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LISA MULLINS: The Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed almost 2000 years ago by the Romans and they sent the Jews from Palestine into exile. Jews still morn the destruction of the Second Temple today and some say it’s time to rebuild it. We get the story now from reporter Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: As dozens of invited guests watched a large model of the Second Temple in Jerusalem was lifted by a hydraulic crane high into the sky and settled gently on a rooftop in Jerusalem’s old city. The model is on a scale of one to 60 and built with materials like gold and marble to conform as closely as possible to the original. Inside are detailed reconstructions of the arc of the covenant and the alter. The model took more than a year to build, weighs more than a ton, and cost a lot of money according to the group Eish Hatorah who commissioned the model. Officials at Eish Hatorah, which encourages Jews to study religious texts and become more observant, say the model is not meant as invitation to rebuild the temple but as a way to inspire a renewed closeness to God. Efrain Shore is the group’s director.

EFRAIN SHORE: The temple was a place where people could come and rejuvenated and re-inspired and touch spirituality and it’s true that in Judaism there is a concept that there will again be a temple on this spot but most religious authorities, and Eish Hatorah certainly goes into this, is that that’s God’s job to do.

GRADSTEIN: But just some of the guests like Necha Golda Dubinsky, who teaches women’s religious groups here, the model is the first step to rebuilding the temple.

NECHA GOLDA DUBINSKY: What we just witnesses is a little tiny dress rehearsal, just a taste, of what’s to come. Hopefully speedily in our days a real temple will come down from above, just like that one did, standing right there where that gold shiny thing is.

GRADSTEIN: That gold shiny thing of course is the Dome of the Rock mosque, a holy site in Islam that marks the place where Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven to receive the Koran. Down below the mosque is the Western Wall, a remnant of King Solomon’s Temple. Jews are allowed to visit the site but not to pray there according to a compromise deal between the Israeli government and Muslim religious authorities. Palestinian’s have warned that any attempt to rebuild the temple over the Dome of the Rock would spark a war. Those involved in working to rebuild the temple are still a small minority of Orthodox Jews. But their numbers are growing. Rabbi Yehuda Glick runs the Temple Institute which is dedicated to manufacturing all of the clothes and vessels that will be used in the Third Temple once it is rebuilt.

YEHUDA GLICK: We have the tunic. We have the turban, the hat, the pants. We have the insect which we use to dye the red, red thread of wool which is used on the turban. Here we have a belt made of linen.

GRADSTEIN: Yair Sheleg, an expert on Orthodox Jews at the Israel Democracy Institute, says the growing interest in rebuilding the temple comes as some Israelis feels their political situation is worsening.

YAIR SHELEG: I think Messianic times all over the Jewish history were specifically when there were times of great problems. And because of that, because it seems that the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and the Arab world, the future for Israel, the threat from Iran, etcetera. All this seems like a dead end in the regular path.

GRADSTEIN: Sheleg says according to these groups the worst things get here the closer the Messiah must be. According to Jewish tradition the Third Temple is to come down from the sky fully built. Some Israelis believe it’s going to happen any day. For The World I’m Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem.

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