RUTHFULLY YOURS

Two thousand years ago Jews traversed this path as they came from around the world to visit the temple. Such pilgrims were obeying a biblical commandment. Deuteronomy obligated Israelites to stand in the presence of God three times a year: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Rabbinic texts abound with descriptions of the processions that occurred, and the road parallels these details in an exquisite way.

One large stone on the side of the thoroughfare, which seems to have no structural purpose, may be explained by an ancient Talmudic reference to a “stone of claims.” This was an ancient form of a “lost and found,” upon which one who had dropped an object amid the throngs of pilgrims would stand and shout to Jerusalem’s visitors. The stone reminds visitors that the entire site was once hidden and now uncovered, just as the city of Jerusalem was once lost to the Jewish people and is now returned.

The Temple Mount pilgrimage was meant to be a journey to a spiritual summit. Yet today if visitors come from the western part of the city they often descend when approaching the site. Now pilgrims will be able to ascend stairs as their predecessors once did. To walk in their footsteps is to understand what Jerusalem meant to them and why it remains a beacon to the Jewish world today.

But, this being the Middle East, everything is subject to controversy. The Pilgrimage Road is located on land in East Jerusalem that Palestinians claim for themselves. Mr. Friedman, who on Sunday participated in an event inaugurating the site, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel relinquishing this portion of Jerusalem “would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat criticized Mr. Friedman for his attendance and contended that the road is a “lie that has nothing to do with history.” Yet Mr. Erekat and many other Palestinian leaders have long denied what archaeologists and historians consider basic and uncontroversial facts, such as the existence of the Temple.

In contrast, Mr. Friedman understands that such denials of history are part of what prevents resolution of the conflict. The excavated path is only one bit of a literal mountain of archaeological evidence that reflects, as the ambassador put it, how discoveries in Jerusalem, made “in most cases by secular archaeologists, bring an end to the baseless efforts to deny the historical fact of Jerusalem’s ancient connection to the Jewish people.”

Mr. Friedman added that the discovery is of importance to Americans as well as Israelis, since it embodies the biblical values on which both countries were founded. Here he echoes William Seward, who served as Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state. Seward wrote of his visit to the Holy Land: “Our last day at Jerusalem has been spent, as it ought to have been, among and with the Jews, who were the builders and founders of the city, and who cling the closer to it for its disasters and desolation.”

Seward described watching the throngs of Jews who came to the Western Wall to mourn Jerusalem’s destruction: “For many hours they pour forth their complaints, reading and reciting the poetic language of the prophet, beating their hands against the wall, and bathing the stones with their kisses and tears.” Seward’s words refute the idea that American Christians only recently have embraced Jews and their connection to the Holy Land.

Millions of Jews and non-Jews ardently pray for peace in Jerusalem. Yet in an age where actual facts are all too often eschewed for “personal narrative,” the Pilgrimage Road is another reminder that peace can only be attained through the recognition of historical truth. The ambassador and the administration he represents deserve credit for recognizing the facts on the ground—or, rather, underneath it.

Mr. Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan and director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University.