By Marney Blom
Early last week I received a communique confirming that I had been scheduled to meet with Rabbi Yehuda Glick, the founder and chairman of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation and an outspoken advocate for the rights of all faiths – not just Muslims – to pray on the Temple Mount. Rabbi Glick is also widely known for the 2014 assassination attempt on his life. The four bullets that were fired into his chest by an Arab resident of Jerusalem were believed to be directly linked to his Temple Mount prayer-advocacy work. Remarkably he survived the attack.
Those were last week’s plans.
Then a series of events took place: the resignation of Israel’s Minister of Defence Moshe Ya’alon and the official appointment of Rabbi Yehuda Glick to Ya’alon’s vacant Knesset seat. The day of our scheduled meeting became the Rabbi’s first day at the Knesset, yet he kept his promise to speak to me. Though he was clearly itching to get on with the myriad of first-day-on-the-job tasks, we sat down for a chat at the Knesset’s Kosher Dairy cafe because he had not yet been assigned an office.
I recognized immediately that this was not only a chance to interview Israel’s premier advocate for the rights of Jews and Christians to pray on the site scripture refers to as “a house of prayer for all the peoples” (Isaiah 56:7) but I was given a rare opportunity to speak with Israel’s newest Knesset Member on his first day on the job. Amazing how life happens.
Although our 12-minute meeting was delayed by a pressing need for Glick to submit an official Declaration of Renunciation of his US citizenship, and was consistently punctuated by incoming phone calls, the yet-to-be-sworn-in MK graciously took the time to give his perspective on this new shift of events in his life.
Due to his Temple Mount prayer-advocacy work Glick today is considered the most controversial MK in the Knesset. He is not deterred. He sees his Knesset seat appointment as a divine set-up.
“God has picked me up from the pit and put me… here in the Knesset. I am sort of like a messenger on a mission to do His mission,” said Glick. “It is very scary, but I pray to [the Name of the Lord] that I will do it faithfully.”
Marney Blom is news director for the Acts News Network.
Copyright 2016 © Acts News Network, Inc.