You're Invited To Pray...and Dig

This flyer invites members of the Muslim faith to come to the Temple Mount during the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan, to pray and to stay the night.


Muhammed intensified his practices of worship during the last ten days of Ramadaan in a way that he did not strive at any other times. He secluded himself in I’tikaaf and sought Laylat al-Qadr during this time and stay up at night, wake his family and gird his loins. Her phrase “girded his loins” is a metaphor for his preparing himself to worship and strive hard in worship, more than usual. It was also said that it was a metaphor for keeping away from women and abstaining from sexual relations.

Source

(Kippah tip: RD)

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And if you're Jewish, all you have today is a memory:

The Israel Antiquities Authority researchers said on Sunday that a stretch of road in Jerusalem dating to the Second Temple and thought to be used by pilgrims on their ascent to the temple had been cleared over the past few months...The paved road leading up from the Pool of Siloam, toward the Temple Mount, has since been covered up and only now cleared by the IAA.

Professor Roni Reich, who headed the excavation, said the exposed spot was "where Second Temple pilgrims began their ascent by foot. This is the southern tip of the street, a section of which is exposed along the western side of the Temple Mount."

But this past week was very good for archaelogical finds confirming the Jewish history of this land.

For example, up at Migdal by the shores of the Kinneret:

THE remains of a 2,000-year-old synagogue where Jesus may have preached were found on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, archaeologists said on Friday. The synagogue, one of the oldest ever found, was unearthed at Migdal, which Christians believe to be the birthplace of Mary Magdalene, a leading follower of Jesus.

Archaeologists were particularly excited by the discovery of an imprint depicting the menorah - a seven-branched candelabrum - from the Jewish Second Temple destroyed in 70 AD during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.

Abshalom-Gorni said the imprint was one of only four such reproductions known to exist.

And also this:

The largest cache of rare coins ever found in a scientific excavation from the period of the Bar-Kokhba revolt of the Jews against the Romans has been discovered in a cave by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University. The coins were discovered in three batches in a deep cavern located in a nature reserve in the Judean hills. The treasure includes gold, silver and bronze coins, as well as some pottery and weapons.

...The some 120 coins were discovered within a cave that has a "hidden wing," the slippery and dangerous approach to which is possible only via a narrow opening discovered many years ago by Dr. Gideon Mann, a physician who is one of the early cave explorers in modern Israel. The opening led to a small chamber which in turn opens into a hall that served as a hiding place for the Jewish fighters of Bar-Kokhba.

Most of the discovered coins are in excellent condition and were overstruck as rebels' coins on top of Roman coins. The new imprints show Jewish images and words (for example: the facade of the Temple in Jerusalem and the slogan "for the freedom of Jerusalem")...