For these nationalist Jews, the Temple symbolizes redemption and must hasten the coming of the Messiah. But for their detractors, many within Judaism itself, this borders on playing with fire, on a site at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

The Jewish people have been "waiting" for the Temple for 2,000 years, said Shmuel Kam, 52, a member of the choir made up of descendants of the Levites tribe, who were once in charge of singing and music at the shrine.

"I think I will see the Temple rebuilt in my lifetime... It's inevitable," he adds.

Today, these apprentice choristers come from all over the country to the suburbs of Tel Aviv to immerse themselves in collections of ancient songs.

Temple Institute choir director Menachem Rozenthal addresses choristers during rehearsals in an Israeli town near Tel Aviv, April 28, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

"When the Temple is built, the Levites will be asked to come and sing and they will not know, they must be taught," said Menachem Rozenthal, director of the choir created a few months ago by the Temple Institute.

This organization has been working since 1987 to rebuild the Temple by training choristers and priests and making objects for worship.

Priests' robes, bread pans, censers and musical instruments: everything is ready, reproduced according to rabbinical instructions.

Razed by the Romans in 70 AD, the Second Temple, of which the Western Wall is a vestige, was built on the site where, according to Jewish tradition, the First Temple destroyed by the Babylonians in the sixth century BC stood.

On its ruins was built several centuries later the esplanade of the Mosques where today stand the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site of Islam, in East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel.

Members of the Temple Institute choir rehearse in an Israeli town near Tel Aviv, April 28, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

"Messianic sign"

Located in the Old City, the Temple Mount, as Jews call it, is the holiest place in Judaism.

"We can say what we want, here was the place of the Jews," says Haim Berkovits, for whom reconstruction is "only a matter of time".

The 50-year-old French-Israeli is a member of the organization Boneh Israel ("Build Israel"), which wants to "hasten redemption."

Red heifers flown from Texas to Israel for sacrifice eat hay at a farm in the north of the country, April 27, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

In 2022, his association transported five red heifers from Texas to Israel for sacrifice. According to Talmudic prescriptions, it will indeed be necessary to smear oneself with a mixture of water and ashes of this extremely rare cow in order to purify oneself before entering the holy place.

Until this condition is met, the Israeli rabbinate prohibits Jewish visits to the Temple Mount. The rite of the heifer is therefore crucial.

His "return is a messianic sign," Berkovits said, at a farm in northern Israel where heifers are inspected hair by hair by veterinarians and rabbis to ensure their coats remain fully red-haired as they grow.

"We keep them, we keep them for the appropriate moment," he added, adding that his organization has already acquired a plot on the Mount of Olives, a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem, to burn the animals, opposite the Temple Mount.

Red heifers flown from Texas to Israel for sacrifice eat hay at a farm in the north of the country, April 27, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

"Owners"

For Yizhar Beer, these "lovers of the Third Temple" are in no way marginalized.

Director of the Keshev Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, he has followed developments in this part of Israeli society. They were only "a few dozen members" twenty years ago, but their number is only growing and their ideology "has spread to the center of the political sphere," he notes.

Since one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history took office in December, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has already visited the mosque compound twice to assert Israeli sovereignty.

"We are the owners of Jerusalem and all of Israel," he said on May 22.

Members of the Temple Institute choir, led by music director Itzik Weiss, during rehearsals in an Israeli town near Tel Aviv, April 28, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

Defying the rabbinate's ban, about 50,000 Jews visited the Temple Mount in 2022, according to the Israeli nationalist organization Har Habait.

The UN has reiterated its calls in recent months to "respect the status quo" on the Esplanade, whose entrances are guarded by Israeli police but which is run by a Jordanian Islamic institution, the Waqf.

He regularly repeats that the Esplanade is a Muslim-only site, denouncing Israeli attempts to "Judaize" it, and Palestinians say it is "threatened."

From dream to reality

Every incident there can become "an atomic bomb," Beer said. "It's a mixture of religion and politics ... An explosion there can blow everything up."

Yitzchak Reuven, communications officer at the Temple Institute, accused the Palestinians of stirring up "controversy over the Temple Mount" and being responsible for frequent violence with Israeli forces.

Members of the Temple Institute choir rehearse in an Israeli town near Tel Aviv, April 28, 2023 © JACK GUEZ / AFP

But it does not specify what should happen to Muslim holy sites in the Third Temple era.

These do not appear in the plans of the organizations that are working for its construction. And all say that it is impossible to build it anywhere other than on the Esplanade.

"This is where it was built, this is the place chosen by God," Reuven said. "It's a dream, but having Jews return to Israel was also a dream and it became a reality."

© 2023 AFP