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Article
Introduction
The Temple Mount is sacred to Judaism, Islam, and
Christianity. This was the site where the first and second
Jewish Temples stood and is regarded as the most sacred site
for Jews. It was also the place where Prophet Muhammad
ascended—or, according to another tradition, dreamt he
ascended—to Allah to receive the tenets of Islam. The Dome
of the Rock is the site where Muslims believe Muhammad
made his ascent, and the El-Aksa Mosque was built for wor-
shippers on the mount’s southern extremity (Hirsch, 2006).
The Temple Mount is of significance to Christians because it
was the place where Jesus chastised the money changers, and
later the site of the trial of Jesus (Ramon, 1997).
In the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (the so-called Six-Day War),
the Temple Mount fell into Israeli hands from Jordan—the
first time it was in Jewish/Israeli jurisdiction for 1,900 years.
Nowadays, mainly Muslims have prayer access to the mount,
but security matters are in Israeli hands. Jews have limited
access to the mount given understandings between Israeli
leaders and Muslim religious authorities after the 1967 war.
In practice, the site became an area of worship for Muslims,
and Jews were relegated to the nearby so-called Western
Wall of the Temple Mount.
The mountain was not only a sacred place with religious
significance throughout the years but also a place with
national, security, political, and other meanings (Levin,
1995; Shragai, 1995), which makes it a fascinating case
study to learn about the conversation of holy places in social
media. The article analyzes the character of conversation of
holy places in online social media among religious people
and among the general public, where it takes place, and what
are its characteristics. We also wanted to examine whether,
as happens in the mainstream media and also in the social
media, the discourse about holy places is focused on major
events and crisis situations—or does its coverage have other
characteristics?
1138754SMSXXX10.1177/20563051221138754Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyCohen and Lev-On
research-article20222022
Ariel University, Israel
Corresponding Author:
Azi Lev-On, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Email: azilevon@gmail.com
The Dormant Volcano: Social Media and
the Temple Mount, Jerusalem
Yoel Cohen and Azi Lev-On
Abstract
Social media have become primary venues for pubic conversations, but we know very little about how and where holy
places are discussed in social media and who participates in these conversations. To address these questions, we look at the
Temple Mount, one of the most significant places to the three ancient monotheistic religions, which is of great importance
in political, national, and other contexts. The research question is twofold: In what contexts are discussions taking place in the
Hebrew Facebook-sphere around the Temple Mount? And, what are the leading social media venues where the Temple Mount
is discussed? Data collection took place in 2017, when Israel celebrated 50 years since capturing the mount, and experienced
a major security event—the “metal detector crisis,” followed by major clashes between Jews and Palestinians. We found
that the Temple Mount is portrayed prominently in three contexts: national, religious, and security and that “ordinary” social
media interest in it is limited to groups of mostly nationalist and religious Jews who demand prayer rights on the mount and
rarely cross to become an issue for the broader Israeli social media public until a major security development initiates an
“extraordinary” discourse involving many more individuals and groups. In one sense, the discourse about the Temple Mount
is reminiscent of a “dormant volcano” that does not erupt regularly, but when it does, no one knows how the eruption will
end. Lessons for the representation of holy places in social media are discussed.
Keywords
media and religion, holy places, new media, social media
2 Social Media + Society
Thus, based on theories of religion and media and fram-
ing, we use the Temple Mount as a case study to demonstrate
how and where holy places are discussed in social media.
Data collection for this study took place in 2017, when Israel
celebrated 50 years since capturing the mount, but also expe-
rienced a major security event—the so-called “metal detec-
tor crisis”—which was followed by major clashes between
Jews and Palestinians.
We found that the Temple Mount is discussed in the
Hebrew Facebook-sphere prominently in three contexts:
national, religious, and security. We also found that the “ordi-
nary” social media discussion of the Temple Mount is limited
to groups of mostly nationalist and religious Jews who
demand prayer rights on the mount and rarely cross to become
an issue for the broader Israeli social media public until there
is a major security development that initiates an “extraordi-
nary” social media discourse involving many more individu-
als and groups who portray the mountain as “the mountain of
us all.” We conclude with implications of these findings for
the discussion of holy places in social media.
The History of the Temple Mount
The history of the Temple Mount goes back to the days of the
Creation and the Biblical period. Early Jewish tradition
attested to the “foundation stone” of Creation (“even sheti-
yah”) and to the binding of Isaac by the first Jewish patriarch,
Abraham. Some traditions claim that the stone on which the
Ten Commandments were inscribed came from the even she-
tiah. But the site came into its own in nationalist, religious, and
security statuses with the building by King Solomon of the
first Jewish Temple in 1026 BCE. With its destruction, Jews
were exiled to Babylon in 586 BCE. But within 70 years, after
permission from King Cyrus of Persia for the Jews to return to
their homeland, the Temple was rebuilt by the prophet Ezra
and further extended by King Herod. The site was also the
place where the Sanhedrin, the Jewish lawmaking body com-
prising 70 elders, sat (Bar, 2010; Mazar, 2002).
The Temple reflected a key characteristic of Judaism in
which “place” is a central pillar. The land of Israel had an
elevated holiness in contrast to outside of Israel, and inside
Israel, Jerusalem was holier than outside parts. Holiness
achieved a climax with the Temple itself. The Temple became
a site of pilgrims for the pilgrimage festivals of Passover
(Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkoth).
When the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, Jews throughout
the centuries did not stop aspiring for a return to “rebuilt
Zion” (Elior, 2007).
After the Muslims captured Jerusalem, Abdul-Malik
ordered the Dome of the Rock to be constructed in order,
according to one tradition, to draw Muslims away from
Mecca, which was then under rebel control. Traditions sub-
sequently evolved that Prophet Muhammad ascended from
the Rock to Heaven where he received the basic tenets of
Islam from Allah. Al-Aqsa Mosque was built 100 m south to
the Dome of the Rock, on the site of an ancient church. This
clearing of the Temple Mount was welcomed by contempo-
rary Jews, who found the Muslims more relaxed rulers than
the Byzantine emperors.
Although the life of Jesus was intimately connected with the
Temple Mount too—including chastising the money-changers
who charged Jewish pilgrims to the Temple exorbitant prices;
foreseeing the destruction of the Second Temple; and being put
on trial there—the Mount has never been as important to
Christian believers as for Jews or Muslim believers. This is not
surprising because mainstream Christianity emphasizes the
heavenly rather than the earthly Jerusalem. Moreover, Christian
hearts are turned toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
where Jesus was buried, a kilometer away from the Temple
Mount, in the Christian Quarter of the Old City.
Between the 13th and 19th centuries, Christians and Jews
were barred from ascending the Mount. At the end of the
19th century, individual “high-profile” non-Muslims (e.g.,
Sir Moses Montefiore) were allowed to visit the site. During
the British Mandate of Palestine, administrative matters
involving the site were placed in the hands of the Muslim
religious authorities, and Jews and Christians were permitted
to visit—but not to pray at the site. Between 1948 and 1967,
when the Jordanians controlled the Temple Mount, Jews
were not allowed to ascend the site and were even barred
from entering the eastern section of the city.
After the Temple Mount was captured by Israel in 1967, a
few prayer services were held on the Mount in the immediate
aftermath of the war. The tradition of ascent to Jerusalem
became complicated by rabbinical prohibitions of ascent in
the absence of knowing precisely where the Temple building
stood on the Temple Mount—which required an enhanced
level of ritual purity. Consequently, the Chief Rabbinate
imposed a ban on entering the entire Temple Mount precinct.
Moreover, the fears from Muslim reaction to these services
brought the Israeli government to ban Jewish prayer meet-
ings at the site. In the years after the 1967 war, a modus
vivendi was reached with the Israeli chief rabbinate and most
rabbis prohibiting religious Jews from ascending the Temple
Mount, let alone rebuilding the Temple (Cohen, 1999).
Still, in the past few decades, nationalist pro-Temple
groups have turned to the courts in an effort to hold prayer
meetings on the Mount. One of the earliest groups, the so-
called Temple Mount Faithful, seeks to have an annual pro-
cession together with Israeli flags on the mount, but the
police and Israeli courts ban it. While in a declaratory sense,
Israeli law courts uphold the right of Jews to pray at the site;
it also bows to the police regarding the danger of riots should
such prayers be attempted.
Many Rabbis of the modern orthodox community in the
years following 1967 echoed the ban of the Chief Rabbinate,
but increasingly some have questioned the political sensitiv-
ity of this, and today encourage ascent—disregarding the
Chief Rabbinate stand. What began in the 1980s as extreme
had become the norm after the turn of the century and the
Cohen and Lev-On 3
second decade. In 2008, a group of 40 senior rabbis from the
modern orthodox ascended the mount together. The unfilled
vacuum let the Temple Mount to become for successive
Israeli governments an issue for negotiation and eventual
diplomatic compromise. Rabbis who favored ascent labeled
it a “religious obligation” (or mitzvah). During 2019, 30,416
Jews ascended the Mount. In contrast, the ban on ascent is
echoed by ultra-Orthodox Haredi Rabbis, but they do so
because they believe Temple restoration requires to await
divine intervention, and the Messiah. Indeed, they see steps
like ascent on the Temple Mount as even delaying the pro-
cess of the Redemption.
Temple Mount References of a
Religious and Nationalist Character
The first Jewish Temple symbolized the political and reli-
gious independence of the Jewish People. During the
Solomonic period, there was a close link between the Temple,
the King’s palace, and the royal infrastructure. The so-called
“Ophel” was the site of government quarters, physically
close to the Temple Mount. It reflected the proximity between
the power of religious law and the administrative role of the
king and government.
In one sense, just like the Temple symbolized the might
and independence of the Jewish people, so its destruction
symbolized the end of the national independence. Since the
destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE, many
armies have warred in an effort to control Jerusalem. Jewish
yearning for the Temple during some 2,000 years got expres-
sion through religious symbolism, but it also got expression
at the nationalistic level, through the theme of the rebuilding
of Jerusalem—in particular the Temple—as was expressed in
adage: “Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem.” The capture of the
Old City of Jerusalem in the 1967 War and the raising of an
Israeli flag on the Temple Mount (though the flag was later
ordered down by the defense minister) symbolized more
than anything Israel’s victory over three Arab armies.
Yet the urge for the Temple Mount is not unqualified.
Notwithstanding the central place Jerusalem enjoys in the
Israeli Jewish consciousness, only 15% had ever ascended the
Temple Mount and a further 4% had ascended once, but did
not plan to again. Thirty-seven percent had not so far—but
intended to in the future. Yet, 45% had no intent to—accord-
ing to a Makor Rishon poll in 2014)Makor Rishon, 2014).
Most Israeli Jews favor the right to pray on the mount; a 2012
survey found that 52% of the Israeli Jewish population
favored it, whereas 37% opposed it (Makor Rishon, 2012).
Temple Mount References of a Security
Character
The Temple Mount is one of the most complex points of con-
flict between Israel and its Arab neighboring states. At the
diplomatic level, in accord with the 1994 peace agreement
between Jordan and Israel, Jordan was given custodian status
of the Islamic holy places on the Temple Mount (or “Haram
al-Sharif”) and was promised that in a future peace agree-
ment the Jordanians would receive a consultative status
regarding any final diplomatic settlement. However, the
Palestinian Authority (PA) sees Jerusalem–or el-Kuds—as
the capital of a future Palestinian state. A rivalry between the
PA and the Jordanians came to expression, for example, in an
incident in the late 1980s when the Jordanian-appointed
Mufti was thrown out of his office on the mount and a
Palestinian-appointed Mufti put in his place.
Since the 1920s, the Temple Mount has been a symbol of
the political differences between Israel and the Palestinians.
Bloody riots broke out in Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem on 2
November 1921 when five Jewish residents and three of their
Arab attackers were killed. These were the first significant
riots in Palestine/Israel since the rise of Zionism and
increased immigration of Jews to the territory.
Other incidents followed. For example, in August 1969
Michael Rohan, an Australian belonging to a Christian sect,
set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He saw himself as bringing
about the Second Coming of Jesus. The fire caused consider-
able damage to the mosque; indeed, suspicions that the
Israeli authorities themselves were involved caused the Wakf
to delay Israeli fire engines from dealing with the flames. In
1982, Alan Goodman, an American, went on a shooting ram-
page near Al-Aqsa in which one Muslim was killed and oth-
ers injured. In October 1990, during the Sukkoth
(“Tabernacles”) religious holiday, Jews who gathered at the
Western Wall were attacked by Arabs throwing stones from
the adjacent Temple Mount compound. In the ensuing battle
with Israeli Police, 17 Muslims were killed; the incident pro-
duced Arab diplomatic criticism.
The 2000 Camp David talks between Clinton, Barak, and
Arafat, to reach a solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict, fell
apart over the key question of sovereignty over the Temple
Mount, with Arafat arguing that he had no mandate from the
Arab world to negotiate the question of sovereignty of the
site (Hirsch, 2006). Shortly after, Knesset member Ariel
Sharon’s ascent to the Temple Mount in 2000 led to wide-
spread rioting, under “the Al-Aqsa Intifada.”
In 2017, when data for this study were collected, two
Israeli policemen were killed on the barricade in the entrance
to the mount by Palestinians, who smuggled guns onto the
mount. Following the incident, the Israeli authorities intro-
duced metal detectors at the entrances of the mount, an act
which led to widespread demonstrations as well as diplo-
matic criticism on Israel by Arab governments. This event
was known as the “metal detector crisis.”
Holy Places in the Media
While the paper so far focused on the Divide and Earthly
Jerusalem, let us now move to online social media conversa-
tions about Jerusalem.
4 Social Media + Society
The relationship between new media and religion has
been explored in different contexts, for example, religions
and religiosity in cyberspace (MacWilliams, 2004); religious
identify and authority online (Hojsbaard & Warburg, 2005);
on-line communities of believers (Campbell, 2005); new
media in specific faiths traditions—in the Russian Orthodox
Church (Suslov, 2016); Christianity (Hutchings, 2017);
Judaism (Campbell, 2015; Lev-On & Neriya-Ben Shahar,
2011; Neriya-Ben Shahar & Lev-On, 2011); and the mono-
theistic faiths (Campbell, 2010; Evolvi, 2019).
Holy places around the world have received considerable
research (Nordeide & Brink, 2013; Wynn, 2009). This cer-
tainly is true in the case of the holy places in Israel, in par-
ticular in Jerusalem. In addition to research on the history of
the city such as archeological aspects (Abu & El-Haj, 2001;
Mayer & Mourad, 2008; Mazar, 2002, 2011), the political
contest over the city’s status has necessarily generated con-
siderable research attention (see Berkovits, 2000; Dumper,
2014; Hirsch & Housen-Couriel, 1994; Klein, 2001; Najem
et al., 2017; Reiter, 2001).
According to the literature, the mainstream media tends to
concentrate on current events, and issues related to religion
and religious practices do not tend to occupy a central place
in it (Hoover, 1998). Moreover, little attention has been given
to the question of media coverage of sacred places. This may
seem surprising given the central role of sacred places in reli-
gious belief. From the scant existing literature it appears that
holy places do not occupy a main place in the daily coverage
of the media. The study shows that holy places do make
headlines in two main contexts: first, when religious events
such as festivals are held; and second, when conflicts arise
about them, and even more so when acts of violence take
place (de Vries et al., 2017). In both cases, the framing of the
holy places tends to be mostly episodic, that is, mainly focus
on the acts of violence themselves and the people involved in
them, and much less thematic (i.e., including references to
the history of the place, the background of the conflict, the
positions of the different players, etc.) (Cohen, 2023; de
Vries et al., 2017).
The few studies that have examined the coverage of holy
places in Israel, and specifically in Jerusalem, have found a
similar phenomenon whereby the holy places are mentioned
mainly when a religious event takes place in them or in the
context of an existing dispute. Given that, news media focus
on the present, and controversy, history, and roots are neces-
sarily not their main focus there too (Gazit, 2004).
There is little literature on representations of holy places in
new and social media, for example, examining the role and
usage of apps and Internet messaging in religious mass
events; Narbonna and Arasa (2016) do so by focusing on the
2014 beautification of a Catholic bishop. They argue that with
communication, a key element to the success of a religious
event, the Internet and diffusion of the smartphone facilitate a
channel that was unimaginable in the past, as a tool of com-
munication with attendees. Bunt (2009), examining the role
of the Internet on Islam, describes different Islamic rituals—
including shahada (the proclamation of conversion to Islam)
and salata (prayer), as well as more generally retrieving
information about Islam including preparing for the hajj.
Stanton (2020) focuses on how the Saudi authorities use apps
to manage the hajj itself.
The question of digital media and holy places and pil-
grimages has been addressed by, for example, De Ascanils
et al. (2018) who examine the role of communication tech-
nology at religious sites. Research methods on new media
and pilgrimages have been done by De Ascanils and Cantoni
(2016). Specific pilgrimage case studies and new media
include the Hajj (Bunt, 2009; Schlosser, 2013; Stanton,
2020); South Korea (Han, 2021); Croagh Patrick, Ireland
(MacWilliams, 2004); and Arabain, Iraq (Rahimi & Amin,
2020). See also Patrick (in press), Hill-Smith (2011), and
Couldry (2007). In Israel, the Jerusalem question on the digi-
tal media was addressed by de Vries et al. (2017) who discuss
how East Jerusalem Palestinians use social media platforms
to mobilize religious practices and political activism in the
Al-Aqsa mosque. Dumper (2014, Chapter 4) examined the
place of Jerusalem and its place in the digital media in an
attempt to understand the international interest in the city. In
a table of the largest presence on the Web of cities, Jerusalem
came in only 10th place, but when compared with other holy
cities Jerusalem was in third place after Rome and Lourdes,
and when compared with other divided cities Jerusalem was
in second place after Berlin.
Yet none of these studies have explored the character of
conversation of holy places in online social media among
religious people and among the general public, where it takes
place, and what are its characteristics. De Vries et al. (2017),
in discussing how East Jerusalem Palestinians use social
media, base their research on three specific groups, whereas
this article draws upon the broad Israeli Hebrew-speaking
population and the characteristics of the discourse. Despite
Jerusalem’s dominant place in digital media, this is the first
study to examine the character of its digital media coverage.
Specifically we were interested in examining the contexts in
which Jerusalem is covered on social media—as a case study
of coverage of holy places in digital media. We wanted to
examine whether, as happens in the mainstream media and
also in the social media, the discourse about holy places is
focused on major events and crisis situations—or does its
coverage have other characteristics?
Method
The study examines where, and in which contexts, holy
places are discussed in social media, using the conversations
about the Temple Mount in the Hebrew-speaking Facebook-
sphere as a case study.
Data for this study were collected in 2017, a year in which
Israel celebrated 50 years since obtaining control over the
mount. This was marked in a series of events throughout the
Cohen and Lev-On 5
year and especially during “Jerusalem day” which was cele-
brated in May. Another important milestone in 2017 was a
major security event—“the metal detector crisis” (as stated
above, two Israeli policemen were killed on the barricade in
the entrance to the mount by Palestinians, who smuggled
guns onto the mount. Following the incident, the Israeli
authorities introduced metal detectors at the entrances of the
mount, an act which led to widespread demonstrations and
diplomatic criticism on Israel by Arab governments). For
these reasons, 2017 was a good choice for studying the social
media discussion of the Temple Mount as a case study for the
conversations of holy places in social media. The social
media platform used for analysis was Facebook—at the time
the most popular platform in Israel by far (Mann & Lev-On,
2016).
Our research drew upon the database of IFAT, an Israeli
data company that specializes in media analysis and moni-
tors the media published in Israel. We received all the posts
(N = 16,100) from open groups on Facebook in Hebrew,
between the dates 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2017,
which include the phrase “Temple Mount.” Let us note again
that we did not look at specific profiles or groups, but
received the open data from all the Hebrew-speaking groups.
From the population of N = 16,100, we created a sample of
501 posts from throughout the year. To do so, we chose each
32nd post from the sample.
The posts were analyzed using thematic content analysis.
After reading the posts a few times by the researchers and
three research assistants, and after a preliminary and in-depth
examination, eight major recurring themes were identified in
the texts. These categories became binary variables and the
encoders were asked to indicate whether the theme in ques-
tion existed in the unit of analysis or not. A post might con-
ceivably appear appropriate to more than one relevant theme.
As is customary in content analysis studies, a reliability test
was performed between the encoders, and in addition two
more people passed all the encodings. After two rounds of
coding in which 50 items were categorized (10% of the total
sample), the reliability reached over 90% in all categories
between all coders.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that three main themes—national,
religious, and security—received the most mentions in the
sample, over and above the number of mentions received by
other themes (historical, diplomatic, and more). Hence, the
discussion below focuses on these three themes. The three
main themes found in the corpus of texts are as follows:
The National theme was found in 202 posts. In these
posts, the Temple Mount is presented in the context of
nationality, for example, expression of national feel-
ings and opinions regarding sovereignty over the
mount.
The Religious theme was found in 151 posts. In these
posts, the Temple Mount is presented, for example, in
the context of religious ceremonies and the spiritual
symbolism of the mount.
The Security theme was found in 135 posts. In these
posts, the Temple Mount is presented in the context of
security practices and events that occurred on or
around the mount.
The next two prominent themes were Historical (25 posts),
in which the Temple Mount was discussed in the context of
its history and the events that happened on it over the years,
and diplomatic (14 posts), in which the Temple Mount was
mentioned in the context of Israel’s foreign relations.
Table 1 presents the distribution of posts throughout the
year (2017). The four lines represent the total number of
posts included in the corpus per month, posts that included
the Security theme, the National and the religious theme.
Although data for this study were collected from all the
open Hebrew-speaking Facebook groups, the references to
the mount throughout the year appear mainly in designated
groups with unmistakably Right-wing or the Nationalist fla-
vor such as “Temple Mount News” and “Temple Organization
Headquarters.” The media outlets that tend to cover news
developments concerning the mount on an ongoing basis
during the year are identified with the political Right or the
Nationalist cause (0404; Rotter; Channel 7; Kikar HaShabbat;
Srugim). Other media outlets generally cover only breaking
news events on the mount. The politicians who deal with the
issue during the “ordinary” course of the year are few.
Analysis of the posts included in the corpus which were
published up to 13 July 2017 (the day before the riots which
followed the introduction of the metal detectors) show that
out of 198 posts, 87 were published on Facebook pages or
groups with an unmistakably Right-wing flavor, most of
which deal specifically with the Temple Mount. Forty-nine
posts were published on the “Temple Mount News” page,
and 21 posts were published on a page called “Temple
Organization Headquarters.” In addition, posts also
appeared on sites such as “Women for the Temple,” “Temple
Organization Headquarters,” “I also ascended the Temple
Mount,” “Jews for the Holiness of the Temple Mount and
Jerusalem—the League for the Protection of Jews in the
Holy Land,” “ Students for the Temple Mount,” “Temple
Mount Guides Movement,” “Temple Mount and Temple
Movement,” and more.
The following paragraphs illustrate the content of the
posts in the three main themes, nationalistic, religious, and
security.
Temple Mount References of a Nationalistic
Character
In all, 202 posts cited the Temple Mount as a focus of national
pride and an expression of sovereignty. The very act of
6 Social Media + Society
ascending the mount expresses this sovereignty. For
example,
The real reason that both the Arab Wakf and the Israeli Police
count each and every Jew who ascends the mount is that each
Jew by doing so is reasserting his sovereignty. So it is incumbent
upon us each day to ascend—because if we don’t, the Temple
Mount will not be in our hands. Each and every Jew has the
power to determine whether there will be Jewish or Muslim
sovereignty there.
The findings also show the lack of interest by the Jews
toward the connection that Muslims have with the mount—
despite the de facto Muslim administration of the Islamic
holy places on the mount. In a number of posts, they angrily
discuss the archeological excavations by the Palestinian
Wakf (trust) that are taking place on the mount—with no
supervision or control by the Israeli government.
Temple Mount References of a Religious
Character
Some 151 posts, comprising 30% of the total sample, relate
to the religious theme. It reflects the long history of the site
for both Jews and Muslims. As one post put it,
The ascent to the mount is not a private matter but done in the
name of all Israel . . . Unfortunately we are prevented from
actually prostrating ourselves in the holy place today.
Discussion of the Temple Mount in the religious context
is characterized by a sense of Jewish legal complexity, as
detailed earlier. The split between the Rabbis’ positions has
helped to foster an activist wing that is relatively small, but
determined that it is doing the right thing. All they want is to
spread their teachings and adhere to the laws associated with
ascending the mount, emphasizing the religious-halakhic
(religious law)-rabbinical reference by virtue of which they
ascend the mount:
In an article, Rabbi Yitzchak Brand accuses journalists of
preventing the greatest Rabbis from giving their opinion on
whether it is permitted to ascend the Temple Mount.
Ascending the Temple Mount by women raises complica-
tions in Jewish religious law (halakhah). This concerns that
a Jewess is ritually unclean during her menstrual cycle and
requires immersion in a ritual bath. The matter is yet more
complicated for single women who do not frequent the baths.
From the data emerge a discourse that develops and demands
to promote women equally to the forefront of the stage of
those who visit the mount. Seventeen posts emphasize that
women ascend the mount. Ten of them were written in a
group behind an activity in the field called “Women for the
Temple Mount,” which focuses on raising awareness among
women mainly, but also among the public, about the possi-
bility of women going up the mount. Because of the “public
relations” and the halakhic complexity, the posts are consis-
tently accompanied by the word “in purity” which takes care
to emphasize that the ascent is done in a halakhic, conserva-
tive, and “kosher” context. For example,
In two days time, there will be the mass ascent by women and
children all in a state of “taharah” (ritual purity), finally after the
mount was closed for Ramadan. We shall ascend!
The key events associated with the Temple Mount take
place during certain religious festivals, including the
Table 1. Number of Postings Per Month: Total for Nationalist, Religious, and Security Posts.
21
29 34 29
43
32
167
53
25 25 20 23
9
8
15 16
27
14
55
25
710 610
11 13 13 17 16 7
18 22
88
810
205333
101
85203
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
12345678910 11 12
total Naonal Religious Security
Cohen and Lev-On 7
so-called three pilgrimage festivals—of Passover (Pesach),
Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkoth); 10% of the
postings deal with the festivals. It seems that these are land-
marks that make it possible to connect people to ascending
the mount and also to launch awareness around the issue.
One post wrote,
In the six days after the holiday, the mitzvah (religious command)
of aliyah (ascending the mount) will be observed on the occasion
of the residents of the rest of the country and the residents of
Jerusalem who did not manage to ascend during the holiday
Temple Mount References of a Security
Character
Postings with the security character jumped suddenly in July
2017 with the crisis over whether or not to place electronic
surveillance devices—a decision which followed the murder
of two Israeli policemen on the mount. Of the 160 security
postings, 80% related to the security incident and its conse-
quences. As one post put it,
What a pity that two policemen had to die in order to effect the
governmental decision back in 2014 to place surveillance
devices at the entrance of the mount.
The postings necessarily relate to the specific incident.
But other earlier posts discussed more generally police limi-
tations on Jews ascent:
Yair Kohati, one of the heads of the group “Returning to the
Mount,,” was informed in a police hearing of the decision to
distance him and not allow him to enter the mount for six months.
Discussion and Conclusion
The study examines the contexts in which the Temple Mount
is mentioned on social media in Hebrew, as a demonstration
of how holy places are discussed in social media, using data
drawn from the Facebook groups that represent a broad range
of the Israeli Jewish population. The study is based on an
analysis of 501 Facebook posts which were sampled from
16,100 posts that included the phrase “Temple Mount” in
2017 in the Hebrew-speaking open Facebook-sphere. The
study was undertaken during a year in which Israel cele-
brated 50 years since capturing the mount.
The mount is not only a sacred place with religious sig-
nificance throughout the years but also a place with political,
security, national, and other meanings. The combination of
the religious importance with the national-political signifi-
cance gives the Temple Mount its “explosive” character. As
a result, events that take place on the mount generate reac-
tions around the Middle East. Thus, the “metal detector cri-
sis”—which occurred in 2017, during the data collection for
this study—began when Palestinian gunmen shot two Israeli
policemen and continued after the Israeli government’s deci-
sion to place metal detectors at the entrance to the mount,
leading to a storm that erupted on the mount and across the
country and in many social media arenas as well.
The findings demonstrate that the mountain is portrayed
prominently in three contexts: national, religious, and secu-
rity. We also found that the discourse on Temple Mount in
social media is divided into two distinct types: an “ordinary
discourse” and an “extraordinary discourse.”
The “ordinary discourse” seems to involve a small circle
of writers and followers—mainly nationalist, Right-wing
activists. It concentrates on fringe groups like “Temple
Mount News” and combines in-depth religious issues, like
ascending the mount in purity. While such posts seem like
the way of activists to advance their causes, they do not pre-
occupy mainstream Israeli press and politicians, or even
mainstream Facebook groups.
In contrast, the “extraordinary discourse” arises after an
unusual event of an emergency type such as a security event
that takes place on or around the mount. Here, the Temple
Mount becomes “the mountain of us all”—of a virtual circle
of people that expands way beyond the small circle of usual
suspects—and the event is reported extensively in the main-
stream media. Politicians and members of the Israel
Parliament (the Knesset), from all corners of the political
map (and not just from the Right), jump on the bandwagon.
Consequently, the event is discussed on online social media
by many groups and individuals who typically do not take
part in the “ordinary discourse” over the mount. In one sense
the discourse about the Temple Mount is reminiscent of a
“dormant volcano” that does not erupt regularly, but when it
does, no one knows how the eruption will end.
The findings show that the conversation on social media
about the Temple Mount—as a case study for a conversation
about holy places in general—is similar in its characteristics
to the coverage of holy places in the mainstream media. Holy
places are covered around major events that are related to
them, while for most of the year they are absent from the
major news. The new media fails to bring the holy places to
the forefront of media coverage, but it does allow for their
ongoing coverage throughout the year—in the case of the
Temple Mount, while focusing on national, religious, and
security characteristics.
Do such social media conversations reframe the discourse
on the Temple Mount? Do they contribute to the conflict?
Are they polarizing users? How do these reflect and impact
the social-religious-political atmosphere in Israel, and else-
where? The data which we gathered and analyzed do not
enable us to answer such questions. While we extensively
analyzed the content of conversations in the Hebrew-
speaking Facebook-sphere, we have not examined the influ-
ence of such content upon users’ perceptions or behaviors.
Nor have we compared the content in Facebook with the
content in the printed media. Indeed, future studies may
research users’ perceptions, the influence upon them of
8 Social Media + Society
content, and compare Temple Mount content between the
printed media and social media. Further research may also
examine the scope and character of conversation on social
media about additional holy places, and about other issues
related to religion, in dedicated arenas and in social media
spaces and on the Internet in general.
Acknowledgements
We thank Efrat Meyron and Avital Unger for their research assistance.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The
study was supported by the Institute for the Study of New Media,
Society and Politics in Ariel University.
ORCID iD
Azi Lev-On https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0248-9802
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Author biographies
Yoel Cohen (PhD) is Professor Emeritus in the School of
Communication, Ariel University. His research interests include
religion news, and religion and media in Judaism.
Azi Lev-On (PhD) is the Head of the Institute for the Study of New
Media, Politics and Society in the School of Communication in
Ariel University. His research focuses on the social and political
uses and impact of the Internet and social media, and particularly on
their affordances for and usage by citizens in terms of speech and
action, and the corresponding institutional responses.
