Yisrael Ariel

rdf:langString Yisrael Ariel

rdf:langString Rabbi Yisrael Ariel (ישראל אריאל, born Yisrael Stieglitz in 1939) was the chief rabbi of the evacuated Israeli settlement of Yamit in the Sinai Peninsula during the years when the Sinai was controlled by Israel, and the founder of the Temple Institute (Machon HaMikdash). His brother, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, served as the rosh yeshiva in the yeshiva in Yamit and later was the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan. Rabbi Israel Ariel called Baruch Goldstein, the American-Israeli settler mass murderer, a "holy martyr". Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian worshippers including children and wounded 125 more in the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Israeli city of Hebron. The incident is also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. Ariel is a graduate of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. As a young man, Ariel served in the Paratroopers Brigade unit that captured the Temple Mount in the Six-Day War. For the 1981 Knesset elections, Ariel ran as number two on the Kach list, with Rabbi Meir Kahane in the number-one spot. As of 2006, aside from being the head of the Temple Institute, he is also involved in an attempt to revive the Sanhedrin. Ariel urges that the Pesach sacrificial service on the Temple Mount should be resumed, and that the Temple should be rebuilt as soon as possible. In December 2006, he was briefly arrested and interrogated by Israeli police after confronting General Elazar Stern, before being released. In 2015, he described Jewish religious terrorism suspects who were banned from entering the West Bank due to vandalism, as praiseworthy.