WorldNetDaily has been leaning hard into linking Donald Trump to being key to building the Third Temple in Jerusalem (and, you know, kick-start the End Times, but WND’s pretending that’s not actually an issue).
The latest attempt is an anonymously written April 1 WND article:
Donald Trump might not be the most popular person inside the beltway, in California, on U.S. college campuses or in the American media, but his support is growing in Israel, with one prominent rabbi saying he believes the president is destined to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple before the coming of the Messiah.
Rabbi Yosef Berger, the son of a widely revered Hasidic leader in charge of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, told Breaking Israel News Trump will play this “final historic reparation for his entire nation.”
“No leader in history has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Jews and Israel,” Berger said. “[Trump] has already created a great tikkun (reparation) for the Christians through his unprecedented relationship with Jerusalem. Trump is the representative of Edom that will perform that final historic reparation for his entire nation by building the Temple.”
Edom is an ancient adversary of Israel, founded by Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel, according to Genesis. As the slightly older brother of Jacob, Esau famously rejected his birthright for a mess of pottage or stew when he was famished after a hunting excursion. Some ancient rabbis saw Edom as a spiritual progenitor of Christians.
Berger makes a lot of predictions, apparently — for instance, he has predicted that Jesus will return in 2022.
As befits the even-more-sorry-than-usual state of journalism at WND, this article lacks a byline for a reason — it’s little more than a rewritten version of an article that first appeared at the website Israel Today (to which WND links but still credits Breaking Israel News because the Israel Today article does as well). WND doesn’t mention the End Times implications of this prediction because Israel Today didn’t either.