The Plan to Redesign the Western Wall Plaza and the Jewish Attitude toward the Temple Mount Following the Six Day War

Abstract

This article deals with the effect of Jewish attitudes toward the Temple Mount and the Holy Temple on the design of the Western Wall Plaza after the Six Day War, and the public debate that surrounded it. Several studies have delved into the attitude of the Jewish public toward the Temple Mount. Safdie’s plan to design the Western Wall Plaza was also the topic of some studies, if only in part. This article shows a tight link between the two matters, and that – alongside other previously researched factors – this attitude and future aspirations to build the Holy Temple there were a significant focal point to the interpretation of this plan, and especially in the resistance to it expressed by some parts of the Jewish public in the State of Israel. Some of the plan's supporters, and especially many of its detractors, claimed that it empowers the Western Wall for its own sake and seeks to shape it as a historic-national site. The detractors, especially those of both Zionist and non-Zionist religious communities, maintained that it simultaneously pushes the Temple Mount from Jewish consciousness and abolishes the Wall's meaning as a site that memorializes the fallen Temple, the Shekhinah that rests there now, and especially the anticipation of its reconstruction.

This understanding, that relies on many previously undiscussed primary sources, contributes to the two subjects at hand: it shows that although the practical standing of the Temple Mount was not central to the Jewish public during those years, and that very few attempted to practice Jewish rituals there, it was ideologically significant, especially among the religious populace, albeit not just there – a significance that bore a practical influence over its layout. This understanding also completes the scholarly discussion on the Plan to design the Western Wall Plaza.