"Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) Is A Magic Word For The Jew"

To Jewish readers: Chag Pesach Sameach.

Tomorrow is the first day of Passover, and consequently this blog will take a brief rest.

In view of the time-honoured Seder wish "Next Year in Jerusalem!" and to give non-Jewish readers a glimpse of the seminal, visceral importance of Jerusalem to Jews and Judaism, I'm posting below an address given by the late Rabbi Dr Israel Porush of Sydney one year after the Six Day War, which saw Arab-occupied Jerusalem liberated by Israeli troops, and which ensured Jews access  to that supreme holy site, the Kotel (Western Wall), which had been off-limits to them since 1948.

Rabbi Dr Porush (1907-91)  represented the Religious, Mizrachi, stream within the Zionist movement.  He was born in Jerusalem into an Ashkenazi family that had resided there for a number of generations, and he combined Jewish scholarship with secular learning: as well as possessing a rabbinical diploma from the famous Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin he had a university PhD in mathematics.  Before taking up his post as minister of Sydney's venerable Great Synagogue (served 1940-75) he was minister of the Finchley Synagogue in London.  In Australia he was active in many communal institutions and in 1943 founded the New South Wales Council of Christians and Jews.

This is what he had to say in that address, entitled "Golden Jerusalem":

'.... Israel stood alone in that hour of crisis, surrounded by a ring of modern armour of terrible deadliness, and beleaguered by the armies of seven nations who were united in the hate of Israel and in their sinister plot to destroy it.  The rest of the world played cynically a waiting game.  Is it surprising that we view with a measure of cynicism the advice given us by our friends now?

And what of Churches?  Not a word of comfort in the hour of danger, not a sound of condemnation of the threats to our existence.  The so-called ecumenic spirit, or the so-called dialogue between Church and Synagogue, which was promoted in some quarters, especially in the United States, has suffered a setback from which it will not so easily recover.

Did I say Israel stood alone? Israel never stands alone: “The Guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps”; and the people of Israel in all their dispersion were roused as never before in prayer and in action and stood united by the side of Medinat [the State of] Israel.

....The Jewish citizen-soldier knew what the stakes were, and he was ready for every sacrifice.  And many hundreds of the cream of Israeli youth paid the supreme sacrifice upon the altar of Jewish survival ….

….[We] offer thanksgiving to the Almighty for the wonderful delivery of Israel from danger and fear, for the retreat of the enemy beyond wider and safer frontiers, and for the transformation that has taken place in the whole security situation of Medinat Israel ….

But who can be unaware that our deepest emotions and our profoundest sensitivity revolve around the liberation of Jerusalem, which has been restored to its rightful owners after nineteen centuries of dispossession?  ….

Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) is a magic word for the Jew.  It is pronounced in awe.  It conjures up associations and feelings in our ears that no other word does, and that no other nation or religion can remotely experience.  To us, Yerushalayim personifies the presence of God in our midst, the Schechinah.  It is the soul of our people.  It is the national and religious centre of all Israel, whether in its glory or in its ruin.  Jerusalem is eternal; it can never die or be destroyed.  Wherever the Jew settles in the four corners of the earth, Jerusalem is alive in his heart and near to his life.

 Jerusalem is mentioned 630 times in the Bible, as the city of God, the Capital of the Nation, the seat of the Temple, the centre of piety and learning, and also as the emblem of the Kingdom of God that will ultimately rule on earth.

When the captives of Judea sat by the rivers of Babylon weeping over their humiliation, and their captors invited them to sing one of the songs of Zion, they repliued: "How can we sing the song of the Lord in a profane land?” and they swore, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.”

Throughout the 1,900 years of exile there was never a time, with the possible exception of two brief periods, when Jews did not live in Jerusalem, at times facing great peril, at times massacred by fanatics.

 Our prayers were always directed towards Jerusalem.  Already Daniel, we are told, recited his three daily services with his face towards Jerusalem, and so have done all Jews in the Synagogue to this day.  There is not a service, there is not a Simchah [celebration], there is not a meal, when we do not remember Jerusalem and pray for its restoration.  And when we sit in mourning over its destruction, we mingle sorrow with hope, and grief with glorification, and lament with pledges of eternal loyalty to Zion, as is reflected in the moving Ode of Judah Halevi:

Though art the house of royalty, thou art the throne of the Lord …. O, who will make me wings, that I may fly afar and lay the ruins of my cleft heart among thy broken cliffs … Happy is he that waiteth, that cometh nigh and seeth the rising of the light, when on him thy dawn shall break – that he may see the welfare of thy chosen, and rejoice in the rejoicing when thou turnest back unto thine olden youth.

…. Jerusalem is the physical capital of the nation and at the same time the spiritual centre of all Israel wherever they live.

…. Yerushalayim is the emblem of the eternity of Israel as the people of God.  We would

indeed betray our raison d’être and our mission among men if we were to think of Yerushalayim in secular or political terms only.

 Jerusalem must return to its old destiny as “Ir Shalem”, which means on the one hand “The City of Peace”, but also on the other “The City of Completion, or Unity”.  It is unthinkable that the unity between the people of Israel and its spiritual cradle will ever be allowed to be severed again.

 The attachment of a people for 3,000 years as intense as that as the Jews to Yerushalayim cannot be set aside by international decree.  None need be afraid that the Jews would deal ungenerously or restrictively with the Holy Places and legitimate interests of other religions and communities.  We have proved that already.

…. Our Rabbis also speak of Yerushalayim as the “metropolis of the world”.  There is undoubtedly also a universal facet in the image of Jerusalem, embracing the whole of humanity, and that goes back 2,500 years, to the days of our prophets who prophesied in the name of God that the messianic order on earth would begin with the restoration of Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem would become then the fountainhead of a new mode of living which would lead the world out of the morass of strife, hate and division towards brotherhood, righteousness and peace:

And many people shall go and say: "Come ye, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths.  For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Law from Jerusalem.  And he shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Jerusalem is more relevant to the ultimate salvation of humanity than Athens and Rome, because it taught the world the supremacy of righteousness, brotherhood, and charity.  And even if the complete fulfillment of this ideal state of affairs would have to wait for the fullness of time, the inspiration of this vision could stimulate now the troubled peoples of the earth towards a more just and peaceful order of life. 

In our immediate context we could in our imagination envisage a Middle East in which goodwill, mutual respect and harmony would prevail between the Jews and the Arab nations, initiating an era of peace and prosperity that would be a blessing to all.  We know that this is the constant aspiration and the constant yearning of the Yishuv, and that Israel’s search for peace comes not only from practical considerations, but also from deep-seated convictions – the emblem of the Israeli Army is characteristically a sword wreathed in an olive branch – and from the unshaken trust in the teachings of our prophets and the ideals of our tradition….'

"Jerusalem, A Jewish City By All Definitions"

The above quotation comes from this introduction by Eli E. Hertz to his illustrated and documented article entitled "Jerusalem: One Nation's Capital Throughout History".  If you missed his earlier article, an important and compelling consideration of the centrality of Jerusalem in Jewish (as opposed to Islamic) thought and practice, here's the link.

Now, he writes:

"Palestinians have nurtured a myth that historically there were two Jerusalems - an Arab 'East Jerusalem' and a Jewish 'West Jerusalem.'

Jerusalem was never an Arab city; Jews have held a majority in Jerusalem since 1870, and 'east-west' is a geographic, not political designation. It is no different than claiming the Eastern shore of Maryland should be a separate political entity from the rest of the state. 

With an overall population of nearly 800,000 today, separating East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem is as viable and acceptable as the notion of splitting Berlin into two cities again, or separating East Harlem from the rest of Manhattan. 

Arab claims to Jerusalem, a Jewish city by all definitions, reflect the "what's-mine-is-mine, what's-yours-is-mine" mentality underlying Palestinian concepts of how to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. That concept is also expressed in the demand for the 'Right of Return,' not just in Jerusalem - Israel's capital, but 'inside the Green Line' as well."

See his entire article (which may be said to refute the Palestinian Arab claims set out in this recent overview by Alex Ryvchin) here

The Kotel: For UNESCO, just a separation wall

This is how UNESCO in its World Wonders Project describes Jerusalem, the holiest of Judaism's four holy cities, and the Western Wall, Judaism's sacred site there, to which throughout the centuries (except when put out of bounds to them) Jews have flocked to pray:

"As a holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem has always been of great symbolic importance. Among its 220 historic monuments, the Dome of the Rock stands out: built in the 7th century, it is decorated with beautiful geometric and floral motifs. It is recognized by all three religions as the site of Abraham's sacrifice. The Wailing Wall delimits the quarters of the different religious communities, while the Resurrection rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre houses Christ's tomb."

Notice the silence regarding the biblical significance of Jerusalem, the City of David.

Notice the use of the old term "Wailing Wall", which is usually avoided nowadays.  No doubt mention of the "Western Wall" would have had to have been followed  by something like "which is all that remains of the Second Temple, built about 19 BCE on the site of the very much earlier one built by King Solomon."

That would have been a reminder of its antiquity, and of the ancient Jewish presence in the Land, and that would never do.

For, needless to say, this terse, inadequate description is hardly an accident, hardly an innocent error by some bumbling, ignorant clerical assistant on UNESCO's staff.

The entire passage constitutes an exercise in politically motivated historical revisionism, an ignoble and deliberate censorship regarding Jerusalem: its pivotal importance in Jewish history, in Judaism, and in the Jewish psyche.

(There's an excellent video which succinctly sums uo the importance of Jerusalem to the Zionist movement itself, its centrality to Israel, something of which Palestinian rejectionists are only too aware aware; originally in Hebrew only, the video with English subtitles by Elder of Ziyon, is available here, and another excellent video, longer and more detailed, which argues that, in the interests of Muslims and Christians as well as of Jews, Jerusalem should not be divided can be seen on the Israel Thrives blog here)

When Bibi Netanyahu declared recently that "Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart" he was articulating what Jews have felt down the ages; indeed, the celebrated Australian rabbi Jacob Danglow (notoriously, being a British super-patriot, a Johnny-come-lately to the concept of political Zionism, but from 1948 a proud supporter of Israel, used the same phrase almost word for word).

UNESCO's  obfuscation of the core connection between Jerusalem, Judaism, and the Jewish People is yet another instance of the Arabs' war against Israel by non-military means.  Wreaking of the influence of the  Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the World Wonders Project passage promotes a deliberate agenda of Muslim supremacy.

A petition, addressed to UNESCO, has been opened to protest this outrageous  anti-Zionist sleight of hand.. Originally in French, and perhaps a little dodgy in places, its translation is given as follows on its website:

'After having tried to erase the Jewish nature of Rachel’s and the Patriarchs’ graves, the latter being presented as a mere mosque, UNESCO aims now at the only [sic; "unique" in the French version] holy city of Judaism: Jerusalem.... [W]e find out that UNESCO presents the holiest place of Judaism, the "Kotel"... as a mere ‘separation’ between communities.

 Hiding the fact that:

The "Kotel" is the western wall of the second Jewish temple, only remnant of the masterpiece built 25 centuries ago, on the very site of the first temple, dated at least 30 centuries ago. By far the most ancient monument in town, much older than all its Christian and Muslim buildings.

The name "Wailing Wall" [sic; Mur des Lamentations in the French version] is due to the Jewish tradition during 2000 years to weep facing it, crying over the loss of their country and their temple.

On the other hand, UNESCO dares to rewrite history, transforming the "Dome of the Rock" into a sacred Islamic site; which it has never been in the past....'

See the petition here
(Hat tip: reader Rita)

Jew-baiting at the Western Wall – an historical vignette

Yesterday was marked around the world – by Muslims and anti-Zionists of various stripes carrying pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah placards – as Al-Quds Day, dedicated to liberating Jerusalem from the Israelis – or, as the Iranian satellite news channel Press TV put it last night, demanding an end to “Israel’s 62-year [sic] occupation of Palestine” . The Al Quds Day march in Britain has been described, with good reason, as “the biggest annual Israel hatefest in London” – at yesterday’s ‘"We Are All Hizbolla Now" and "Zionism Equals Racism" were just two of the racist chants. Resistance was provided by a small group of Zionists, a group of Iranian expatriates in London and a group from the EDL. Around 1200 marchers walked from Speakers Corner down Hyde Park Lane, then back up, turning right to congregate in front of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square (the "Great Satan").”’ For a description and links to other accounts and videos see http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/terrorist-supporters-march-freely-through-london


Al-Quds Day was inaugurated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, the year he took power in Iran. “I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this [Israeli] usurper and its supporters,” he declared. “I call on all the Muslims of the world to select as Al-Quds Day the last Friday in the holy month of Ramadan ... and through a ceremony demonstrating the solidarity of Muslims world-wide, announce their support for the legitimate rights of the Muslim people. I ask God Almighty for the victory of the Muslims over the infidels.” On the eve of this year’s Al-Quds Day Ayatollah Khamenei stated: "Israel is a hideous entity In the Middle East which will undoubtedly be annihilated." And yesterday, in Teheran, President Ahmadinejad proclaimed: "If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene" and pronounced the peace talks between Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas as "stillborn and doomed."

Al-Quds Day is intended to demonstrate the importance of Jerusalem in Islam. Now, whatever a final peace settlement regarding Jerusalem may be – and it may well prove that east Jerusalem becomes, as the Palestinians insist, their capital – it is undeniable that while Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem is the foremost holy city in Judaism. In the Quran it is mentioned perhaps not at all, whereas in the Tanakh – the Hebrew Bible – it is mentioned almost 350 times, and its alternate name, Zion, a further 108.

Despite the dark centuries of exile there has always a Jewish presence in Jerusalem, and it’s thought that by the mid-1840s there were more Jews there than Muslims, who in turn outnumbered Christians. The following interesting historical vignette, which I discovered in the Jewish Chronicle (7 January 1870), was reprinted from the London Daily Telegraph, whose Holy Land Correspondent had written it. It provides a telling commentary on the status of the Jews in Jerusalem before that city was captured by the British from the tottering Ottoman Empire in 1917. So here it is, without further comment from me:

‘In this clear, bright moisture-free air everything looks so close and near that you fancy you could drop a stone down upon the roofs that lie far away beyond rifle shot and it is only as your eye becomes accustomed to the distance that you take in the grandeur of the city upon which you look. In a semi-circle around you is placed Jerusalem, a city standing in a sort of natural amphitheatre, tier upon tier, row upon row of flat-roofed dome-surmounted houses. The church-like Russian convents, the pseudo-medieval almshouses, the modern stucco and plaster suburb beyond the walls are hidden from view, the horizon is bounded solely by the crest of the hills, along whose summit run the western walls. At your feet is the vast, bare, open space on which once stood the Temple of Solomon – on which now stands the Mosque of Omar. A few Mussulmans [sic] sit smoking gravely under the shadow of the trees planted here and there close beneath the Sacred Shrine; a cripple, whose legs dangle helplessly after him, is crawling on his breast to reach the holy edifice. But, unless you wear the turban, there is no entrance here for either Christian or Jew, without special permission. The ground is too sacred, in the eyes of the Muslim, to be desecrated by the foot of the unbeliever. Beyond the plateau of the mosque, you look down upon the parapets of the eastern walls; beyond them, again, is the dark shadow covered gorge which men call the valley of Jehoshaphat. Higher up, just about the gloom of the valley, are the tombs of Absalom and Hezekiah ... and right in front, above the tombs, towers the Mount of Olives ....

The most impressive memory I shall ever carry away with me from Jerusalem is that of the Jews weeping before the walls of Zion. The Hebrew population is said, in the guide-books, to be about one-third of the whole city.... The Jews of Zion are neither prosperous, active, nor influential; and, as Muslims and Christians, disagreeing in everything else, agree in oppressing the children of Israel, these have a hard time of it in the city of their fathers. No native Jew can enter the precincts of the Temple, where now stands the Mosque of Omar, without the risk of being maltreated and stoned, if his presence is detected by a Mussulman. Once a week, however, and once a week only, the Jews are permitted by the Turks to come and pray at the foot of one of the high stone walls on which the plateau of Solomon’s Temple is supported. The hour of prayer is fixed, whether by chance or irony, upon the Mussulman Sabbath; at that hour the Jews flock to the narrow strip of ground, enclosed beneath high walls, where alone they can pray in public for the coming of the Messiah, and the restoration of the chosen people to the Promised Land. There are a few Rabbis, clad in long fur-lined cloaks and low-crowned velvet caps; but the great bulk of the worshippers are aged men and women of the poorer sort, meanly dressed in coarse woollen stuffs; the men with long grey greasy coats and greasier ringlets, the women with cheap striped cotton petticoats, and white linen hoods bound over their heads. Men and women stand apart, the worshippers, as they each arrive, taking up their station close to the wall, with their faces buried as far as may be in their slits and fissures. All along the line there rises a murmer of wailing cries and sobs. There are few amongst the company who have not Hebrew books of prayer in their hands, out of which they recite long swings of words chanted to a low sing-song tune. From time to time one of the elders reads out a prayer, and at each pause the chorus of men and women join in with a long wailing cry. But, as a rule, it seemed to me, each person prayed after his own fashion, and the voices rose and fell in a constant ebb and flow of sound; but, as worshipper after worshipper turned away slowly from the wall, after kissing it repeatedly, you could see tears running down their wrinkled cheeks.

The Turkish soldiers were lounging on the parapet of the wall above. In former years, they would throw down stones upon the Jews as they stooped in prayer, or insult them with opprobrious names. Now the power of the West is too much dreaded for the Moslem official to venture upon the exhibition of his contempt for the unbeliever. But, amongst the common folk, who have not the terror of the Pasha before their eyes, the old hatred of creed still survives. On the day when I visited the place of wailing, a group of dark-eyed, bold-faced stalwart Arab women sat with their children, in a corner of the pathway whereon the Jews were praying. An old Jewish dame, very feeble, bent, and wrinkled, laid her large hide-bound prayer-book on a stone beside her while she buried her head in a hole in the wall; forthwith one of the Arab girls stole up stealthily and carried off the book in triumph. The old Jewess, when she discovered her loss, begged and prayed for its return, but was told she could not have her book again unless she paid five piastres – about a shilling – to the girl who had stolen it. There was wrangling and whining for ever so long, but the Arab girl stood firm; the Jewish women were afraid to touch her, and at last they made up the sum amongst themselves by odd half-pence, and handed it to the impudent young hussey, who pocketed the coin, and then announced that now she would not return the prayer-book, as she saw the old woman valued it, till she had double the price named.

Seeing that our party were strangers, one of the Jewesses came up to me, and asked me, in German, to help them get the prayer-book back. I volunteered, through my dragoman, to pay the couple of shillings which was needed to redeem the book; but the Arab wench raised her terms again, and stood out for more. Happily, a threat that I would take the old woman to the English Consul – like many other unmeaning menaces in this world of ours – succeeded where persuasion had failed; and the girl, pouring forth a volley of abuse against myself, the Bible, and the Jewish race, raised up the prayer-book into the air, threw it as hard as she could fling right into the midst of the group of Jewesses, and then ran down the hill laughing loudly.'