shalom friends,

 we have just finished celebrating jerusalem day - this year marking 
the 30th year of the reunification of holy city.

many of you are familiar with the following letter, written 28
years ago.  many are not. i realize it is a bit 'strong' and less 'politically 
correct' than what it once was BUT it still holds a message valid for today, 
particularly in light of the constant news from this area. 

i have a few other comments after the letter:

A Letter to the World from Jerusalem 
by Eliezer Ben Yisrael 

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 did 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 miasmal 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 swell in it as
Thou promised." On every Yom Kippur and Passover, 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 Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of 
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, after we 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 places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had 
made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the 
UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires 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 that other wall, the one 
that tore through the heart ofJerusalem. 

And when that same thing happened 20 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 need for the "Christian" 
quality of turning the other cheek. 

The truth is - and you know it deep inside your gut - you would prefer the city 
to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how 
diplomatically you phrase it, the age old prejudices seep out of every word. 

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had 
better reexamine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are not 
passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to 
suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your savior. 

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 a torch to the Temple everyone has equal 
rights. (You prefer 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 are redeeming 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!" 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

i know that many things need to be fixed over here - so i invite you to join me 
in the process - we need some good fixers. 

and if you don't make it here to help, you can still help from where you are - 
if you are not sure how, just write, and i will gladly give you a few 
suggestions.

with much love, and the hope of peace (pray for the peace of jerusalem - 
psalms!)

arnie