Mr. Michael Worbs
Chairperson of the Executive Board
UNESCO
7 Place Fontenoy
75007 Paris, France
Dear Mr. Worbs,
I was very disappointed by UNESCO’s recent passage of a resolution which attempts to erase the ancient Jewish and Christian bonds to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and other holy sites in the Land of Israel, by referring only to their Muslim names.As the official United Nations forum entrusted with preserving world heritage and culture, this was a disgraceful decision which must be withdrawn at once.
Jews and Christians have a much more genuine, historic connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount than Muslims. In fact, the city is never mentioned even once in the Koran, whereas Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are mentioned over 1,000 times throughout the Bible and are central to both the Jewish and Christian faiths. So this omission is either a deliberate rewriting of history or a case of ignorance by those we would otherwise expect to be educated and informed.
The Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount dates back at least 3,000 years to King David, who began preparing to build the House of the Lord there. Yet it actually goesback even longer, to some 4,000 years ago when the Hebrew Patriarch Abraham bound his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah. The archaeological record verifies this biblical history, including the latest find of a papyrus scroll dating to 700 BCE which contains a reference to Jerusalemin the ancient Hebrew script.
Meanwhile, the Christian faith was birthed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple era. Jesus was taken there by his parents after his circumcision (Luke 2:21-24) and at Passover around his bar mitzvah age, when he joined the Jewish sages in discussing Torahinside the Temple (Luke 2:41-50). He always kept the biblical feasts in Jerusalem, and the New Testament records numerous times that he delivered teachingsin the Temple courts (see, for example: Mark 12:35, Luke 20:1, John 8:20, and John 10:22-30).
As proof of these irrefutable historic facts, I am sending you a Bible with many of these references to Jerusalem and the Temple highlighted. As chairperson of the UNESCO Executive Board, I ask that you make all the members of your committee aware of what I have sent you. This way, there can be no excuse for any one of them to ever vote for such a shameful resolution again.
Sincerely yours,