Israel’s Chief Rabbi has asked the Jordanian princeling Abdullah to allow Israeli tourists to carry religious articles into his petty kingdom. Jordan orders Israelis to leave their tzitzit and tfillin behind, ostensibly so as not to reveal their Jewishness to terrorists. Which is nonsense: Jews sporting peyot, wearing kipot and speaking Hebrew, are easily identified regardless of what religious items they might carry. Rather, Abdullah bans Jewish artifacts to avoid offending his subjects’ sensibilities.
Jordan has been at peace with Israel for over decade. When Jordan occupied Jerusalem before 1967, it banned Jews from visiting our holy places and razed all the synagogues in the city. When the Israeli government took over the city, it continued the ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and refused requests to rebuild synagogues in what became the Arab quarters.
