But for the past month, the scene here had been much different.
Barricades zigzagged through the plaza. Backhoes ferried debris out to dump trucks parked outside the Dung Gate, where tour buses typically queued. Judaism’s most holy site now looked like a construction zone.
Cohen headed to a tall arched entry on the plaza’s north end that accessed the Western Wall Tunnel—an underground network of ancient roadways, cisterns, and water passages running deep beneath the buildings of the Muslim Quarter along the Temple Mount’s western foundation. Prior to its recent closure, tourists could’ve walked the subterranean passage from the Western Wall Plaza all the way to steps leading up and out onto Via Dolorosa beneath the Temple Mount’s northwest corner. An archaeological marvel. But more important, Cohen thought, a direct link to first-century Jerusalem.
He greeted half a dozen IDF soldiers chatting in a loose circle. He’d insisted on the added security detail prior to his agreeing to assist overseeing the sensitive and highly secretive project now under way here. Death threats from Muslim fanatics had already been received, with many more to follow, he was certain.
Inside, the cool air refreshed him. Wilson’s Arch swept high overhead— the remnant of a grand first-century bridge connecting the Upper City to the Temple Mount courtyards. A series of connected vaults formed a spacious hall normally used as a synagogue. Near where the Torah Ark had been only four weeks ago, Cohen maneuvered around heaps of limestone brick and mounds of cement aggregate. He descended a metal staircase that accessed the next level of the tunnel.
Emotions came quick in this mystical place—a gateway to an ancient world his grandfather had taught him so much about in a secret room in Brooklyn.
Swapping his zayen for a bright yellow hard hat, he entered a massive subterranean chamber—the Large Hall—where tour groups would normally assemble for an orientation about the Temple Mount’s first-century construction by Roman and Egyptian architects employed under the visionary architect King Herod the Great.
Cohen stayed close to the massive, beveled Herodian blocks that formed the mount’s base—one was the largest stone in Israel and weighed over six hundred metric tons.
Work lamps flooded white light over dozens of men working atop tall scaffolds who were repairing heavy fractures in the hall’s four lofty interlocking vaults. In many spots, massive gaps remained where whole sections of the thirteenth-centuryb.c.e. arches had forcefully dislodged.
The earthquake that caused the damage had happened almost six weeks ago. Part of the Lord’s plan, Cohen was certain. Another sign that the prophecy was being fulfilled.
His eyes fell to the tiered seating in the rear of the hall, set in front of a miniature model of the mount and the temple precincts atop it circa 70 c.e., now crushed beneath three massive stones. Amazingly, the tourists who’d been present when the tremor hit had not been injured, or anything worse.
“Good morning, Rabbi!” a worker yelled over the clanging jackhammers.
Cohen waved to him.
The 5.3-magnitude quake, which had originated in the Great Rift Valley and cut through the Dead Sea to the east, paled in comparison to 1927’s 6.3 quake fifteen miles north in Jericho, which had claimed over two hundred casualties. Jerusalem’s Old City, however, built predominantly from unreinforced ancient limestone, sat upon layers of debris left behind by centuries of destruction and rebuilding. Seismic waves, therefore, came with amplified effect.
And so did the political aftershocks.
For over a decade, the tunnel’s ongoing excavation had been a flashpoint for Jewish and Muslim dissension over control of the Temple Mount—the world’s most coveted religious ground. And the unilateral restoration now under way here had drawn much protest from all Muslim and Palestinian groups—the Waqf, Hamas, the PLO . . .
Cohen gazed woefully up at the vaults once more. What sat above them contributed hugely to the controversy—the residential Muslim Quarter.
Over the centuries, the Muslims had constructed the stone vaults to raise their dwellings up to the level of the Temple Mount’s esplanade and facilitate easy access to the mosques. Over the centuries, the tunnel hollows had filled with mud and debris, which helped stabilize the superstructure. Therefore, Muslims contended that the recent Israeli excavations threatened the integrity of the structures above. Which was why it was so critical that no Muslim or Palestinian witness the extent of the damage that had truly taken place—because the riots and deaths that marked the 1996 opening of the tunnel would be nothing compared to the violence that could stem from this. As such, the Israeli government was funding this project while actively spinning its purpose.
Cohen proceeded to a temporary door painted in red letters: authorized personnel only. He punched a code into its digital keypad and the lock opened. Pushing through, he closed the door behind him.
Poured cement slabs paralleled the Temple Mount’s bare foundation wall to form a narrow corridor, crisscrossed overhead by steel stabilizer girders. Underfoot, the ground sloped steadily upward.
He moved fast through the passage and up some steps leading to the approximate midpoint of the Temple Mount’s western wall. The ceiling opened up high above and the foundation stones gave way to a massive sealed archway that crested at six meters—Warren’s Gate, discovered by British archaeologist Charles Warren in 1867.
Shortly after Saladin’s twelfth-century recapturing of Jerusalem, this opening to the lower structure of the Temple Mount platform had been blocked off. But now, a sizable breach had been made in its center, and light spilled out from the burrow.
He crouched down and peeked inside, where a second crew was busy clearing debris. Though the men wore the same uniforms as the crew in the main hall, they were not under the employ of Israelis. These men were one of Cohen’s many teams.
He couldn’t help but smile when he saw how far they’d already penetrated beneath the Mount.
Deep beneath the Temple Mount esplanade, their ear-pounding jackhammers still had Cohen concerned about what might be heard above. This secret dig, however, was in close proximity to the Large Hall, so he was certain that the noises would be easily confused with the sounds of the renovations taking place there.
A vibration against his chest startled him. He dipped into his breast pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and checked the display’s caller ID: an inside line at the Rockefeller Museum. Fortunately, the Israeli crews had installed signal-relay boosters throughout the tunnel to make outside communications more efficient. Flipping it open, he loudly said, “Hold a moment.”
He moved away from the archway and further up the tunnel. “Yes, what is it?” he finally asked.
Through the static, he listened to what the man on the other end had to say. News of a remarkable discovery in Qumran.