Religious group smuggles herd of red cows from Texas to West Bank to 'fulfil prophecy'
A religious group has smuggled a herd of red cows from Texas to the West Bank, claiming it will fulfil a Biblical prophecy and allow them to build a new temple in Jerusalem.
A religious group has secretly moved a herd of red heifers from Texas to Jerusalem, claiming it will fulfil a Bible prophecy.
Yitshak Mamo, of Uvne Jerusalem, a group dedicated to building a new temple in Jerusalem's Old City, spent years finding red heifer cows to sacrifice in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Mamo's group believes that one of these red cows needs to be "offered" to rebuild a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago. The Bible's Book of Numbers instructs the Israelites to offer "a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke."
A large white altar awaits the chosen red cow, set to be burned on land overlooking the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Mamo told CBS the ceremony must be performed looking directly where the Second Temple stood before the Romans burnt it down in 70 AD. Now, a group of sacred red heifer cows graze at a secure, undisclosed location in the West Bank, thanks to Mamo and his religious cattle rustlers.
"After a long search, we found them in Texas," he told CBS News. "Texas red angus."
He said that any cow with non-red hair wouldn't work for their special purpose.
To move the cows from Texas to the Middle East, Mamo called them "pets". He made it clear this was serious and not just for attention.
"Harry Potter is a good story. The Bible is not a story," he declared. "The Bible is a way of God to lead us."
Where the Second Temple once stood, there's now The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, two very important places for Muslims.
Nowadays, guards with guns make sure only Muslims can go into the area because there has been fighting in the Middle East.
The group Hamas, which did something bad on October 7 against Israel, calls it 'the Al-Aqsa Wave'. Their symbol has the Dome of the Rock on it.
After what happened, Israel's army went after Palestine in a big way.
Israel's leaders have just said they will build over 3,400 new houses in places called settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority doesn't like these plans, which are the first ones since June.
