HEAR YE, HEAR YE: SANHEDRIN SEEKS DAVID'S SCION AS KING
By Yaakov Katz
The Jerusalem Post
January 12, 2005
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=3DJPost/JPArticle/Printer&c=
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1105418785934
Will Jews begin proclaiming "Long live the king" in the near future?
According to a group of 71 Jewish scholars who met this week in the Old
City
of Jerusalem in the form of a modern-day Sanhedrin =AD a duplicate of
the
religious tribunal which convened during the time of the Second Temple
=AD a
coronation day is growing closer.
As one member of the group put it, "We would have liked it to happen
yesterday. But we are willing to wait until tomorrow."
There hasn't been a genuine Sanhedrin in Israel for nearly 1,600 years;
the
last one to be proclaimed was in France, by Napoleon, for political
gain.
Shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, religious
affairs
minister Judah Leib Maimon raised the notion of reinstituting the
ancient
body, to no avail.
The group composed largely of Kahane sympathizers that gave itself the
name
Sanhedrin in October, however, met Sunday to discuss the creation of a
Jewish monarchy in the State of Israel.
For the past several years a group called the Monarchists has conducted
extensive research into the lineage of several families in an effort to
discover who has the closest bloodline to the biblical King David =AD a
requirement for any future Jewish king.
Rabbi Yosef Dayan from Psagot, known for his recent threats to place a
death
curse on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is said to be a leading candidate
to
become the "king of Israel."
"Dayan has the best lineage to King David," several members of the
Sanhedrin
told The Jerusalem Post. They say he has two documented ancient sources
which draw a direct line between him and the males in his family to
King
David some 3,000 years ago.
"Many people can show they are descendants of King David, but they
cannot
show that the line is only male," one Sanhedrin member explained. "That
makes Dayan the leading candidate to become king."
The Monarchists have consulted with non-Jewish experts on lineage. They
concurred that, without a doubt, Dayan is a direct descendent of the
House
of David.
The only question now is how to establish the Jewish monarchy in spite
of
the presiding democratic government.
"There are two possibilities," Dayan explained. "The first is that the
nation or a majority from within will want the monarchy and will uproot
the
presiding democratic government."
The second, more realistic option, he said, is "the one cited by
Maimonides
=AD and that is that no one will know how it will be until it happens."
Some of the other ideas discussed at the Sanhedrin meeting included the
construction of an altar on the Temple Mount to be used for the
Passover
Offering during the upcoming holiday.
One of the ideas, members said, is to climb the Mount and build the
altar
within minutes and sacrifice the lamb before security forces can stop
them.
Another, said leading Sanhedrin member Baruch Ben-Yosef, is to pray for
a
tsunami-like disaster on the Mount.
"In one second, God wiped out 150,000 people," he said. "Who knows?
Maybe
he'll help us if we show him we are ready."
Participants also discussed Ben-Yosef's idea of reinstating the
Sanhedrin's
authority to announce Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the new lunar
month. "It
is very important to reinstate the Sanhedrin's authority to announce
the
month, because it will force people to understand that God gave us the
power
to control the calendar and our own destiny," Ben-Yosef said.
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