Prominent Yerushalayim activist Rav Chaim Miller has taken up the fight towards the removal of a statue placed outside Kever Dovid on Har Tzion in the Old City.
Last week, mispalalim arrived and were unpleasantly surprised to see a status had been set in place. Miller immediately contacted Mayor Nir Barkat, explaining the new statue is deemed offensive to chareidi and traditional Jew alike, calling upon City Hall to have it removed.
Miller, a member of the chareidi community, expressed his sorrow that Meir Porush lost the mayoral race, adding he remains hopeful however that the new mayor will indeed exhibit sensitivity to the demands of the frum community.
Miller, who heads the Movement for Yerushalayim, hopes to play an active role to acquaint committee leaders and members in City Hall with some of the problems in chareidi communities.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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7 Responses
What is it a statue of? Who put it there?
Where is this statue, in the room of the tomb? Who put it there and for what reason?
in picture this is look like sign showing location of tomb being out of blue and white tile attached to stone wall. why is this considering to be “statue” and not just for the information purpose?
I assume that if the statue is inappropriate, a picture of it would be equally inappropriate. If I had to guess I’d say it was a replica of the famous statue of David, which is definitely inappropriate for a makom kadosh…
And before anyone else does so, let me point out that “Kever Dovid” is one of the few “traditional” kevorim that we know beyond doubt is not authentic. Whoever is buried deep underneath this site, we know it isn’t Dovid Hamelech. But that’s hardly the point; it’s still a place where yidden have davened and said tehillim for well over 500 years, and even though Dovid’s body is certainly not there, his neshomo just as certainly is.
The picture is for illustration purposes only, Duh…!???
vadim-i believe the picture is just meant to represent the article; its a picture of the sign at kever dovid, not a picture of the statue that was placed there.
NeveAliza, it’s not “almost certainly”, it’s absolutely certain. The Tanach explicitly says “vayikover be’ir Dovid”, and there’s even a posuk in Ezra that gives the exact directions on how to find the kever.
Also, the kever was known in the times of the Tano’im, and there’s a mishna that explicitly says there was a hole or small tunnel leading from kever Dovid to Nachal Kidron. Therefore kever Dovid is on the mountain overlooking Nachal Kidron, not on the next mountain over! It would have been impossible to drill a hole from the current “Kever Dovid” to Nachal Kidron, because not only would it have to go all the way through two mountains, but it would also have to go through empty air over the valley between them!
No, “Kever Dovid” is not the grave of Dovid Hamelech, and nor is the mountain it’s on the “Har Tziyon” of Tanach. But it may well be over the site of the tomb of the later kings of Beis Dovid. The Tanach says that after the original tomb of Malchei Beis Dovid filled up, they started a new one, in approximately the area that “Kever Dovid” is now. So maybe over the years the name “Kever Malchei Beis Dovid” got confused, and people started assuming that Dovid himself was there.