Israel, Jewish and the Anti-Zionist Exploitation of State!

 

The central falsehood of anti-Zionism is the separation of two identities that are historically, spiritually and nationally inseparable: Israel and the Jewish people.

Jacob is renamed Israel in Genesis 32:29. His descendants become Bnei Yisrael—the Children of Israel; their collective becomes Am Yisrael—the People of Israel; and their homeland becomes Eretz Yisrael—the Land of Israel.

After conquest and exile, this same people became widely known as the Jews. The word Yehudi originated with Judah, the surviving center of Israelite national life, but ceased to mean only a member of that tribe. Mordecai is called “a Jewish man” while the same verse identifies him as a Benjaminite. “Jew” had become the historical name of the surviving nation of Israel.

The terminology changed. The people did not.

Jacob is Israel.
His descendants are the Children of Israel.
The continuing People of Israel are the Jews.
Their homeland is the Land of Israel.
Their restored state is the Jewish State of Israel.

In national and historical terms, Israel and the Jewish people are synonymous.

If Jews are reduced to adherents of a portable religion, Zionism can be portrayed as Europeans carrying their faith into somebody else’s country. Once Jews are recognized as the continuing People of Israel, Zionism assumes its actual character: the return of a dispersed indigenous nation to the land in which its name, language, law, memory and civilization were formed.

The Stone of Israel is the people

In The Bible's Vayechi, the Zohar compounds Jacob’s matzevah, the Foundation Stone, the rejected cornerstone and the Stone of Israel into one identity.

The Foundation Stone is the central point from which the world was planted:

ובהאי נקודה קיימא קדש הקדשים
“At/on this point stands the holy of holies.”

The Zohar identifies its earthly manifestation through Jacob: “Jacob took a stone and set it up as a matzevah.” Jacob establishes it “above and below” by making there a “house of God.” The sequence culminates in the “Stone of Israel,” followed by:

אבן, דא כנסת ישראל
“Stone—this is Knesset Israel.”

The stone is the Assembly of Israel: the collective spiritual identity of the Jewish people. The patriarch, people, stone and sacred center of Israel belong to one identity. Israel did not select Zion. Israel became Israel there.

An unparalleled restoration

Conquered and dispersed, the Jewish people retained their national name, language, scriptures, law, calendar, ancient capital and expectation of return. Jews prayed toward Jerusalem; Passover concluded with “Next year in Jerusalem”; weddings remembered Jerusalem at the moment of greatest joy. This was the national memory of a displaced people.

Zionism did not transform a religion into a nation. It organized the return of a nation that exile had caused others to mistake for merely a religion.

The League of Nations Mandate recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and grounds for “reconstituting their national home”—reconstituting, not creating. Israel’s Declaration of Independence similarly calls the land the birthplace of the Jewish people.

The anti-Zionist exploit of “State”

Criticism of an Israeli government, law, military action or settlement is not inherently antisemitic. Supporting Arab dignity and self-determination is not anti-Jewish. But criticism of a state is fundamentally different from denying that the Jewish nation may possess a state.

The danger was exposed by the recent NSW Supreme Court decision concerning Mohommed Farhat. Justice Desmond Fagan held that the slogan “Fuk Israel” was, in that case, a crude political curse directed at a foreign state rather than proof of antisemitic motivation. The vandalism and arson remained criminal; the Court rejected their use as evidence supporting an extended terrorism supervision order.

The ruling addressed Farhat’s evidence and intent. But treating “Israel” exclusively as the name of a foreign state is historically and practically incomplete. Israel was the name of the Jewish nation 3500  years before 1948. A curse directed simply at “Israel” is therefore capable of targeting the people as well as the polity.

Political anti-Zionism must not become a legal shelter for antisemitism. Anyone claiming to protest a government can and should identify the State of Israel, its government or the policy being opposed. Where protesters refuse that distinction, especially when their words target Jews, Jewish institutions or Jewish neighborhoods the law should not automatically presume an innocent political meaning.

Hostility directed at Israel as a nation should face the same consequences under racial-vilification law as hostility directed at any other ethnic people. Political criticism must remain protected; but denying Jews the right to exist collectively through the Jewish State of the nation of Israel is not criticism of policy. It is discrimination against the People of Israel.

Abolitionist anti-Zionism crosses that line. It separates modern Jews from ancient Israelites, treats exile as the creation of a foreign people, recasts Jewish return as colonial invasion and denies Jews a right to self-determination afforded to others.

The test is simple:

If displacement does not extinguish Muslim or Christian indigeneity, exile cannot extinguish Jewish indigeneity.
If others constitute a people, Jews constitute a people.
If Muslims or Christians possess collective national rights, Jews possess collective national rights.

The IHRA working definition therefore distinguishes ordinary criticism of Israel from denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.

Jacob became Israel.
Israel became a nation.
That nation survived exile as the Jews.
The Jews returned to Zion as Israel.

To sever Jews from Israel is not decolonization. It is the erasure of an indigenous people from its own identity.

The Foundation Stone

As Jacob approaches death in Vayechi, the Zohar introduces an extraordinary sequence. It compounds the Foundation Stone of creation, Isaiah’s tested cornerstone, the rejected stone of Hallel, Jacob’s matzevah, Zechariah’s seven-eyed stone and the Stone of Israel into a single identity.

God cast a stone into the abyss, the Zohar says, and from it the world was planted. It is the central point of creation, “and on this point stands the holy of holies.” The Zohar identifies this primordial stone with Isaiah’s “tested stone, a precious cornerstone” and “the stone rejected by the builders.”

These are not merely analogous stones. Zohar, Vayechi 43:445 declares them to be the same Foundation Stone.

Its wording must nevertheless be preserved carefully:

ובהאי נקודה קיימא קדש הקדשים

“At/on this point stands the holy of holies.”

The statement occurs within a cosmic and mystical account of creation. It does not explicitly say that Solomon’s architectural Holy of Holies stood over this stone or provide measurements for constructing a chamber around it. The Foundation Stone is the sacred center at which the holy of holies stands or is present.

The following passage identifies its earthly manifestation. The primordial stone, compounded from fire, water and air and resting above the abyss, was placed as a sign at the center of the world. The Zohar then says: “It is referred to in the words, ‘And Jacob took a stone and set it up as a matzevah.’” The citation is Genesis 31:45.

Jacob did not create the foundation of creation. He established it “above and below” by making there a “house of God,” invoking his declaration:

“This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s house.”
—Genesis 28:22

Jacob’s physical matzevah therefore makes the cosmic Foundation Stone present within a particular house of God.

The chain continues with Zechariah’s “one stone” bearing “seven eyes.” The Zohar again calls it the Foundation Stone, places the Cherubim “in that place,” invokes Mount Zion and finally calls the mystery the “Stone of Israel”—the phrase contained in Jacob’s final blessing in Genesis 49:24.

It then states:

אבן, דא כנסת ישראל

“Stone—this is Knesset Israel.”

The Stone of Israel is therefore not simply Temple masonry. It is identified with the supernal Assembly of Israel. The Zohar discloses what Jacob’s stone became:

Jacob’s matzevah established the house of God.
The house of God established the sacred center.
The sacred center is the Foundation Stone.
At that point stands the holy of holies.
The Foundation Stone is the rejected cornerstone.
The cornerstone is the Stone of Israel.
The Stone is Knesset Israel.

From mystical identity to physical stone

The Zohar develops an older tradition. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 35 describes Jacob returning to the stones upon which he slept and finding that they had become one. He erected that stone as a matzevah. God then sank it into the depths like the keystone of an arch, making it the Even haShetiyah—the Foundation Stone and navel of the earth. From it the world unfolded, and upon it stood the House of God.

The difficulty begins when this identity is converted into architectural geography.

The Mishnah in Yoma 5:2 describes a stone inside the Second Temple’s Holy of Holies that projected three fingerbreadths above the floor and received the High Priest’s incense after the Ark disappeared. Maimonides similarly places a stone beneath the Ark in the western part of Solomon’s Holy of Holies.

That is not an obvious description of an upright matzevah. The Zohar identifies the sacred mystery but does not resolve the architectural difference through measurements.

Rashi encounters a related geographical problem. Jacob’s revelation occurs at Beit El, yet Rashi identifies “the place” with Mount Moriah. He preserves their identity through kefitzat ha’aretz: Mount Moriah moved toward Jacob.

Perhaps the archaeology now permits part of that geography to be unfolded.

Two adjacent rooms

The excavated complex stands on the eastern slope of the City of David, on the southern side of the Mount Moriah ridge and immediately above Jerusalem’s ancient spring.

Its eight interconnected rock-cut rooms contain an in-situ standing stone, installations associated with oil and wine and, in the immediately adjacent room, a preserved bedrock platform connected to a liquid channel. The excavation report concludes that the rooms formed a cultic complex originating around the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and continuing until its organized closure in Iron Age IIB. The report was published by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The spatial relationship is crucial. The matzevah and possible altar platform are not distant or unrelated features. They occupy neighboring bedrock rooms within one cultic arrangement.

Nor should the platform necessarily be understood as the complete surviving altar. The Torah commands that a stone altar must not be built from hewn stones (Exodus 20:22). Deuteronomy requires an altar of “whole stones” (Deuteronomy 27:5–6).

The altar proper could therefore have consisted of a removable superstructure assembled from separate, unhewn stones upon the platform. Those stones might later have been removed while the durable bedrock footing and liquid channel remained. The cautious description is not a surviving rock-cut altar, but a platform that may have supported an altar of unhewn stones.

The Torah’s command to Moses does not prove that Abraham built his altar in this form. It does explain why the absence of a surviving stone superstructure is not an objection to the platform’s proposed function.

Nearby radiocarbon evidence confirms activity on this part of the eastern slope during the sixteenth and early fifteenth centuries BCE, time of the patriarchs, although it does not directly date the standing stone or platform. The results were published in Radiocarbon.

The sanctuary was entered from the east, with the matzevah toward its western side. Maimonides records that Abraham rejected the eastward orientation of solar worship and, on Mount Moriah, “turned therefore to the West.”

Together the remains present a candidate of exceptional specificity: a Bronze Age sanctuary on Mount Moriah containing an upright matzevah and, in the adjacent room, a possible altar platform.

The altar that cannot move

The Rambam’s treatment of the altar is explicitly legal and geographical.

In Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1, he rules that the altar occupies an exceptionally precise location and “may never be changed from its place.” He immediately connects that coordinate to the Akedah:

“In the Sanctuary, Isaac our father was bound.”

In Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:2, he records the tradition that David and Solomon built their altar where Abraham erected his altar and bound Isaac. The same point is associated with Noah, Cain and Abel, Adam’s sacrifice and Adam’s creation.

The Rambam is not describing transferable sanctity. He is defining one recurring altar coordinate.

This creates an unavoidable choice. Either the platform beside the matzevah did not support Abraham’s altar, in which case it remains an unidentified cultic feature; or, if it did support the Akedah altar, the future Temple altar must return there.

A later altar erected elsewhere could not cause the Akedah coordinate to migrate.

Beneath the golden dome

The conventional reconstruction places the Holy of Holies around the exposed rock beneath the Dome of the Rock. Its surviving geographical chain, however, is associated with the Muslim conquest rather than an extant Second Temple measurement.

According to historical tradition, the Jewish convert Kaʿb al-Aḥbār accompanied Caliph Umar into Jerusalem and identified the exposed Sakhra as the Even Shetiyah. Umar cleared the site for prayer; approximately half a century later, ʿAbd al-Malik enclosed the rock beneath the Dome. An Encyclopaedia Judaica account preserves this tradition.

Kaʿb may have transmitted genuine Jewish teaching. But his identification does not constitute archaeological proof that the exposed rock occupied Solomon’s Holy of Holies.

Neither the Rambam nor the Zohar names the rock beneath the Dome. If the eastern-slope complex supplies a better candidate for Abraham’s altar or the earthly manifestation of Jacob’s Foundation Stone, the inherited geography must be reconsidered.

The distinction is fundamental:

The Rambam fixes the altar through the Akedah.
The Zohar identifies Jacob’s stone as the Foundation Stone and Stone of Israel.
The Dome preserves a later geographical interpretation.

Zion before Solomon

Biblical Zion first denotes David’s stronghold, explicitly identified as the City of David (II Samuel 5:7). Before Solomon built the Temple, David placed the Ark in a tent inside that city (II Samuel 6:17). Solomon was later anointed at Gihon with oil taken from that sacred tent (I Kings 1:38–40).

The City of David therefore possessed an Ark-centered sanctuary before Solomon’s Temple.

Ronny Reich’s identification of the spring commonly called Gihon with biblical En Shemesh adds a boundary marker. Joshua places En Shemesh between Judah and Benjamin. The Talmud similarly preserves a Temple tradition in which most of the altar stood in Benjamin, its southeast corner entered Judah, and the Sanctuary remained in Benjamin (Zevachim 53b).

The spring, tribal boundary, Zion, Ark, matzevah and possible altar platform converge upon the same eastern landscape.

The conclusion forced by the Akedah

The archaeology does not prove that the standing stone belonged to Jacob or that Abraham built an altar upon the adjacent platform. No inscription names either patriarch.

But the consequences of the proposition are precise.

If the platform carried the Akedah altar:

• It marks the unchangeable coordinate described by the Rambam.

• The altar may have been built from removable, unhewn stones.

• Removing those stones would not erase the bedrock coordinate.

• The future altar must return to that location.

If the standing stone is the stone identified by the Zohar:

• It is Jacob’s earthly establishment of the Foundation Stone.

• It is the tested, rejected and seven-eyed stone.

• It is the Stone of Israel, identified with Knesset Israel.

• It is the sacred center at which the Zohar says the holy of holies stands.

• It does not, by itself, provide the architectural measurements of a future inner chamber.

The Zohar supplies the identity of the stone. The Rambam supplies the immutable law of the altar. The archaeology supplies two adjacent rooms containing possible physical candidates for both.

The Akedah fixes the physical coordinate of the altar.

Jacob’s stone identifies the sacred center beside it.

The stone rejected by the builders may therefore be the surviving earthly expression of the Stone of Israel, standing immediately beside the platform upon which the immovable altar must be restored.restored.

Bowing Toward Zion!

Bowing South to Zion before Mecca

A discovery could rewrite Jerusalem and Zionism itself. Below the Temple Mount, the most contested patch of earth on the planet, a groundbreaking discovery could change the world with a single question: What if history’s holiest flashpoint is no longer the relevant place to contest?

For centuries, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount has been the axis of world faith and conflict. Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike have looked to its heights as the place where Abraham bound Isaac, where David laid the foundation stone, where Solomon raised the First Temple, and where creation itself began. Wars were waged over this summit. Empires clashed in its shadow. Today, it remains the most disputed piece of land on Earth.

But the drama may not be where we think it is. On the eastern slopes of Mount Moriah, south of and below the famed summit, a team of archaeologists has uncovered something extraordinary: a stone temple complex and water system dating back more than 3,500 years to the time of Malchi-Tzedek and Abraham.

Processing animals

Altar platform for assembling altars 

Carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain, this system includes a reservoir and a channel designed to wash blood and refuse from animal sacrifices on temporary sacrificial altars that were periodically built on a relief left over for a bedrock platform. Radiocarbon dating performed by Cambridge University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute places the sites construction and last use around 1535 BCE, in the precise 30 year window the Bible situates Jacob's return to and final years in the land. After that Jacob ultimately left for Egypt with his family, thereafter archaeology at the site and on the mountain ceased abruptly for almost 300 years.

The site’s architecture is not random. A westernmost altar matches Maimonides’ teaching that ancient pagans prayed eastward toward the rising sun, but Abraham turned his back to the sun, facing west toward the sanctity of the one true God. One chamber appears shaped for processing slaughtered animals, another for burning sacrifices on an altar and between them stands a matzevah - a standing stone remarkably consistent with Jacob’s pillar in Genesis 35: "Jacob set up a pillar at the site where God had spoken to him…” and when he returned to it (Genesis 35:14) he accepted his name Israel.

Matzevah on bedrock

This is not merely archaeology. This is scripture meeting bedrock. The irony is profound: The modern political conflict over Zionism also originates from a dispute over this very place. Zionism was born from a simple, ancient claim: The Jewish people have a right to their ancestral land because a specific place - Zion - was promised, inhabited, sanctified, and remembered. Zion, the City of David, Jerusalem and ultimately the Temple Mount became the physical and symbolic anchor for that claim. It was allegedly the 'stone' upon which Jewish historical legitimacy was cast. Modern anti-Zionist narratives lean heavily on undermining that very connection: Some argue Jews have no ancient ties to Jerusalem. Others claim the temples never stood on the mountain. Still others insist the Jewish link is a colonial myth retrofitted to a holy Muslim site.

Zion Redeemed

The Temple Mount is thus not just a place, it is the political fulcrum of Jewish indigeneity. Control the narrative of the Mount, and you control the legitimacy of Zionism itself. But, here lies the explosive twist: If the sanctuary of Israel's forefathers, its altar, and stone pillar are actually located on the lower slope, not the Temple Mount summit, the entire frame of the modern conflict shifts. For Christians the implications touch salvation history. For Muslims, it challenges centuries of inherited tradition about the sacred geography and posits them bowing south toward Zion, which would stand between their bowing and Mecca. But, for Jews, the ramifications are seismic!

If Abraham’s altar of Akeida and Jacob’s monument stood not where today’s Dome of the Rock sits, but on the lower slope above the ancient spring of En Shemesh (Gihon), then: Jewish worship would no longer be shackled by the political status quo on the Temple Mount. The “status quo” used to block Jewish prayer might simply be irrelevant. The dream of a Third Temple transforms from geopolitical nightmare to practical possibility.

And for the modern ideological struggle? Anti-Zionism loses its central pillar. If Jewish sanctity does not hinge on the contested summit, the claim that Zionism is a colonial intrusion on Muslim holy space collapses. Instead, the archaeological record reinforces that Israel was here first and that their earliest sanctuary at Zion came well before later constructions, long predating Solomon, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, or Islamic claims.

For centuries, the Temple Mount was weaponized by Crusaders, by Sultans, by politicians, by terrorists. The October 7th massacre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was named the 'Al Aqsa Flood', invoking the Temple Mount as justification for genocide. But Zionism was equally shaped by this pressure point. It emerged from a world that tried to dislodge Jews from their ground and a determination to return to that ground despite it. The contested nature of the place forged the movement itself. Yet, if the original altar of Isaac's binding (Akeida) lies on the lower slope, not on the summit of Mount Moriah, the entire narrative religious, historical and political must be rewritten.

Skeptics will argue the connection is circumstantial; believers may dismiss it as heresy. But the evidence is converging: The archaeological dates align with Jacob’s presence, during 10 of his last 30 years before leaving Israel. The orientation opposes the sun. The architecture matches traditional temple service descriptions. The water system supports sacrificial functions, not domestic use. The standing stone mirrors Jacob’s matzevah. The tribal boundaries converge on the altar and if these stones indeed tell the story they appear to tell, then the ideological battlefield over Zionism may have been misplaced for centuries.

The place that changed the world may not be the place that will change the world again. No city has borne more weight upon its stones than Jerusalem. But, if this discovery holds, then Jerusalem’s oldest stones reveal a stunning revelation: Zionism may not originate from a disputed Temple Mount summit after all, but from a forgotten sanctuary on the lower slope that every day Muslims face from Al Aqsa. And that revelation could shift the world politically, spiritually, and historically.

The stones of Jerusalem still have secrets to tell. And those secrets may yet reshape the meaning of Zion, the struggle for it, and the future built upon it.

Zionism — And I Will Remember the Land — What’s the Problem?

Adapted from a speech delivered on Shavuot. 

There is a strange modern habit of speaking about Zionism as though it were a recent political invention, a nineteenth-century slogan, a colonial ideology, or an embarrassment that Jews are expected to explain before being allowed to participate in polite society. Yet before Zionism became a modern movement, before Herzl stood beneath that famous beard, before Basel, or the British Mandate, before the United Nations, or the State of Israel, and before every contemporary political argument that now crowds the word, there was Zion. Zion was not born in Europe. Zion was not invented by diplomacy. Zion was not manufactured as a public-relations phrase for Jewish statehood. Zion is a word in Tanach, a word in Jewish prayer, in prophecy, in mourning, in weddings, in exile, in return, and a word embedded in the very grammar by which the Jewish people understand Jerusalem, covenant, kingship and divine presence.

The Torah says, in the tochacha, after exile, suffering and dispersion: “Vezacharti et briti Yaakov… veha’aretz ezkor” — “I will remember My covenant with Jacob… and I will remember the land.” Not only the people. Not only the commandments. Not only ethics. Not only memory as an abstract spiritual category. The Land. That phrase is devastating to every ideology that wants Judaism to become a floating morality without geography. The Torah does not allow Jewish identity to dissolve into a university department, a humanitarian mood, or a set of universal values with no mountain, no valley, no spring, no border, no stone and no ancestral name. Jewish memory has geography. It has direction. It has inheritance. It has Jerusalem. It has Zion.

This is why the modern opposition to Zionism so often depends on ignorance. If someone says, “I oppose Zionism,” the first question should be: which Zion are you opposing? The Zion of King David? The Zion of Isaiah? The Zion of Tehillim? The Zion of Jewish prayer? The Zion toward which Jews turned their faces for generations? The Zion for which Jews broke glasses under the chuppah? The Zion mourned on Tisha B’Av and invoked to comfort mourners? Or are you opposing a word encountered last semester in a badly photocopied political pamphlet? Those are not the same thing. To oppose Zion while refusing to learn what Zion means is not moral clarity. It is a refusal to read and learn.

We live in an age in which ignorance travels quickly and with great confidence. Before social media, ignorance had to walk to the marketplace; today it has Wi-Fi. A person may stand in New York, London, Sydney or Melbourne and declare, with impressive moral seriousness, that Jews have no indigenous connection to Zion, while standing in a city named after a colonial governor, speaking a language exported by empire, and drinking coffee harvested by people whose names they will never know. Then they lecture the Jews about colonialism. One has to admire the chutzpah, but one should not confuse it with knowledge.

Of course Jews may debate Israeli politics. Jews debate everything. Three Jews in a room can produce five opinions, seven WhatsApp groups, and one person insisting that his cousin in Ramat Beit Shemesh knows the real story. There can and must be arguments about governments, policies, borders, strategies, mistakes, personalities and moral responsibilities. That is normal. That is healthy. But the modern political debate is not the origin of Zion. Zion is older than the State. Zion is older than modern nationalism. Zion is older than the political categories now imposed upon it. Zion is the name of a primordial Israelite reality, the place where land, covenant, memory, kingship and divine purpose meet.

In Tanach, Zion first emerges explicitly in the story of David: “David captured the stronghold of Zion; it became the City of David.” That verse alone should stop the conversation from drifting into abstraction. David does not capture an idea. He does not capture a metaphor. He captures a place, a stronghold, a real location, and that place becomes bound to the identity of Jerusalem and the destiny of Israel. Later, when Shlomo gathers the elders of Israel, Melachim again identifies the City of David with Zion. Isaiah then gives us one of the most astonishing prophetic phrases: “Ki ayin b’ayin yiru beshuv Hashem Tzion.” Usually this is translated as “they will see eye to eye when Hashem returns to Zion,” but the Hebrew can be read with greater accuracy and force: “they will see eye to eye when Hashem returns Zion”, when Zion itself is restored to its proper place, and only then do we see eye to eye.

That is not a newspaper slogan. That is a prophecy. Prophecy is dangerous because it refuses to let politics become the whole story. Politics says: this is about power. Prophecy says: no, this is about memory. Politics says: this is about competing claims. Prophecy says: no, this is about covenant. Politics says: this started recently. Prophecy says: no, you arrived late to a very old conversation. Once one asks what Zion actually is, the argument changes. The Jewish relationship to Zion is not merely emotional, although it is emotional. It is not merely religious, although it is profoundly religious. It is not merely historical, although history cries out from every layer of Jerusalem’s stones. It is textual, ritual, liturgical, geographical, archaeological and covenantal.

That is why Zion cannot be reduced to modern nationalism. Modern nationalism speaks in the language of statecraft: flags, armies, institutions, borders, elections, sovereignty and diplomacy. Zion speaks first in the language of memory, covenant, sanctity, longing and return. Political Zionism may have built the practical structures required for Jewish survival in a world of empires and nation-states, but it did not invent the Jewish claim. It operationalized an older memory. It translated ancient longing into the machinery of modern power. That translation can be debated. It can be criticized. It can be morally refined. But the older claim cannot honestly be dismissed as a nineteenth-century fantasy when Zion is already woven through the deepest strata of Jewish consciousness.

This is especially important on days when the Jewish people celebrate words inscribed in Torah. The Torah is not only a book of private spirituality. It is a national covenant. It is the constitution of a people meant to live a moral life in a particular land. That makes some people uncomfortable. They prefer Judaism as a set of universal values with a pleasant soundtrack. They like the Ten Commandments, but they become nervous once one mentions borders. Yet the Torah gives no permission to separate covenant from land. Avraham is told to go to a land. Yitzchak is told not to leave the land. Yaakov dreams in the land and returns to the land. Moshe leads the people toward the land. The mitzvot constantly point toward life in the land. And even in exile, Hashem says: “I will remember the land.” The Land is not the optional side salad of Jewish identity. It is part of the covenantal meal.

From there the question moves to Zion itself. There is a deeper tradition, drawn from Zohar and from Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, that Zion is not only a physical place but a deeply spiritual location and an indigenous, perpetual memory that David sought to rediscover. In Kabbalistic language, Zion is invoked in Yosef; it shares the same gematria, 156. It is the spiritual and emotional attribute of Yesod or foundation, layered in form. There is an upper Yesod associated with Yosef’s land and a lower Yesod, the inner covenantal point, associated with his brother Binyamin’s land, together considered the Periah of Milah or covenantal circumcision.  This parallels the northern border of Binyamin’s land with Yosef and opposite southern border with Yehuda. Jerusalem is Malchut or kingdom, the outer covenantal expression on Yehuda’s land, whose northernmost tip, on the lower slope of Mount Moriah, intersects Binyamin. This is considered the Orlah of Milah or covenantal circumcision. In simpler terms, the sacred geography points to a meeting-place: on the lower slope of Mount Moriah, the foundation stone, Zion converges at the northernmost land-tip of Yehuda at the south-east corner of the altar, while the other corners are associated with the land of Binyamin. Zevachim preserves the memory that the altar consumed one cubit from the portion of Judah. From that origin, Zion expands outward into the whole covenantal land. This is Zion's GPS.

It's a holistic idea that asks us to read geography, family history, tribal inheritance and spiritual structure as one system and that is precisely how Torah works. The personal drama of the forefathers is never merely personal. It becomes land, tribe and boundary. It becomes destiny. Prototypical Zion begins In Mitzrayim, at the beginning of the Jewish nation’s exile and ultimate journey to receive Torah. Yehuda approaches Yosef about Binyamin's retention. Each brother carries hidden guilt before their father Yaakov. Yehuda knows the brothers have concealed a dark secret about Yosef from their father. Yosef knows the full story, but did nothing to relieve his father’s suffering. Binyamin remains innocent, the one brother not implicated in the sale of Yosef, and yet he will have to co-opt and subdue their dark secret in order to uphold family unity. This is Yosef’s Yesodian moment, he comes out of concealment for revelation and unity to preserve fracture, uphold their father’s honor and rebuild family unity.

Vayigash is the moment of hishtavut, transcendence and revelation. Yehuda offers himself in exchange for Binyamin. Yosef reveals himself — “Ani Yosef!” — and cries upon Binyamin’s neck. The Torah uses the plural “necks,” and Rashi famously links this to the destruction of the Temples. On the surface, one may ask how Binyamin can have more than one neck. But in the geography of their future land inheritance, Binyamin does have two necks: One facing Yosef to the north and one facing Yehuda to the south. The oscillation between these necks expressed as tears over the future Temple destructions that would be underwritten by the tension between Yosef and Yehuda for the permanent Temple location at a point where these spiritual, family, land and covenantal roles meet. Yosef is the hidden tzaddik who sustains life in exile. Binyamin is innocence sacrificed and the lower covenantal point, Yehuda is kingship, Malchut, leadership revealed in the open. The union of Rachel’s only sons Yosef and Binyamin with Leah’s Yehuda is the first step in the deep architecture of return.

This is why Zion may be described as Israel’s enduring singularity. The Jewish people are not only meant to carry memory internally. They are designed to reveal it externally. We are not only meant to believe. We are meant to build. We are not only meant to remember Zion in our hearts. We are meant to return Jerusalem to its history. And that is precisely what many cannot tolerate. A Jew who remembers Zion privately is charming. A Jew who sings about Zion is cultural. A Jew who writes poetry about Zion is acceptable. But a Jew who returns to Zion, builds in Zion, digs to uncover Zion, and says, “This is not a metaphor,” becomes a problem. Why? Because Jewish memory has become physical again.

The world is often more comfortable with dead Jews than living Jews, more comfortable with ancient Jews than sovereign Jews, more comfortable with Jewish suffering than Jewish agency. The museum Jew is admired. The biblical Jew is studied. The Holocaust Jew is mourned. But the living Jew who says, “This is my ancestral land and I intend to live here,” suddenly becomes controversial. That is the real problem. Not Zionism. Jewish continuity.

This does not remove moral responsibility. It intensifies it. If Zion is holy, Jewish sovereignty must be morally serious. If Jerusalem is sacred, power in Jerusalem must be disciplined. If the Land is remembered by Hashem, then Jews must act in the Land with humility, courage, justice and restraint. But humility does not mean self-erasure. There is a strange expectation placed on Jews, that they prove their morality by denying their own story. No other people are asked to become historically homeless in order to be considered ethical. The Irish may love Ireland. The Greeks may love Greece. Indigenous peoples may speak of ancestral land, sacred geography, dispossession, memory and return, and rightly so. But when Jews say Zion, suddenly the room becomes tense.

So again: what is the problem? If the problem is with a particular policy, government, military decision or political leader, then say so. Let the argument be specific. But if the problem is with Jews remembering Zion, longing for Zion, praying for Zion, returning to Zion, building Zion and uncovering Zion, then the problem is not politics. The problem is that Jewish memory survived. And that is not a Jewish problem. That is someone else’s problem.

This is why anti-Zionist politics must flatten Jewish history. It must turn Zion into a recent claim. It must pretend Jewish longing began in Basel in 1897. It must ignore Tanach, ignore Hebrew, ignore prayer, ignore archaeology, ignore exile, ignore return, ignore the Gihon, ignore the City of David, ignore David’s stronghold, ignore Isaiah’s prophecy and ignore the Torah’s own declaration that Hashem remembers the Land. That is a great deal of ignoring. At some point, ignorance becomes ideology.

The Jewish response should not be anger alone. It should be our education, our confidence and our memory. We should be able to say: you may oppose a policy, but do not tell us Zion is foreign to the Jewish people. Zion is in our sources. It is in our prayers. It is in our bones. It is in the geography of our ancestors. It is where David turned Jewish longing into kingship. It is where the prophets located redemption. Zion is where Jewish memory refuses to die.

One should remember that Torah was never meant to produce a people embarrassed by its own covenant. A tired Jew may not be ready for a full geopolitical debate. But every Jew should be ready to say this: Zion is not an insult. Zion is not a colonial invention. Zion is not a modern embarrassment. Zion is one of the oldest names of Jewish identity and of Jewish destiny. If Hashem says, “I will remember the Land,” then perhaps our task is also simple. We must remember our covenant with it too, not with arrogance, not with hatred, not with slogans, but with knowledge, courage, faith, humor and enough coffee to keep learning until morning.

Beshuv Hashem Tzion. Hashanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim.

Academia Crushed By Egypt, Israel and Archaeology.

One of the most persistent chronological puzzles in ancient Near Eastern history is not, as often assumed, a conflict between the Bible and archaeology. In fact, those two lines of evidence align more closely than many realize. The real tension lies between the archaeological horizon of Israel’s emergence and academia's rigid chronological framework of Egyptian history. The events appear to match, but the dates do not.

Across the central highlands of Israel, archaeology reveals a dramatic demographic shift beginning in the late 13th century BCE: Hundreds of new small agrarian settlements appear in previously sparsely populated hill country, major Late Bronze Canaanite centers such as Hazor, Lachish, and Gezer are destroyed or decline, Egyptian control begins to weaken and withdraw. By 1208 BCE, the Merneptah Stele records that Israel already exists as a people in the land

Radiocarbon data tightly constrain this transformation to a Settlement and destruction horizon between ~1275–1200 BCE. Traditional Biblical chronology places Israel’s entry into Canaan in essentially the same window. The convergence is striking: The Biblical timeline aligns with the archaeological emergence of Israel. However, the "gap" difficulty appears when Egyptian academic records are introduced. 

The Egyptian sources that most closely resemble the political environment of the Biblical conquest come from the Amarna Letters (c. 1350–1330 BCE). In the Jerusalem correspondence (EA 286–290), the local ruler reports: “The lands of the king are lost”; Neighboring rulers are acting independently; Towns are falling to the Habiru; Egyptian military support is absent. This is not routine unrest. It is the language of systemic instability, fragmentation, loss of control, and imperial weakness. Letter EA254 speaks of an Egyptian ruler who reigned 32 years, leaving only Amenhotep III and that further exposes the 14th to 13th century gap. 

The "gap" problem is chronological: These letters are academically dated roughly 80–100 years earlier than the archaeological transformation that actually reshaped Canaan. This discrepancy is the Amarna Gap and it's central to the chronological tension.

The political crisis appears in Egyptian records decades before the physical transformation appears in the ground. Radiocarbon ranges for key destruction sites typically fall within ±50–70 years. No credible data place the Late Bronze collapse back into the mid-14th century. Likewise, the highland demographic expansion shows no meaningful activity before about 1300 BCE.

At the same time, the Amarna archive is academically anchored within Egyptian chronology by multiple independent controls: King lists and regnal sequences, Astronomical observations (particularly lunar and Sothic correlations), Synchronisms with Hittite, Babylonian, and Assyrian chronologies, Mediterranean trade sequences and imported ceramics, Radiocarbon samples from Egyptian contexts

Because Egyptian chronology connects to several independent historical systems, shifting the Amarna period by even a few decades would ripple across the entire Late Bronze Age timeline. This is the primary reason the gap persists academically.

The Amarna letters sit inside the most tightly constrained system. Rather than move either framework, the academic solution is interpretive: The Amarna letters represent an early phase of instability, while the archaeological collapse reflects the later culmination of a long process. In this model: 14th century (Amarna): Political stress and weakening control, 13th century: Gradual erosion of Egyptian authority, Late 13th century: System collapse, demographic change, and Israel’s emergence

The gap is therefore treated by academia not as a dating error, but as a two-stage decline. However, even within this explanation, a tension remains. The Amarna letters describe a level of administrative failure that appears more severe than expected for a still-powerful Egyptian empire. Yet archaeology shows that many Canaanite cities continued to function for another century before their destruction.

In effect: The texts look too late, The destruction horizon looks too early

The two systems describe similar conditions, but at different points along the decline curve. The debate is often framed as a conflict between Biblical history and archaeology. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Archaeology and the Biblical timeline converge in the late 13th century. The unresolved question lies between: Egypt’s fixed 14th-century Amarna chronology and the late-13th-century transformation of Canaan

This 80-year offset is preserved because Egyptian chronology is structurally locked to multiple independent systems which is why the Amarna Gap persists in academic discussion. The emergence of Israel is not the disputed point. Both archaeology and Egyptian records confirm that Israel existed in Canaan by the early 12th century BCE. The real question is more precise:

Did the Amarna crisis mark the beginning of a long imperial decline, or does the Egyptian chronological framework still contain an unresolved offset relative to events in Canaan?

Content of the Amarna letters exposes a shorter conquest and that presents a credibility problem for interpretative academia. Until academics face up to and resolve that question the Amarna Gap will remain not as a conflict between Bible and archaeology, but as a tension between Bible chronology and academia's cherished investment in the most tightly constrained chronological system of the ancient world.

Bowing Toward Zion!

Bowing South to Zion

A discovery could rewrite Jerusalem and Zionism itself. Below the Temple Mount, the most contested patch of earth on the planet, a groundbreaking discovery could change the world with a single question: What if history’s holiest flashpoint is no longer the relevant place to contest?

For centuries, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount has been the axis of world faith and conflict. Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike have looked to its heights as the place where Abraham bound Isaac, where David laid the foundation stone, where Solomon raised the First Temple, and where creation itself began. Wars were waged over this summit. Empires clashed in its shadow. Today, it remains the most disputed piece of land on Earth.

But the drama may not be where we think it is. On the eastern slopes of Mount Moriah, south of and below the famed summit, a team of archaeologists has uncovered something extraordinary: a stone temple complex and water system dating back more than 3,500 years to the time of Malchi-Tzedek and Abraham.

Carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain, this system includes a reservoir and a channel designed to wash blood and refuse from animal sacrifices on temporary sacrificial altars that were periodically built on a relief left over for a bedrock platform. Radiocarbon dating performed by Cambridge University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute places the sites construction and last use around 1535 BCE, in the precise 30 year window the Bible situates Jacob's return to and final years in the land. After that Jacob ultimately left for Egypt with his family, thereafter archaeology at the site and on the mountain ceased abruptly for almost 300 years.

The site’s architecture is not random. A westernmost altar matches Maimonides’ teaching that ancient pagans prayed eastward toward the rising sun, but Abraham turned his back to the sun, facing west toward the sanctity of the one true God. One chamber appears shaped for processing slaughtered animals, another for burning sacrifices on an altar and between them stands a matzevah - a standing stone remarkably consistent with Jacob’s pillar in Genesis 35: "Jacob set up a pillar at the site where God had spoken to him…” and when he returned to it (Genesis 35:14) he accepted his name Israel.

This is not merely archaeology. This is scripture meeting bedrock. The irony is profound: The modern political conflict over Zionism also originates from a dispute over this very place. Zionism was born from a simple, ancient claim: The Jewish people have a right to their ancestral land because a specific place - Zion - was promised, inhabited, sanctified, and remembered. Zion, the City of David, Jerusalem and ultimately the Temple Mount became the physical and symbolic anchor for that claim. It was allegedly the 'stone' upon which Jewish historical legitimacy was cast. Modern anti-Zionist narratives lean heavily on undermining that very connection: Some argue Jews have no ancient ties to Jerusalem. Others claim the temples never stood on the mountain. Still others insist the Jewish link is a colonial myth retrofitted to a holy Muslim site.

Zion Redeemed

The Temple Mount is thus not just a place, it is the political fulcrum of Jewish indigeneity. Control the narrative of the Mount, and you control the legitimacy of Zionism itself. But, here lies the explosive twist: If the sanctuary of Israel's forefathers, its altar, and stone pillar are actually located on the lower slope, not the Temple Mount summit, the entire frame of the modern conflict shifts. For Christians the implications touch salvation history. For Muslims, it challenges centuries of inherited tradition about the sacred geography and posits them bowing south toward Zion, which would stand between their bowing and Mecca. But, for Jews, the ramifications are seismic!

If Abraham’s altar of Akeida and Jacob’s monument stood not where today’s Dome of the Rock sits, but on the lower slope above the ancient spring of En Shemesh (Gihon), then:  Jewish worship would no longer be shackled by the political status quo on the Temple Mount. The “status quo” used to block Jewish prayer might simply be irrelevant. The dream of a Third Temple transforms from geopolitical nightmare to practical possibility.

And for the modern ideological struggle? Anti-Zionism loses its central pillar. If Jewish sanctity does not hinge on the contested summit, the claim that Zionism is a colonial intrusion on Muslim holy space collapses. Instead, the archaeological record reinforces that Israel was here first and that their earliest sanctuary at Zion came well before later constructions, long predating Solomon, Greek, Roman,  Byzantine, or Islamic claims.

For centuries, the Temple Mount was weaponized by Crusaders, by Sultans, by politicians, by terrorists. The October 7th massacre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was named the 'Al Aqsa Flood', invoking the Temple Mount as justification for genocide. But Zionism was equally shaped by this pressure point. It emerged from a world that tried to dislodge Jews from their ground and a determination to return to that ground despite it. The contested nature of the place forged the movement itself. Yet, if the original altar of Isaac's binding (Akeida) lies on the lower slope, not on the summit of Mount Moriah, the entire narrative religious, historical and political must be rewritten.

Skeptics will argue the connection is circumstantial; believers may dismiss it as heresy. But the evidence is converging: The archaeological dates align with Jacob’s presence, during 10 of his last 30 years before leaving Israel. The orientation opposes the sun. The architecture matches traditional temple service descriptions. The water system supports sacrificial functions, not domestic use. The standing stone mirrors Jacob’s matzevah. The tribal boundaries converge on the altar and if these stones indeed tell the story they appear to tell, then the ideological battlefield over Zionism may have been misplaced for centuries.

The place that changed the world may not be the place that will change the world again. No city has borne more weight upon its stones than Jerusalem. But, if this discovery holds, then Jerusalem’s oldest stones reveal a stunning revelation:  Zionism may not originate from a disputed Temple Mount summit after all, but from a forgotten sanctuary on the lower slope that every day Muslims face from Al Aqsa.  And that revelation could shift the world politically, spiritually, and historically.

The stones of Jerusalem still have secrets to tell. And those secrets may yet reshape the meaning of Zion, the struggle for it, and the future built upon it.

Israel Sovereignty: Two States vs. Two Houses

Conversing with Israeli's about a one or two state solution can be a minefield. Post 7 October those who once desired democracy-for-all are now conflicted by the nature of Israel's neighbors and autocrats committed to radical religious ideologies just like the Palestinian Authority. For the past 20 years the worlds major democracies have granted this Authority a "no-election" free-pass while they shape-shift its radical leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who risks losing power to even more radical ideologists and, if not for its monarchy, Jordan, once Palestine, would also spill into the realm of Islamic radical despots.  

British Palestine included Jordan

Israel's' democracy-idealists, some of whom may have proposed incorporation of Arab's under the PA into Israel's electorate, are conflicted by the heightened fear they may be uprooted from their beloved homeland by a non-Jewish radicalized Islamic majority in a hypothetical single democratic state. Their concern is presently reflected in the Palestinian Authority who will not tolerate Jews in its territories nor minority Jewish representation in its government.

With no sign of peace the 40 year "two-state" status quo is untenable and people on both sides continue to loose life in the tit-for-tat wars of terror. Israel's romance with a democratic ideal is intolerable and increasingly to blame for the ongoing loss of life. One must ask whether Israel's "two state" status-quo trades loss of Jewish life as collateral damage in much the same way Muslim terrorists embrace their martyrs? 

The modern view of Israel's historical Jewish democracy is nearly always flawed, mostly ignorant of the facts. Its ancient Jewish society was always governed by religious elders that comprised the main body of its legal and enforcement authority. Transfer of authority was autocratic through Semicha, or 'Standing' granted by incumbents to enforce the will of its King and the court. One of today's arguments for judicial reform, by Israel's present government, is that High Court Justices with the Attorney General have usurped a similar authority, under a weakened democracy, but that no longer resembles the indigenous, religious framework that once governed it. 

Crosslinking risk to homeland sovereignty, ongoing terror and the democratic ideal that upholds the status quo, like the well known business triangle, you can get it 1)cheap' and 2)'good', but not 3)'quick', any two, work, but three do not logically connect. As a result Israeli's are beginning to conclude that no-risk to homeland sovereignty and peace is preferable to the forlorn democratic ideal. Social and political change is actively occurring because of Israel's seismic demographic shift toward a more religious society and the emigration of its most liberal fringe. 

Paving the way for more innovative forms of government must ultimately secure Jewish sovereignty over its homeland and preserve a democracy with security for its people in a government framework that moves the status quo toward a better outcome for all. Innovation may come from Israel's three Electoral College's one of which presently oversees the periodic election of senior Rabbinical leaders from its hundreds of liberal and conservative communities in cities nationwide. With constituent support and via a simple Knesset majority a future Knesset can pass a law to restructure itself introducing a Rabbinical upper house that would yield two important milestones: 

1. Ensure Jewish sovereignty in its system of government and 

2. Permit the ultimate modernization of some of the nations ancient religious laws.

In such a case representatives from any ethnic or religious background may be elected to the lower Knesset, but only elected Rabbinical leaders, from major cities, would qualify for election to the upper house of the Knesset where they would authorize bills exclusively introduced and drafted by the representative lower house of the Knesset. 

The novel combination of this hybrid-theocratic democracy would enable Israel to offer its non-Jewish aliens permanent residency and after qualifying, ultimately citizenship where all citizens would provide military service. This would embrace the majority of people presently trapped by liberal autocrats who have awarded themselves the power to cancel every law that the government passes. If such power were rightfully granted to an upper house of the elected parliament Israel would finally be freed from its two-state quagmire and from the double standards of foreign governments and anti-Israel idealists that hold it to account. 

Redeeming Zion!

The Temple Mount features deeply in the psyche of many religious Jews that they are often blinded to misinterpret the location of Zion. Here I have extracted the most revealing mentions of Zion and I elaborate their meaning in that context.  

2 Samuel 5:7  

וַיִּלְכֹּ֣ד דָּוִ֔ד אֵ֖ת מְצֻדַ֣ת צִיּ֑וֹן הִ֖יא עִ֥יר דָּוִֽד׃

But David captured the stronghold of Zion; it is now the City of David.

Prophet Samuel tells us the citadel or stronghold of Zion becomes the City of David. The verses tell us David stayed in the place they captured and that place that he stayed was expanded and became the City of David.

Jerusalem's Final Temple

Reexamining the Akedah Location: Temple Zero and Mount Moriah’s Sanctity

The location of the altar of Akedat Yitzchak (binding of Isaac) remains a pivotal question in Jewish tradition, with the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1 asserting that the altar’s site is "extremely precise" and unchangeable, linking the Akedah (Genesis 22:2) to Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah (II Chronicles 3:1) [1]. Traditionally, this is the Temple Mount’s Even HaShtiyah (Foundation Stone). However, the Middle Bronze Age (1615–1445 BCE) Temple Zero complex in the City of David, with its westernmost altar platform and matzevah, offers a compelling alternative for the altar at Akedah’s historical site, prompting a reevaluation of the Rambam’s Hebrew phrasing and Mount Moriah’s sanctity [2].

The Rambam’s considered use of בַמִּקְדָּשׁ ("in the temple") and אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה ("land of Moriah") welcomes ambiguity, as מִקְדָּשׁ can mean a "sanctified place" and אֶרֶץ suggests a broader region [1]. This permits the Akedah at Temple Zero, 500–700 meters south of the Temple Mount, within Mount Moriah’s limestone ridge [3]. Buried by circa 1550 BCE, Temple Zero aligns with the original use of Zion as the City of David (2 Samuel 5:7), where King David first sought a pre-existing Israelite heritage site [4], from where he would unify the nation. The argument posits that Temple Zero is the site of Akedah’s true altar, potentially the future Third Temple’s site, citing its alignment with the Ein Shemesh (Gihon Spring) and prophetic critiques of the post Solomon's Temple altar placement (Haggai 2:9, II Kings 18:4) [2, 4].

Commentators relate the Even HaShtiyah as the entirety of Mount Moriah, the "Foundation Stone" or "Rock" (Zohar, Vayera 97b), unifying Temple Zero’s sanctity, Zion and Jerusalem (Zohar, VaYeshev 1:186a) with the Temple Mount [5]. Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 48:10–20) expands the Third Temple’s sacred zone to include the City of David, supporting Temple Zero’s holiness [6]. However, the Rambam’s unchangeable altar and halachic tradition (Mishnah Middot 3:1) prioritize the Temple Mount as the site for Solomon’s and the Third Temple’s altars [1, 7]. A synthesis proposes Temple Zero as the Akedah’s historical altar, its sanctity subsumed into the Temple Mount’s Even HaShtiyah when David chose the threshing floor (II Samuel 24:18) as guided by prophecy [3] for his altar after which he declared it the altar of the nation (II Chronicles 3:1). This reconciles the brevity of Temple Zero evidence with halachic primacy, unless and until the claim for the Third Temple’s altar at Temple Zero gains mainstream support [2].

References:

1. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1
2. Akedah and the Final Temple Altar
3. City of David is Zion - What is the Temple Mount?
4. Jerusalem vs. The Sun
5. Zohar, Vayera 97b
6. Zohar, VaYeshev 186a
7. Ezekiel 48:10–20
8. Mishnah Middot 3:1