Temple Mount activist toasts life

The same Rabbi Yehudah Glick who lay near death in the ICU with four bullet wounds in his neck, stomach, and chest was seen dancing with friends and well-wishers Sunday night at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, the same place where the Temple Mount activist was shot by an Arab terrorist a year earlier.  

Glick—tour guide, civil rights advocate, public speaker, and a redheaded ringer for Abraham Lincoln—is a man who just won’t quit. Not when it comes to Jews being able to pray on Jerusalem’s Har HaBayit (the “Temple Mount”). He’s been going up there for a quarter of a century, during years when he was allowed to peaceably and, of late, when it means getting heckled and harassed. And sometimes even when it means getting shot.

“The person who tried to kill me that night did it because I represented the connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem,” Glick said.

At Sunday night’s “Survival and Celebration” event, besides those who danced with him, hugged him, and shook his hand, more than 300 supporters and friends gave Glick a standing ovation, including Knesset members Sharren Haskel (Likud), Micky Zohar (Likud), and Shuli Moalem-Rafaeli (Jewish Home). 

“The applause goes first and foremost to Hashem,” said Glick. “And my wife Yafi deserves it too.”

Over the past year, besides getting gradually stronger and spending time with his wife, eight children, and five grandchildren, Glick worked through his Temple Mount Heritage Foundation to step up efforts to get Jews—and Christians, too—prayer rights on the Temple Mount. During that time, he also took home the 2015 Moskowitz “Lion of Zion” award, given annually to an outstanding Israeli who lives their personal mission, often endangering their personal safety in the process.

The indefatigable Glick also published a guide book of the Temple Mount titled “Arise and Ascend” and made a film, “A Jerusalem Hug from Heaven,” documenting his 25 years of activism on the Temple Mount, the assassination attempt, and his recovery, including the multiple surgeries needed to repair the damage done by the bullets.