janeandbobandmore: THE SECOND TEMPLE, 516 BCE

THE SECOND TEMPLE, 516 BCE - 70 CE

The Old City is a maze of interwoven historic, archaeological and religious traditions that can be analyzed at great length and from varying perspectives. Let’s focus on one particular site –the corner where the Second Temple’s Western Wall meets the Southern Wall. Here the Temple construction dates back over 2,000 years: in the United States, we can count history in decades; in Europe we think in terms of centuries; in Jerusalem time is counted in millennia!

Benjamin Mazar, born in Poland, studied in German universities and then immigrated to British controlled Palestine in 1929. He was known as the dean of Biblical archaeology and later served as the president of Hebrew University. But let’s stop for a personal connection….. I have a clear recollection that he came through our NYC apartment to gain support for the Zionist cause and the work he was doing. My great-grandmother was a part of the Shimshelevitz family in Poland as was Dina Shimshi Mazar, Benjamin Mazar’s wife—hence the connection.

Dina’s brother was Yitzchak Ben Tzvi - note how he changed his name to adapt to the new setting in Palestine and the rebirth of Hebrew as a living language. In fact, Ben Tzvi translates “son of Tzvi” referring to his father Tzvi Shimshi. Ben Tzvi was a Zionist pioneer, an ardent socialist who arrived in Palestine from Poland following a bitter exile in Siberia. Ben Tzvi was a founder of the state of Israel – signing its 1948 Declaration of Independence along with Ben Gurion - and served as Israel’s second president.

The most famous excavation Mazar directed was that of the Southern and Western walls of the Temple Mount, a site that first become available to Jewish archaeologists after the Six-Day War in 1967 when the Israel Defense Forces succeeded in unifying Jerusalem under Israeli civil law.

Mazar’s 10-year excavation (1967-77) uncovered many historical finds, notably at the stratum dating from the Herodian period. A pile of rubble containing multi-ton stone building blocks gives mute testimony to how the Romans used battering rams to destroy the walls and parapets on the Temple Mount, attempting to obliterate a core element of Jewish civilization. Mazar’s meticulous dig uncovered remnants from the Second Temple period which had been buried for 2,000 years. He found that the base of the wall extended another 70 feet below the 1967 ground level, and had not seen the light of day for close to two millennia. Significantly, the dig uncovered the base of Robinson’s Arch over which had been steps leading to the Temple grounds. One of the large stones thrust down from the top of the Temple Mount by the Romans carried a Hebrew inscription- “Tekiah”. Was this the stone from the corner where the priests trumpeted the arrival of the Sabbath?

To commemorate the destruction of the Jewish people with the fall of the Second Temple and their exile from Jerusalem, the Romans minted a coin with the inscription “Judea Captiva” (see below). Note the Roman soldier standing over a kneeling weeping woman. To celebrate its rebirth, the state of Israel, with roots back to the times of Herod, issued its own commemorative coin with the Roman inscription and relief on one side and a modern Israeli inscription on the other side. Here, an Israeli woman stands proudly besides a blooming tree and holds a child to the heavens reflecting an ultimate triumph over Rome and the rebirth of the Jewish State. As we learned from the Israel Museum’s coin collection, coins which circulate among the population are intentionally designed to spread a message.

Walking through the Old City of Jerusalem, one sees a vibrant Israel that has risen from the rubble of the Second Temple and has taken its place again among the nations.