Haredi coalition partner: close Temple Mount to Jews

(JNS) — After more than 3,000 Jewish pilgrims visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the first days of the week-long Sukkot holiday, one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key ultra-Orthodox coalition partners on Wednesday demanded that the holy site be closed to Jews.

“The ascension to Temple Mount involves a severe prohibition of karet,” tweeted United Torah Judaism Party MK Moshe Gafni, using the Hebrew religious term for divinely-inflicted premature death.

“It pains my heart that 3,000 Jews violated this severe prohibition and went up to Temple Mount,” said the haredi pol...