This morning, I overheard a conversation in the gym in which someone was declaring, in reference to the murders of the two Jews in Washington, that there are crazy people everywhere and murders happen. And that may be so. But crazy people are easily inflamed by the poison that the press and social media spread like manure. And there is an increasing tendency to justify such actions. Which is why we need to try to t reach the uninformed and the crazies, and reinforce and reassert our heritage in the context of the new inquisition..
Monday the 26th of May this year is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, when most of us celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem from the Jordanians who expelled the Jews, razed the Old Jewish Quarter and desecrated its buildings and cemeteries. Being able to walk the ancient streets of old Jerusalem for the first time was one of the emotional highlights of my life. I had studied in “west” Jerusalem for years before 1967. A concrete wall cut off views of and barred entry to the Old City. Arab Legionnaires patrolled and would fire at anybody who came too close to the no-man’s land that separated Jordan from Israel.
The first mention of Jerusalem, arguably, is in an Egyptian text going back 4000 years referring to a town in roughly where Jerusalem is today called Rusellimum and is mentioned later in the Tel Amarna letters. ask most people where the name Yerushalayim or Jerusalem comes from they’ll probably tell you it was a city that King David conquered and made the capital of the United 12 tribes of Israel some four thousand years ago. And where his son Solomon built the first temple.
But there are earlier sources in the Bible that refer to a town called Yevus (Jebusites, the Yevusi lived). The Book of Joshua ( Chapters 15 and 18) refers to the city of Yevus as Yerushalayim. There is a similar reference in the Book of Judges ( Chapter 19). But Judges (1:8) says that the tribe of Benjamin conquered Yerushalayim. It seems they then lost it. And it was David’s conquest of the city ( 2 Samuel Chapter 5:6) that turned it into the capital of his Kingdom and the center of Judean life until the Babylonian conquest. And then restored under the Persian Empire.
I mention these references only to show how far back the association of Jerusalem with the Kingdoms of Israel goes. Professor Daniel Graupe in his book Jewish rule of Jerusalem 614 to 617 CE describes the Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Christians with Persian support which led to the Persians taking over Jerusalem and handing it over to the Jewish community to run its affairs. Albeit briefly because the Islamic conquerors, the perfect colonials, took it over and it’s true that under Islam Jews were treated much better than they were by the Crusaders and Byzantian rulers.
Since the rise of Arab nationalism, they have been the ones to try to make Jerusalem Judenrein, free of Jews, to borrow the Nazi expression. But of course, that was then repeated by the Mufti of Jerusalem and his successors who hoped that Hitler would remove all the Jews from what was then called Palestine. I am deeply offended whenever I hear our enemies, within the United Nations and elsewhere, claim we have no right to Jerusalem.
Yet Jerusalem is unique in its significance to other religions. One cannot ignore that. It’s just that the others did a terrible job of preserving Jerusalem’s sanctity when they had control. The United Nations Partition Plan passed in 1947 required Jerusalem to become a Corpus Separatum, a separate jurisdiction. In fact, the Jewish Agency accepted the plan. But the Arabs of course did not and Jordan who conquered it were never asked by anyone else to allow Jews to have access.
We live today in a world of lies and ignorance, of distorted ideologies in which information is simply picked up at face value from the trash clips and vitriolic hatred on such universal tools of Chinese and America sites of gratuitous hatred. Your average naive protester has been suckered into believing half-backed, discredited theories of Lenin, Stalin, Castro or Che Guevara not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood.
Most of the demonstrators have no knowledge of the Bible whether it’s the Jewish or the Christian version. They seem to think that the state of Israel sprung naked from the hands of the imperialists of the West in 1948. And recognizing Israel’s right to exist was a sin. Nor do they believe that Jews deserve self-determination. There is none so blind as he who will not see. And no arguments or facts will change closed minds. It is a fallacy that better PR could have avoided this situation. And although I think we must state our case on principle. I know the mechanism of modern technology and communication will never let “Israel to rest in peace.” Ironically, I think Israel has a greater chance of dialogue with moderate Islam than it does with pseudo -Marxists, Black Lives Matter or those who make a career out of finding someone to blame for their own deficiencies.
I’m not interested in taking sides politically. I mistrust them all in one way or another (although of course some are worse than others). I only want to emphasize the significance of Jerusalem to us as Jews and to say there is no comparison whatsoever with the position that Jerusalem holds either in the Christian world or in the Muslim world both of them were “Johnny Come Lately” to the scene and of course are interested in rewriting history to support their own ideology.
For us not a day goes by when we have not for thousands of years mentioned in our prayers the desire to go back and to rebuild Jerusalem. At every Pesach Seder we end with the phrase “Next year in Jerusalem.” It is so deeply embedded in our history in our consciousness and in our aspirations that whatever other claims there may be, objectively it is impossible to deny the very specific role that Jerusalem has in the heart and minds of the Jewish people .
If only those who deny Jewish Jerusalem would read that great book Jerusalem :The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore!
Jeremy
May 2025
