Israel: New Sanhedrin Wants to Replace Knesset

Christians Against Zionism - January 2005

 
By Aldo Baquis
ANSA - English Media Service
Y30
October 13, 2004

(ANSA) - TEL AVIV, October 13 - A new Sanhedrin (a Jewish Council) will open for the first time after 1,660 years on Thursday evening on the Tiberiade lake shore in the Abulafia Synagogue.

"A historic day for the Jewish people," rang out enthusiastically colonial radio, Channel 7.

No other Israeli media has paid even the minimum attention to the event, probably considering it a bizarre initiative of the rabbis, who also dream of reconstructing the Jerusalem Temple and returning to sacrifice rituals.

In the ancient times, the Sanhedrin had 71 members, elected among the doctrine leaders. Side by side with the monarch, they used to represent a moral, political, administrative and judicial guide for that time. They used to meet in the Jerusalem Temple. After its destruction in 70 AD by Tito's Roman legions, the Sanhedrin moved south, to the city of Yavne.

What is the reason for the awakening from its lethargy such an archaic institution?

One of the organisers, Rabbi Yishai Baabed from the Beit El settlement, near Ramallah, told the radio that the Sanhedrin was founded to turn into a benchmark for the religious people, both on hot national problems and the aspects of daily life.

Contrary to the Knesset parliamentarians, its members were elected among the top religious authorities in the country. Unlike the Jerusalem Supreme Court, its edicts were fully-based on the Mosaic Law.

The Tiberiade, a tourism area whose thermal springs were loved by emperor Tiberius, wants to become the place where a new Israeli religion-based leadership is born.

Moshe Feiglin, who claims secular Zionism has already completed its historic mission, found a current called "Jewish Leadership" as part of Likud.

Feiglin has been known to the Israeli secret services since when they discovered that a group of 23, calling itself Little Sahnedrin, was meeting secretly in a Jerusalem house.

Professor Hillel Weiss, one of the intellectuals promoting the replacing of Israel's current form of government with a monarchy, was among the participants in these meetings which later laid the foundations of the current Sahnedrin.

"We want to create a religious alternative to challenge Israel's secular leadership," Weiss explained then.

The conflict between Zealots and the government has been fuelled by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip even if this would lead to the moving of some 20 Jewish settlements.

According to Cabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri's website kaduri.net, a document entitled "The Rebellion Has Started" has been spread through the country's synagogues. Despite his advanced age of over hundred years, Kaduri knows what he is talking about. Last August he was the one to foresee the return of the Sanhedrin.

The Jewish religious avant-garde warns in the leaflet that it intends to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple and to reestablish the monarchy.

"We want a monarchic instead of the current fascist regime which only pretends to be democratic," the authors of the leaflet said. "Sharon threatens to expel the settlers from their homes and he is loosing the remainder of his legitimacy. The Supreme Court represents the interests of the enemy."

The current Israeli government threatens the existence of the Israelis, the leaflet also reads.

Kaduri advises his followers to choose the hard-line. He explains that for the last four years, since the beginning of the intifada and then with the war between the West and al-Qaeda, an apocalyptic war between Gog and Magog is being underway.

"It will last seven years," Kaduri said interpreting sacred texts which also said that the conflict will have a happy-end. "Sharon will be the last Prime Minister and his successor will be the Messiah."