In what may be a first, a Jewish Israeli man was caught by the police trying to smuggle a tallit (prayer shawl) onto the Temple Mount on Tuesday.

Upon entering the Temple Mount, the police noticed a bulge in the man’s shirt which they identified as a tallit, which is a traditional Jewish prayer shawl.

A police officer then detained the man.  That policeman was clearly agitated that he was being filmed instructing the person videotaping it to leave the scene.

Legally, there is no restriction on Jewish people entering the holy site with religious articles. However, the Israeli police have enforced their own protocols including no Jewish religious articles with the exception of a yarmulke.

To date, no Jewish person on the Temple Mount has publically donned a prayer shawl.