Children of a Lesser God, on the Temple Mount

Mark Medoff titled his play Children of a Lesser God to expose the way society infantilized the deaf, treating them as incomplete people. The phrase still burns because it names the humiliation: being allowed to exist but denied equal dignity.

That is precisely the status of Jews on the Temple Mount. The holiest place in Judaism, the very ground of the First and Second Temples, the site of the binding of Isaac. Yet Jews are barred from uttering a prayer there. Visitors, reluctantly and barely; worshipers, never. The “status quo” enforced by the Jordanian Waqf with United Nations’ support dictates that Jews must keep their mouths shut.

It is a civic cruelty disguised as compromise. Jews are told they may stand in the place of their ancestors, but only as tourists in a museum, not as children before God. Muslims pray freely on the Mount by the millions, but Jews are gagged at their own holiest site. That is not neutrality — it is Islamic Imperialism.

The excuses are familiar: security, stability, avoiding unrest. But those words simply sanctify discrimination as pragmatism. As every Jew is expelled for moving lips in silent prayer, the world is reminded: some children are still treated as children of a “lesser” god.

At the very moment Jews prayed in synagogues over Rosh Hashanah 5786 in September 2025, reading the story of Abraham binding Isaac on the Temple Mount and repeatedly praying for a complete Jerusalem, the Islamic world – from as far away as Pakistan and Indonesia – made demands of the United States that it would ensure that Israel maintains the “status quo” on the Mount. The despicable continued humiliation of Jews was essential for them even under the guise of stopping the Hamas war. Even above “humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Islamic world makes demands on the United States to stop the war – and Jews attempting to pray at their holiest location

International diplomacy has institutionalized the humiliation of Jews. The so-called status quo is nothing but a permanent statement of inequality.

Medoff’s play forced audiences to confront a society that silenced the deaf. The Temple Mount forces us to confront a world that silences Jews. While both are intolerable, the latter is demanded at the anti-Jewish United Nations.

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