Record number of Jews said to visit Temple Mount in past month

Jews made nearly 8,000 visits to the Temple Mount over the past month, the largest number in modern history, according to an activist group.

Throughout the Hebrew month of Tishrei — the period in which the Jewish high holidays are celebrated — Jews made 7,959 visits to the flashpoint esplanade. That number is larger than the entire number of annual visitors a decade ago when just over 7,700 visits were made in 2012.

The number is also significantly up from the approximately 6,000 visits to the Temple Mount by Jews in the same month last year.

The figures provided by the organization Beyadenu, an umbrella group representing a number of Temple Mount activists, refer only to the number of visits made by Jews, not to the total number of visitors, making it unclear if this unprecedented number comes from more people visiting the site or from a smaller number visiting the site many times or, most likely, some combination of the two.

In the past few years, a small but dedicated group of Jewish activists have turned visiting the Temple Mount — once widely considered to be forbidden under Jewish law — into a mainstream practice for both religious Jews and secular right-wing Israelis.

This major shift has repeatedly prompted Muslim authorities to claim that Israel was changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, which Israeli officials have denied.