International News, Monday 2 March 1998 #Issue 1011
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Jews to rear boy priests for temple rituals By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv

ULTRA-Orthodox Jews seeking to rebuild the biblical temple in Jerusalem are planning to designate a settlement where new-born boys will be raised in isolation to serve as the purest of priests.

Two of Islam's holiest mosques stand in East Jerusalem at the traditional site of King Solomon's Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. In recent years, the hilltop compound has become the focus of contention and sometimes bloody clashes between Muslims and Jews.

Funded in part by Christian evangelists, most of them based in the United States, the group has reconstructed the plan of the temple, made replicas of the holy vessels in gold and woven the cotton garments the high priest wore at rituals to specifications listed in the Book of Deuteronomy.

But the Movement for Re-establishment of the Temple suffered a setback last year when when a red heifer raised by an ultra-orthodox farmer grew several white hairs, a blemish precluding its ashes from being used to cleanse those who had been exposed to ritual impurities, Imagesly contact with dead people.

Yosef Elboim, a leader of the group, told the Haaretz newspaper that the heifer would have been useless anyway because there were no boy priests qualified to sprinkle the ashes on the faithful and purify the ground during rituals.

Under Jewish law, the priestly lineage has passed from father to son since biblical times. But all the priests today are considered impure because they come in direct or indirect contact with the dead. They cannot, therefore, perform most of the services in their rebuilt temple.

"The idea is to raise a child who, from the moment of birth, will not touch the dead, will not be under the same roof as the dead, nor be in the hospital where most babies are born, but where the dead are also found," Mr Elboim said.

Dismissing the suggestion that the plan was cruel to children, Mr Elbiom said: "It is essential. There is no other option; almost everywhere in the world children are raised in sports camps. In East Germany and elsewhere they raised athletes this way for years. The children we are talking about will not race such great physical demands. They will receive great intellectual enrichment."

He said the children would not be torn from their families entirely but rather receive visits, subject to precautions to protect against impurities.
Mr Elboim said:

"These will not be children in isolation. Guests can kiss them, hug them, give them the warmth children deserve, but only after they have immersed themselves in a micveh (ritual bath), changed into special clothing and disposed of any items likely to become contaminated by ritual impurities."

[The Washington Post]

Babies of Priestly Caste Sought:
By Dina Kraft Associated Press Writer Sunday,
March 1, 1998; JERUSALEM (AP)

"... Then, if the Jewish Temple is rebuilt for the first time in almost 2,000 years, he'll be ready to serve as a high priest.

That's the offer the Movement for Establishing the Temple, a Jerusalem-based religious group, is offering ultra-Orthodox parents in an intensive campaign to recruit boys of the Jewish priestly caste known as Cohenim.

``We need families to donate their children for the cause -- it will be hard at first, but once we start more will follow,'' said Rabbi Yosef Elboim, who is in charge of finding parents-to-be who are willing to allow their boy children to be raised as potential priests.

High priests would be needed to ritually purify the Jewish people if the ancient Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., is rebuilt. So far, several families have expressed interest and at least one woman who is due to give birth in two months has agreed to have her son raised for the priesthood. ``We hope he will be our pioneer -- we will start with him,'' said Elboim. Altogether, the group hopes to bring together a group of about 20 babies to raise.

The boys would be brought up in a special compound, which has already been donated by a yeshiva. Frequentvisits would be allowed by parents, relatives and friends, who would have to observe strict rules governing defilement.

The boys would reImages until at least their 13th birthdays on an elevated floor of the compound, because touching the ground could result in ritual defilement due to contact with unknown graves.

"Among the families who have expressed interest in raising their sons through the Movement for Establishing the Temple are former members of the outlawed right-wing Kach movement. "The Temple is one of the central parts of our ideology -- we view its rebuilding as part of Jewish experience," said former Kach activist Noam Federman.

Fears has been expressed in Israel that some extremist groups might seek to rebuild the Temple on a site where some of Islam's holiest shrines are located -- a move that would likely lead to an explosion of violence.

By tradition, a portent that the Temple is to be rebuilt would be the appearance of a pure red heifer. Last year, there was a flurry of excitement over the discovery of a red heifer named Melody, originally believed to be the first of its kind born in the Holy Land in two millennia.

But later, white hairs were spotted on the young cow's tail and she was deemed impure.

According to ancient Jewish writings, the ashes of a red heifer were mixed with spring water for high priests to purify themselves before they entered the Temple.

©Copyright 1998 The Associated Press The above was material via email; similar was given to us from the Rockhampton Press Aust., by a subscriber

Refer to material on our web-site from Cutting Edge Ministries,
re the Red Heifer and the Antichrist, very important, to get correct perspective.

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