Ben Shapiro Calls for Synagogue to Be Built on Temple Mount

Shapiro was kicked off the Temple Mount after a member of his group was caught praying.

By United with Israel Staff

American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro recently commented that a synagogue should be built on the Temple Mount.

“I think there’s a strong case to be made that Jews should be building [on the Temple Mount] if they can’t build the temple, because there’s the Dome of the Rock right there. They should at least build a synagogue up there so you can have regularized prayers,” Shapiro said on his podcast on Wednesday

“If Muslims are able to build a school on one end which they have done, it seems to me the Jews should be able to build a synagogue in a space that is roughly the size of three football fields,” he added.

Shapiro was kicked off the Temple Mount last week after a member of his group was caught praying.

The Waqf, a Jordanian-backed religious trust that controls and manages the current Islamic edifices on the Temple Mount, forbids any non-Muslim from praying at the site.

Shapiro commented on his Temple Mount experience, “The site’s incredible. If you’re ever in Jerusalem and you have a chance to visit it you certainly should. It’s the holiest site in Judaism.”

“That’s where the Holy of Holies used to stand in the Beit HaMikdash – the Temple. It is the rock where Abraham, according to the Bible, was about to sacrifice Isaac. It is also the site where Jacob, when he had the dream of the ladder going to heaven was promised the land,” he said.

He also compared the experience of being on the Temple Mount to praying at the Western Wall.

“The Western Wall is actually a retaining wall for the platform where the Temple stood. It’s kind of weird. We’re actually praying at the retaining wall not of the actual Temple itself, there was another wall that surrounded the Temple,” he said. It’s sort of like praying at the fence of a parking lot that contains the building you actually care about.”