A girl named Jerusalem by Nadav Shragai

...I do not miss the old Jerusalem, split in half with walls and barbed-wire fences; the Jordanian Legionnaires pointing their snipers at Jews from the high walls; the besieged Mt. Scopus; the faltering, "far away" city, blocked from three sides and facing Tel Aviv. I prefer to walk through the alleys of the Jewish quarter instead of hearing stories about them; to pray at the Western Wall instead of climbing on rooftops to glimpse it from afar; and to mend the cracks in today's Jerusalem rather than live in the old, divided Jerusalem.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
18 May '15..

Many years ago, the indefatigable MK Geulah Cohen told the story of how late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir extended his hand to a Jewish girl from Ethiopia who had just gotten off the airplane, and asked her name. The girl simply responded: "Jerusalem."

Shamir was soon surprised to learn that many other Ethiopian girls shared her name. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak felt the same way, when in the spring of 1991 -- during Operation Solomon, when he was IDF Chief of Staff -- he asked the elderly Malka Azaria, her skin deeply wrinkled as she stood dressed in white, how long she had been waiting to come to Israel: "2,500 years, since the destruction of the first Temple," was her reply.

On Sunday, when celebrities and public figures spoke about Jerusalem Day with contempt, and my heart ached as they yearned for a "small and divided Jerusalem," I thought perhaps they could learn a thing or two from the Jews of Ethiopia.

For 19 years, the city of Jerusalem was divided, until a miracle of great kindness reunited us 48 years ago with the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Mount of Olives and the Rachel's Tomb. Over the years, we resettled the Old City, from which we had been exiled. We rebuilt the synagogues that had been burned. We established a chain of neighborhoods from the south to the north, and also to the east, where more than 200,000 Jews now live. And yet misguided people are asking to turn back time.

I do not miss the old Jerusalem, split in half with walls and barbed-wire fences; the Jordanian Legionnaires pointing their snipers at Jews from the high walls; the besieged Mt. Scopus; the faltering, "far away" city, blocked from three sides and facing Tel Aviv. I prefer to walk through the alleys of the Jewish quarter instead of hearing stories about them; to pray at the Western Wall instead of climbing on rooftops to glimpse it from afar; and to mend the cracks in today's Jerusalem rather than live in the old, divided Jerusalem.


Jerusalem Day is a holiday -- the continuation of Independence Day, and despite the difficulties we face here, we must not turn back. It is not enough, so it seems, just to have the territory, we must also have the awareness to understand that Jerusalem is one of the basic defining elements of our identity. Do not be confused by the Muslim lie, do not fall victim to the weak-minded among us. And pray the prayer of poet Yitzhak Shalev: "May all your roadblocks be removed / May you be allowed to breathe / May the painter wander freely through you / Walking around as he sketches / From horizon to horizon, no borders and no orders / Will limit the line he draws."

Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=12617

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