Jerusalem, Manchester and Concertgoers
Our hearts are again saddened and sickened, and terror stricken, by yet another murderous attack. This time against children, and youth, enjoying a concert in Manchester England. We stand in solidarity with the people of Manchester. We pray for healing for those injured. We pray for solace for those whose lives have been taken. We pray for justice!
Lost among this week’s news was the word that 34 people, again mostly children, drowned in the Mediterranean. These refugees were attempting to reach Italy when their overcrowded boat capsized. They were fleeing Libya. The same murderous hatred that propels these refugees to flee their homes targets concertgoers. And yet the victims of the Arianna Grande attack find our sympathy. They could be us. We have taken our children to concerts. We have attended shows at the Garden, Jones Beach and Met Life Stadium.
We are separated from these refugees by two or three generations. They could have been my grandparents. Is our compassion only a matter of generations? I am called to have sympathy for all human beings. All of life is sacred. A murderous hatred, wrapped in the guise of Islam, seeks to engulf the world. It drowns and murders children. It targets the freedom to gather, to revel in music and speak our mind. We must be vigilant. We must be compassionate. I pray for peace.
Yesterday's Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, marks the 50th anniversary of Israel's victory in the 1967 war. It is a complicated day. While it commemorates Israel’s victory, it also marks the stalemate that has existed for the past fifty years. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains a distant dream. I hope and pray that President Trump’s efforts prove successful. Will moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, for example, advance the peace process?
Today, I do not wish to focus on such questions. Instead I wish to dwell on the following. I have never known a Jewish world without the State of Israel. I have been privileged to witness, and celebrate, many of its milestones. I have been privileged as well to debate many of its controversies and even swim in its contradictions. I have also been fortunate enough to travel there frequently.
I have only known a Jerusalem since 1967. I have read about Jerusalem’s no man’s land that separated Jordanian forces from Israel’s, and that now is home to Mamilla Mall. Many have walked through this corridor of shops and restaurants as they make their way to the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. No area of Jerusalem has ever been no man’s land to me.
Years ago I attended a concert in this very area. I then attended the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival in this very spot. Here is that story from the summer of 2007. It illustrates what modern day Jerusalem represents. It tells a story that we will not read about in our newspapers.
We sat in Jerusalem’s outdoor amphitheater, Sultan’s Pool. Now Sultan’s Pool is no ordinary theatre. It was constructed by the Ottoman ruler Suleiman, nearly 500 years ago, who also rebuilt the Old City’s walls. It is a magnificent amphitheater that sits outside the Old City. Prior to 1967 it marked what was once the heart of no man’s land. The theatre sits in the valley of Hinnom, a valley referred to by the prophets of old, a valley whose ancient practice of child sacrifice gave rise to the Jewish image of hell, Gei-Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom. The prophet Jeremiah’s harsh words and Amichai’s lyrical poems swam through my heart.
Yehuda Amichai writes:
The film festival began with a few speeches. First a petite 90-year-old woman, Lia Van Leer, chair of the festival spoke about her passion for Jerusalem and film and how especially proud she was that next year the festival will mark its 25th anniversary. An achievement award was presented to Avi Lerner and Danny Dimborf, Israeli born producers who have made it big in Hollywood. Their company has produced such classics as “Delta Force—1, 2, 3 and 4.”
The final speech was delivered in broken English by the chair of the Berlin Film Festival, Dieter Kosslick. He spoke about his long time friendship with Mrs. Van Leer, making some embarrassing slips because of his command of English, telling the crowd of nearly 10,000 how he looks forward to sleeping with Lia when they both attend Cannes. (I presume it sounds more appropriate in German.) He laughed when he realized his gaffe and then told this story.
When he was a young boy he witnessed the rise of Nazism and the devastation this ideology brought to the world and his country. He spoke about how the Nazis once burned Jewish books in his native Berlin. Because his birthplace saw the destruction of Jewish books he vowed to rectify this wrong. Every year Mrs. Van Leer brings him a gift. It is a book written before 1933 and written by a German Jewish author, a book that is tattered and worn, a book that seems beyond repair and that can no longer be read. Every year he lovingly takes this book and has it restored by a bookbinder in his native home. Every year books that would have been burned by the Nazis return to their native home and are there restored and I imagine thereby restore a piece of this man’s tattered soul. There was silence and then a standing ovation.
He declared the festival open and we watched the opening film, “Ratatouille.” Yes that’s right. Only in Israel would the Jerusalem Film Festival open in an ancient Turkish pool with speeches by an elderly Jewish woman and a repentant German and culminate with a Disney movie. In Israel one of the greatest compliments you can offer is: “This is American.” Israelis’ love of everything American is proof that an important part of Zionism is: “Let’s just fit in.”
On the other hand, unlike any other nation, Israelis feel that their everyday actions redeem the atrocities of a former century. On that cool desert evening I participated in redemption. I witnessed a German man publicly offer atonement. I watched a Disney film in an ancient pool and declared, along with 10,000 other Jews: “We can laugh and play just like you.”
Yes indeed, we can still laugh and play.
Perhaps that is the justice we seek. Perhaps that is the peace that so eludes us.
Lost among this week’s news was the word that 34 people, again mostly children, drowned in the Mediterranean. These refugees were attempting to reach Italy when their overcrowded boat capsized. They were fleeing Libya. The same murderous hatred that propels these refugees to flee their homes targets concertgoers. And yet the victims of the Arianna Grande attack find our sympathy. They could be us. We have taken our children to concerts. We have attended shows at the Garden, Jones Beach and Met Life Stadium.
We are separated from these refugees by two or three generations. They could have been my grandparents. Is our compassion only a matter of generations? I am called to have sympathy for all human beings. All of life is sacred. A murderous hatred, wrapped in the guise of Islam, seeks to engulf the world. It drowns and murders children. It targets the freedom to gather, to revel in music and speak our mind. We must be vigilant. We must be compassionate. I pray for peace.
Yesterday's Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, marks the 50th anniversary of Israel's victory in the 1967 war. It is a complicated day. While it commemorates Israel’s victory, it also marks the stalemate that has existed for the past fifty years. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains a distant dream. I hope and pray that President Trump’s efforts prove successful. Will moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, for example, advance the peace process?
Today, I do not wish to focus on such questions. Instead I wish to dwell on the following. I have never known a Jewish world without the State of Israel. I have been privileged to witness, and celebrate, many of its milestones. I have been privileged as well to debate many of its controversies and even swim in its contradictions. I have also been fortunate enough to travel there frequently.
I have only known a Jerusalem since 1967. I have read about Jerusalem’s no man’s land that separated Jordanian forces from Israel’s, and that now is home to Mamilla Mall. Many have walked through this corridor of shops and restaurants as they make their way to the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. No area of Jerusalem has ever been no man’s land to me.
Years ago I attended a concert in this very area. I then attended the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival in this very spot. Here is that story from the summer of 2007. It illustrates what modern day Jerusalem represents. It tells a story that we will not read about in our newspapers.
We sat in Jerusalem’s outdoor amphitheater, Sultan’s Pool. Now Sultan’s Pool is no ordinary theatre. It was constructed by the Ottoman ruler Suleiman, nearly 500 years ago, who also rebuilt the Old City’s walls. It is a magnificent amphitheater that sits outside the Old City. Prior to 1967 it marked what was once the heart of no man’s land. The theatre sits in the valley of Hinnom, a valley referred to by the prophets of old, a valley whose ancient practice of child sacrifice gave rise to the Jewish image of hell, Gei-Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom. The prophet Jeremiah’s harsh words and Amichai’s lyrical poems swam through my heart.
Yehuda Amichai writes:
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.
Our two voices met above
The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us.
Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the “Had Gadya” machine.
Afterward we found them among the bushes,
And our voices came back inside us
Laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or for a child has always beenIt was a cool evening and blankets were given away to help keep out the chill of Jerusalem’s desert evening. The Old City’s walls were awash with lights. I remembered sitting in this very spot some twenty years prior with my then girlfriend Susie (Susie and I met in Jerusalem) and watching Santana perform. There were no seats then, only the ancient stones of the pool—and Santana jamming and talking about peace. “I say to these walls, man, let there be peace.”
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.
The film festival began with a few speeches. First a petite 90-year-old woman, Lia Van Leer, chair of the festival spoke about her passion for Jerusalem and film and how especially proud she was that next year the festival will mark its 25th anniversary. An achievement award was presented to Avi Lerner and Danny Dimborf, Israeli born producers who have made it big in Hollywood. Their company has produced such classics as “Delta Force—1, 2, 3 and 4.”
The final speech was delivered in broken English by the chair of the Berlin Film Festival, Dieter Kosslick. He spoke about his long time friendship with Mrs. Van Leer, making some embarrassing slips because of his command of English, telling the crowd of nearly 10,000 how he looks forward to sleeping with Lia when they both attend Cannes. (I presume it sounds more appropriate in German.) He laughed when he realized his gaffe and then told this story.
When he was a young boy he witnessed the rise of Nazism and the devastation this ideology brought to the world and his country. He spoke about how the Nazis once burned Jewish books in his native Berlin. Because his birthplace saw the destruction of Jewish books he vowed to rectify this wrong. Every year Mrs. Van Leer brings him a gift. It is a book written before 1933 and written by a German Jewish author, a book that is tattered and worn, a book that seems beyond repair and that can no longer be read. Every year he lovingly takes this book and has it restored by a bookbinder in his native home. Every year books that would have been burned by the Nazis return to their native home and are there restored and I imagine thereby restore a piece of this man’s tattered soul. There was silence and then a standing ovation.
He declared the festival open and we watched the opening film, “Ratatouille.” Yes that’s right. Only in Israel would the Jerusalem Film Festival open in an ancient Turkish pool with speeches by an elderly Jewish woman and a repentant German and culminate with a Disney movie. In Israel one of the greatest compliments you can offer is: “This is American.” Israelis’ love of everything American is proof that an important part of Zionism is: “Let’s just fit in.”
On the other hand, unlike any other nation, Israelis feel that their everyday actions redeem the atrocities of a former century. On that cool desert evening I participated in redemption. I witnessed a German man publicly offer atonement. I watched a Disney film in an ancient pool and declared, along with 10,000 other Jews: “We can laugh and play just like you.”
Yes indeed, we can still laugh and play.
Perhaps that is the justice we seek. Perhaps that is the peace that so eludes us.