The following op-ed was adapted from
one first written for the 'Times of
Israel,' a fledgling weekly established
shortly after the Six Day War. After the
war, the Israeli government announced
preparations to return all the captured
territories except for Jerusalem, in
exchange for peace.
Jerusalem's skyline
The response came at the Khartoum
Arab Summit Conference that year, at
which it was announced that there would
be no negotiations and no recognition of
Israel.
Israel came under tremendous
international pressure to re-divide
Jerusalem, which caused the author to
sit down in a "white heat of anger" and
write this piece.
I am not a creature from another
planet, as you seem to
believe. I am a Jerusalemite - like
yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I
am a citizen of my city, an integral
part of my people.
I have a few things to get off my
chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do
not have to mince words. I do not have
to please you, or even persuade you. I
owe you nothing. You did not build this
city; you do not live in it; you did not
defend it when they came to destroy it.
And we will be damned if we will let you
take it away.
There was a Jerusalem before there
was a New York. When Berlin, Moscow,
London and Paris were forest and swamp,
there was a thriving Jewish community
here. It gave something to the world
which you nations have rejected ever
since you established yourselves - a
humane moral code.
Here the prophets walked, their words
flashing like forked lightning. Here a
people who wanted nothing more than to
be left alone, fought off waves of
heathen would-be conquerors, bled and
died on the battlements, hurled
themselves into the flames of their
burning Temple rather than surrender;
and when finally overwhelmed by sheer
numbers and led away into captivity,
swore that before they forgot Jerusalem,
they would see their tongues cleave to
their palates, their right arms wither.
For two pain-filled millennia, while
we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed
daily to return to this city. Three
times a day we petitioned the Almighty:
"Gather us from the four corners of the
world, bring us upright to our land;
return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city,
and dwell in it as Thou promised."
On every
Yom
Kippur and Pessah we
fervently voiced the hope that next year
would find us in Jerusalem. Your
inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the
ghettos into which you jammed us, your
forced baptisms, your quota systems,
your genteel anti-Semitism, and the
final unspeakable horror, the Holocaust
(and worse, your terrifying disinterest
in it) - all these have not broken us.
They may have sapped what little
moral strength you still possessed, but
they forged us into steel. Do you think
that you can break us now, after all we
have been through? Do you really believe
that after Auschwitz we are frightened
of your threats and blockades and
sanctions? We have been to hell and back
- a hell of your making. What more could
you possibly have in your arsenal that
could scare us?
I HAVE watched this city bombarded
twice by nations calling themselves
civilized. In 1948, while you looked on
apathetically, I saw women and children
blown to smithereens, this after we had
agreed to your request to
internationalize the city. It was a
deadly combination that did the job:
British officers, Arab gunners and
American-made cannons.
And then the savage sacking of the
Old City; the willful slaughter, the
wanton destruction of every synagogue
and religious school; the desecration of
Jewish cemeteries; the
sale by a ghoulish government of
tombstones for building materials, for
poultry runs, army camps - even
latrines.
And you never said a word. You never
breathed the slightest protest when the
Jordanians shut off the holiest of our
holy places, the Western Wall, in
violation of the pledges they had made
after the war - a war they waged,
incidentally, against a decision of the
UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever
the legionares in their spiked helmets
casually opened fire upon our citizens
from behind the walls.
Your hearts bled when Berlin came
under siege. You rushed your airlift "to
save the gallant Berliners." But you did
not send one ounce of food when Jews
starved in besieged Jerusalem. You
thundered against the wall which the
East Germans ran through the middle of
the German capital - but not one peep
out of you about the other wall, the one
that tore through the heart of
Jerusalem.
And when the same thing happened 19
years later, and the Arabs unleashed a
savage unprovoked bombardment of the
Holy City again, did any of you do
anything? The only time you came to life
was when the city was at last reunited.
Then you wrung your hands and spoke
loftily of "justice" and the need for
the "Christian" quality of turning the
other cheek.
The truth is - and you know it deep
inside your gut - some would prefer the
city to be destroyed rather than have it
governed by Jews. No matter how
diplomatically you phrase it, the
old-age prejudices seep out of every
word.
If our return to the city has tied
your theology in knots, perhaps you had
better re-examine your catechisms.
For the first time since the year 70
there is now complete religious freedom
for all in Jerusalem. For the first time
since the Romans put the torch to the
Temple everyone has
equal
rights. (You preferred
to have some more equal than others). We
loathe the sword - but it was you who
forced us to take it up. We crave peace
- but we are not going back to the peace
of 1948 as you would like us to.
We are home. It has a lovely sound
for a nation you have willed to wander
over the face of the globe. We are not
leaving. We have redeemed the pledge
made by our forefathers; Jerusalem is
being rebuilt. "Next year" - and the
year after, and after, and after until
the end of time - in Jerusalem!
In memory of my son Moshe who fell
in a clash with terrorists in 1975 in
Lebanon.
