My faith does not reside in a city, a relic, historical buildings or places of worship. My faith resides and is expressed by how I treat other people, whether I conscientiously follow the Biblical instructions to promote justice, mercy, humility, fairness, opportunity, inclusion, peace and security for all people. My faith is expressed in my actions and my attitudes today, in how conscientiously I actually treat others the way I want to be treated.
In that, Jerusalem is a pretty poor example of living out a faith with the values I hold. There seems to be little mercy, justice or inclusion of many of the people in Jerusalem,the people who were living there legally and peacefully 100 years ago, people who legitimately considered it their home.
Would we Americans really want to be treated the way the Palestinians are in Israel today? Would the Israeli Jews want to be treated that way? Really?
Our actions, our choices, our attitudes are the true measure of our faith.
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My response to this is, try living in that society before you judge it. There is prejudice and mistreatment of Palestinians in Israel, but it's rooted in a well justified fear. You have never experienced the daily terrorism and violence that was a part of daily life in Israel for decades. You can take it for granted in New York that you can ride a bus, sit in a coffee shop, or buy groceries and not have to worry that a bomb might splatter you all over the street.
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Re your comment "There seems to be little mercy, justice or inclusion of many of the people in Jerusalem,the people who were living there legally and peacefully 100 years ago, people who legitimately considered it their home" : Actually the overwhelming majority of the people of Jerusalem, specifically, who were living there legally and peacefully throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, were Jews. (See, for example, Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad" for his description of the Jewish population of Jerusalem in the late 1800s.) The Jews accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 - the original "two states" proposal - but were attacked by the surrounding Arab armies who rejected it. When your neighbors are not Canada and Mexico, but instead those who plan to toss you into the sea (which was the declared Arab objective in starting the 1947-48 war and the run-up to the 1967 war) you defend yourself. As for Arabs living in the State of Israel today, prejudice that exists among some people some time is not supported by Israeli law. Israeli Arabs have the full rights of all Israeli citizens. The treatment of anyone who is violent, however, including Palestinians who riot with lethal weapons for a state of their own which their leaders rejected when it was offered (e.g. Arab leaders in 1947, Arafat and Abbas after the Oslo accords) - that is another question. Its solution awaits the agreement to sit and peacefully negotiate face to face, two states for two people.
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Why do future generations have to pay for another crimes and is that used as a justification?
The Jews planned to return after 2,000 years. That doesn't change the fact that Palestinian Muslims and Christians had the right to live in on their property and lived peacefully during that time. Religion aside, people have rights to their homes and should not be forced to leave.
Everyone will agree that what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust is a horrific part of history. However, the Jews use this to justify their own actions against Palestinians and to disturb what was once a peaceful population of people and to continue to build walls and segregate them. How can they justify forcing others from their homes as they once experienced themselves? It hardly seems fair that innocent Palestinians have to suffer and pay the cost of the Holocaust and other events not caused by them.
Americans killed and drove Native Americans from their lands. While it by no means pays for those horrific crimes, the Native Americans have been given land, holy land, as repayment. Should they be allowed to take from American citizens that live peacefully elsewhere because they were persecuted hundreds of years ago?
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I don't think anyone uses the Holocaust to "justify" forcing anyone from their homes. This argument always ignores some basic facts- Jews were ALWAYS living in Palestine, they didn't all leave after being forced out in the diaspora. Therefore, they also have a right to live there, and they predate both Islam and Christianity if you want to use the "who was here first" idea. Also, there was a shared UN plan the Arabs completely rejected, and Palestinian homes were only taken after Israel won a war THAT THE ARAB COUNTRIES STARTED. That is called, I believe, an inconvenient truth that not surprisingly gets left out of the whole picture. I can also mention that millions of Jews were displaced from Arab countries, which they were citizens of for over 1,000 years. Not all Jews were in the Holocaust. If the Arab countries hadn't attacked them and stolen THEIR homes, the Jews wouldn't have returned to Palestine. Might point is, this story is complicated and Arabs are also to blame as much as Jews. Don't simplify it into good guys and bad guys or we'll never find a solution.
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Now the Security Council wants to vote on rescinding America's recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel. Of course the U.S. will veto. But, what are going to suggest? That all of Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine? During recent demonstrations and riots, Muslims were declaring that (united) Jerusalem is "their" capital. No mention of western Jerusalem being Israeli. The east vs. west is a game played by all sides. In the meantime, nobody seriously thinks the city should be divided equally. And in his truthful moments, Abbas knows Israel will never give up the Western Wall, Mt. Olives, and other sacred spots. It is Israel that has kept all of Jerusalem open to all faiths for 50 years; the Jordanians never allowed any Jews in for the 19 years they illegally held the eastern city. They destroyed multiple synagogues, desecrated and trashed multiple Jewish graves on Mt. Olives, using some headstones as paving blocks in private homes and streets. If "Palestine" is left to run the eastern segment on their own, the destruction will be far worse.
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This is false. Jews were invited back into Jerusalem by Saladin and protected there for centuries. The hatred started with the Zionist campaign to dispossess the native Palestinian population in collusion with Great Britain and Christian Zionists.
In 1917 Jews made up less than 10% of the population of the country. Israel's conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967 led to widespread destruction in the Muslim and Syriac Christian quarters to make way for Jewish settlement and the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by an Australian Christian Zionists fanatic. The separation wall means that the majority of native Palestinians whether Muslim or Christian cannot visit their holy places most of the time.
How many nations in the world have Islam as their official religion? And in all of those nations, once born a Muslim it's is against the law to convert into another religion. in many of these nations, non Muslims are chraged higher interest rates. in a few of these Muslim countries, it's against the law to practice ones own religion if different from Islam. HowJewish states in the world is there? How much freedom does the isreali government give to all her citizens when compared to the other mulsum nations of the world? if we allow Isreal to be a democracy like the USA, Isreal will very quickly turn into yet one more Muslim nation. understand this dear readers, that the term Zionism is allowing one nation in the world were the civil government is Jewish. the holocost taught the world, the Jewish people need a country for it's people.
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Suppose old Jerusalem IS the spiritual capital of Judaism. Does that mean it must be the capital of the State of Israel? Pope John Paul II had an idea. Why not make the old city an ecumenical city-state guarded by Suisse Guard? Just like Vatican City. If the U.S. wants an embassy adjacent to the Knesset, at Givat Ram, Jerusalem, (modern West Jerusalem) that makes sense. But putting the Embassy anywhere in East Jerusalem is tantamount to murder, suicide, and martyrdom for all. Everybody seems to need to share their pedigrees with their opinions as if that’s what makes their opinions valid (or invalid). I feel compelled to give my credentials or pick a side just to give my feelings form. So Let’s just say I’m a person.
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The Suisse Guard could not have stopped the Jordanian army.
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I am a cynic by nature,but there are times when I’m left to wonder.I had my oldest son's Bar Mitzvah at the wall in Jerusalem.It was my life long dream to visit Israel & especially to pray at the Kotel.My travel Agent arranged to have a Rabbi conduct services for this occasion.Of all the rabbi’s in Israel, this Rabbi happened to be the Rabbi that conducted the services at my Mother’s funeral. He had recently moved to Israel. coincidence, what do you think?
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Maybe, maybe not. Convince yourself of what you wish to believe.
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" Next year in Jerusalem" an age old saying of the hopes of every Jew to visit the city proclaimed as the eternal capital of the Jewish people.
Unfortunately that same city is also claimed by the Palestinians as their capital and spiritual hub. Muslims have known this city as " the city of the Temple" for fifteen hundred years.
Christianity honors the site of the crucifixion of Jesus.
So the city itself is in the very nexus of the three major religious spheres. Each religion has its adherents believing the city is their's. The reality is that no religion has an absolute right to this "holy place", more blood has been spilled here than is useful, the long burning animosities of the area just continue to simmer.
The Egyptians the Babylonians and the Cannites all had their various turns occupying the city and surrounding areas. Now it is Israels turn, but that can change, we have seen change in our lives.
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There is no question about it, Jerusalem belongs to all us; Jews, Muslims and Christians. It should be declared a city state run by elected representatives of all 3 religions, accessible to all three. As long as Israel, backed by Trump, call it their city, based on the biblical past, there will be no peace in the Middle East. It's the same as American Indians taking back all land that once was theirs because it was theirs before contact.
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In 1947, the UN Partition Resolution 181 declared Jerusalem an international city, but when Jerusalem was invaded by Jordan in 1948, the UN did not defend Jerusalem. Can a city really defend itself against a country?
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The capital is the location of the seat of government-parliament & prime minister. Israel's parliament & prime minister are in Jerusalem, so Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. If the Palestinians move their parliament & prime minister to Jerusalem, then Jerusalem can be their capital, too.
I dislike Jerusalem. All those holy places are just excuses for war. The crusades, the Crimean war and present day conflicts.
I think the world would better off without holy places. They encourage fanaticism and violence. It's not only Jerusalem, It's holy places in India, Sufi shrines and Zeus only knows what else.
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Have no desire to go there and think how sad it is that so many people have died for dirt. Jerusalem isn't the only pile of dirt that people have been killed for but it is one of the primary piles.
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Ms.Firestone’s mention of “the war of independence” is a completely inaccurate description of the 1947 conflict. White Europeans moving to a land and then driving the original inhabitants from that land is not a “war of independence”, it is “ethnic cleansing”.
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You are aware that the Jewish inhabitants of Israel, Judea and Samaria were driven out of there 2000 years ago, and have spoken of returning every year since in their Passover seder? Or do you not care?
Further, if there are still multitudes of those "original inhabitants" still living there (in fact, numerically more than in 1947) with the same rights as the Israeli Jews, how does that constitute "ethnic cleansing?"
Facts matter Danny boy.
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You mean like 800,000 Sephardim ejected from Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Yemen ....or like the indigenous population of North America (including NYC where you live)?
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No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not tried to exterminate the Jews.
The day after the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947, some racist, xenophobic Palestinians started a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. Haj Amin el-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – “I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!”
The war started with Palestinians attacking a Jewish bus driving on the Coastal Plain near Kfar Sirkin killing five and wounding others. Half an hour later they ambushed a second bus from Hadera, killing two more. Arab snipers attacked Jewish buses in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Wars create refugees!
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Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament -- over 600 times. Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran – zero. End of story.
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And by the way. It should be added something interesting, funny and potentially promissing: new DNA research is finding that maybe 70% of Muslims in the area have Jewish origins. Centuries ago, most Jews who were facing either death or conversion to Islam (the religion of peace...) choose the latter and kept hidden some Jewish customs and traditions.
These days like most past times, they know they will face execution if decide to renew their preference in the open.
Islam sentences apostasy to death.
Why nobody talks about this is puzzling.
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Not only that. Palaestina was a name used by the Romans to revenge against Judea after its destruction, the Jewish temple demolition and the exile beginning for its survivors.
Palestinians are an inexistent people, better represented by Y. Arafat who was .... Egyptian! Few Muslims originated in the area who were mainly considered either Jordanian or Egyptian.
Jewish settlers around 1900 were rebuilding what later became Israel and business attracted thousands of arab workers from neighboring countries exactly as California does these days with latino immigrants.
Tragedy ensued in 1948 when Arab countries enticed those Arabs to revolt creating the stupid confrontation lasting till today.
Where were the "national" reivindications of all those pseudo-Palestinian between 1948 and 1967?
The political isolation they suffered by being shunned by their fellow Muslims (who consider ant Arab land untouchable) created this false equivalency.
A word about the Jewish people: after suffering 2000 years of persecution and massacres, they long for their original land not just for historical reasons but also for their survival. The sooner the international community understands that, the better will be for all.
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Do be aware that with the debatable exception of Melchizedek the king of Salem in Genesis 14:18, Jerusalem is not mentioned a single time in the Torah. Also be aware that even though the place name "Jerusalem" does not appear in the Quran, there are plenty of verses in the Quran about events that took place in Jerusalem, such as the story of Zachariah, the High Priest and the birth of John the Baptist (Chapter 19 Maryam, verses 1-11) and King David and the Bathsheba incident (Chapter 38 Sad, verses 21-25) for starters.
Jerusalem is filled with religion-based suspicion, anger and outright hatred. It is is mecca for people who devote their entire existence to religious dogma. It's worth visiting ONCE to take a quick peak at the old city. (Although do watch out for the pious folks scamming you in every single way they possibly can!).
After a few miserable hours of that, spend your time in Tel Aviv - a real place for real people!
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If there were a God, He’d surely, in the interest of peace, create a giant sinkhole to remove Jerusalem from the face of the earth.
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What would the whole story of Israel and the Jews be without pathos? Someone should really make a movie about it.
It's too bad you couldn't find any of the Jews who lived in old Jerusalem before it was ethnically cleansed of Jews by Jordan in 1948. Jews were a plurality of the population in old Jerusalem before then.
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It was lovely to read these stories from the perspective of ordinary people impacted by the headlines. Makes one wonder of the possibilities if these people were in-charge of making a compromise instead of politicians and religious extremists from both sides.
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I'm thanking all the people in this article who shared their stories and memories of Jerusalem. It remains a place of wonder, both with its ups and downs, joy and pain, peace and war...
I hope someday to visit it
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I am a Christian but more of an intellectual one than an emotional one. But two years ago as I walked around Jerusalem for the first time I felt as if God Himself was present. Seeing the place were Jesus walked and was crucified made my faith seem more real, that the events described in the Bible actually happened. I would advise all Christians to make that journey to Jerusalem; it will strengthen your faith.
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