so (and we were there during the lowest tourist season--I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer high season!). I thought this was normal until a group of Europeans (obviously Christian) got through without even showing their I.Ds; a couple of minutes later, a group of priests breezed through. After our group was finally allowed in, we were immediately told we were not allowed to pray. Instead, we had to tour the site under the watchful eye of an Israeli policeman while a Palestinian man shadowed our every move. At the end of the tour, when both men weren’t looking, our Rabbi, Shmuel Herzfeld, led us in a quiet recitation of the Shema, perhaps the most important prayer in Judaism. One of our group members -- I'll call him "Bob" -- filmed us praying.  Right after we finished, the policeman ran up to us and started to yell in Hebrew at Rabbi Herzfeld. The policeman demanded that Bob come with him to the police station and show him the footage. After a huge argument, Bob reluctantly agreed. We all accompanied him to the police station.  After about 30 minutes, Bob emerged, and told us the police had erased the footage. Apparently the police felt it could cause a riot. It's shocking to me that a Jew could be taken to a police station for praying--in a country that was established so Jews could worship freely from religious persecution.  I understand that the Dome of the Rock is important to both Jews and Muslims--by why should only Muslims be allowed inside it? Fortunately I managed to record, unnoticed, our "illegal" prayer session: I'm posting it here for NewMajority readers to view and form their own conclusions about how "dangerous" and "inciteful" our action was.  Especially in light of the other things we saw on our trip.