A modern-day Sanhedrin has convened in Old Jerusalem this week, duplicating the old religious tribunal which met during Israel’s Second Temple period, and which hasn’t authentically existed for 1,600 years. The new group, consisting of 71 Jewish scholars who named themselves the Sanhedrin last October, has called for an Israeli monarchy, and has even chosen a future king: Rabbi Yosef Dayan, a vocal critic of Ariel Sharon who is thought to be the most direct living descendent of the biblical King David. With king chosen, just one obstacle remains: how to place him in power despite Israel’s current democracy. Dayan himself explained the two possible routes to his crowning: a popular uprising, or “‘the one cited by Maimonides — and that is that no one will know how it will be until it happens.'” Other ideas proposed at the Sanhedrin meeting included the covert construction of an altar on the Temple Mount; praying on the Mount for a tsunami-like disaster; and reinstating the group’s authority to announce the arrival of the new lunar month.