Day Six: In Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a hard city. Every one of its inhabitants knows it. History is so dense here that it sometimes seems as if the city turns you, despite yourself, into a player on a huge stage, with a single huge but hidden eye watching you.
Perhaps that’s why everything in it is overstated, larger than life. Every twinge turns immediately into the agonies of the Son of God; every soccer victory augurs the Messiah’s arrival. Every love affair resonates with the love of David and Bathsheba. It’s hardly surprising, then, that each year a hundred or so tourists lose their mind in the city. This strange, unique phenomenon even has an official diagnosis: the Jerusalem Syndrome.
Yes, it is hard to live a normal, inconsequential life here. “Jerusalem, a port on the shores of the eternal,” the Jerusalem poet Yehuda Amichai wrote. And eternity, what can I tell you, is a pain. The people, even the most common people, are full of a strange self-importance, inflated with the glory of the past. They are quick to be insulted, always feeling as if they are the representatives of something awesome. There’s too much holiness in the air. I remember, from my childhood, a tiny back yard on one of the city’s side streets where huge graffiti summed up the nature of this city: HOLY SITE — NO PISSING ALLOWED!
Four thousand years of history, of civilization, of the different cultures that were created here and passed through here. The cradle of Jewish and Christian thought, the center of the three great monotheistic religions. So much wisdom, life experience, knowledge of human suffering and weakness have collected here, and what have we all really learned? Have we — Jews, Christians, and Muslims — really succeeded in being better people, more tolerant neighbors of our neighbors?
John Paul II came to this city today. In many ways, the visit here was perhaps the climax of his journey, yet it was the least uplifting day. The streets were nearly empty, and there was tension in the air. Politics brushed aside human warmth.
But this does not detract from the day’s historic events: the visit to the mosques on the Temple Mount, the visit to the Western Wall. Perhaps you need to be Jewish to understand the significance of the moment: The Pope at the Western Wall. Even this phrase sounds like an oxymoron.
Excuse me if I speak for a moment as a resident of Jerusalem (that is, with all that history on my back). The Western Wall stands above all other Jewish national or religious symbols; it is the most important monument to the Jewish people’s continuity. Paradoxically, the fact that it is not a whole, that it is but a remnant of the Temple that was destroyed, has made it into what it is in the consciousness of every Jew in the world. Jews have prayed in its direction three times a day, a depiction of the wall hung in the home of nearly every Jew in the Diaspora, and scraps of paper bearing their most intimate requests of God were interred in the fissures among its huge stones.
The Pope’s visit here today testifies, principally, to Judaism’s enormous life force. This tiny nation, numbering 12 million people — about equal to the number of inhabitants of Cairo or London — has succeeded, over four thousand years, in preserving a culture, language, and identity, despite countless attempts to destroy all these. It also has succeeded in instilling, in the hearts of its most bitter enemies — the Church in the past, the Arab states today — the understanding that it must be reckoned with. Acknowledged not only for its existence, but also for the importance of its contribution to mankind.
But that’s not all. The Pope, in coming here, in his entire visit, taught us that something else is possible. That even religious establishments, those dogmatic institutions, may grow through openness to and curiosity about other religions. It is hardly credible that, in the third millennium, religions will continue to be nurtured by the hatred of the other. On the contrary, they must begin to carry out their moral and humane precepts. The time has come for a revision of relations between religions and nations.
That, I think, is the essence of the Pope’s visit in Israel.
Over the course of six days, John Paul II succeeded in capturing the hearts of Jews, Arabs, and Christians. The most surprising effect he had was on the Jews. It had to do with his personal history from the time of World War II, and with his positions toward the Jewish people, but it was also a result of his unique personality. He captured the hearts of Israelis in a way that few foreign leaders have ever done before. A cabdriver from Tiberias expressed this sentiment best: “What a sweet guy that Pope is. If you ask me, he’s really a Jew!” (And I’m sure that the Pope would appreciate the compliment.)
For six days we followed him into the forge of our identity, Jews, Arabs, and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians. We were with him in places where our wounds are still bleeding. But somehow, in a wonderful way that is new to us, his visit made us consider how different and better our lives here could be if we stopped seeing the Other as an existential threat. If we began, for a change, to take joy in the variety of cultural and human richness that this country, and the entire region, offers.
True, the war over geopolitical issues did not really cease during his visit, yet this heavyset man, whose face is both elderly and childlike, passed through at his slow, meditative gait, and with simple gestures made connections between churches, mosques, and the Western Wall. He connected the suffering of the Palestinians in the refugee camps with the most profound fears of the Israelis. He linked the great miracles of ancient days with the little miracles of our daily lives.
I do not know what of all this will remain in our region after he returns to his own land. It’s reasonable to assume that, in the days to come, if the negotiations between Israel and Syria and the Palestinians resume, the sides will again take more extreme positions, sparking hostility anew.
But for one week a different wind blew here; there was a sense of reconciliation. For a moment we tasted the possibility of a different kind of life, free of hatred and the exhausting need to always be an enemy. For this small miracle I, a nonreligious Jew, say to John Paul II, Thank you.
Despite It All
July 2000
Two weeks of marathon negotiations in Camp David between Barak and Arafat and their teams came to a disappointing finish at the end of July 2000. Despite President Clinton’s continuous efforts to force both sides to make compromises and to reach a much-needed agreement, they blamed each other — as they continue to do to this day — for the failure of this crucial summit. Insider reports claimed that the major disagreements were over the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinian “right of return.” The personalities of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders also seem to have contributed to the difficulties in the negotiations.
I
Yesterday was a heartbreaking day for all those who hoped that the Israeli and Palestinian people had finally comprehended that if they cannot live together, they cannot live at all. The cheers of the extremists of both nations demonstrated, more than anything else, the fearsome perversion that we have become so accustomed to: the prospect of war delights many on both sides much more than does the possibility of peace.
In keeping with his character, Ehud Barak arrived at the summit confident, audacious, and truly wanting to end the conflict forever. Perhaps from the start there was not much likelihood that such an ambitious program would succeed, but on the other hand, after a century of antagonism, all the problems are already known, all the obstacles are familiar, so why not launch a full-scale charge toward peace with the same force and determination we have all used charging on the battlefield?