The story goes that yesterday, on the Shmini Atzeres/Simchas Torah holiday, some Muslims from Turkey decided to take advantage of the fact that there would be no religious Jews in the airport and they went to pray in the Ben Gurion synagogue. They used tallitot from the shul as their prayer mats to kneel on.
A secular Jew happened to spot them (and record the video below) and told them that it was not appropriate. They apologized and left.
This incident has caused a bit of a ruckus. It was passed around in a few groups I am a member of, accompanied with criticism and comparisons as to what would happen if a Jew would have done something similar in a mosque.
I am a bit torn.
On the one hand, we are more tolerant, for better or worse, and while Arabs would probably murder Jews, or at least riot and turn it into an international incident, that did this in a mosque, we let it slide with just some words of criticism by the people. We are not a violent people, and we don't turn every minor, and often even major, incident into an excuse for violent actions.
On the other hand, maybe we should be more protective of our honor and of our religious sites. After all, they would be, so why aren't we? Do we respect our sites less?
On the third hand, is it really a big deal? Are other people really not allowed to pray in our shuls? Obviously not, when dealing with anything classified as avoda zara, but what's wrong with prayers that are not involving avoda zara? In the Beis Hamikdash non-Jews were allowed to pray and offer sacrifices, so why not in a shul?
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
