March 23, 1998, Jerusalem, Temple Mount.
The sun heated the dome of the Golden Summit QZ, but the people standing in the Al-Aqsa QZ Square weren't wiping their sweat.
Three thousand Squids.
Not ordinary Squids, but rabbis.
They were ultra-Orthodox from Brooklyn, Hasidic Sect from Brussels, secret believers smuggled back from Odessa. They wore black robes, wide-brimmed hats, their beards longer than the prophets in the Bible, their eyes fixed on the same direction—the temporary stage at the entrance of Temple Mount.
A person stood on the stage.
Rabbi Joshua Ben-David.
Seventy-two years old, white beard hanging to his chest, eyes like burning coals. He wasn't the chief rabbi of the Squid government, not an advisor to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, not even part of any mainstream sect.
He was the spiritual leader of the "Holy Sanctuary Revival Association," a mysterious figure who had only appeared in extreme religious publications for the past thirty years.
