“No other nation in the whole of history has wept for Zion”

Bernard Moses Casper

In 1954, at the close of a visit to Israel, a very distinguished theologian and prelate Monsignor Francesci said some very warm words just as he was about to leave the country. He said, “We understand that the Hebrew people have a spiritual connection with us; that their strange survival goes beyond the customary norms by which an ordinary nation evolves. And we Christians, if we have not lost the sense of Christianity, cannot but perceive to what a profound extent modern Israel is linked to our own salvation.”

I can’t help feeling that those are sentiments which perhaps explain why it is possible for a panel such as this arraigned before you here this evening and that we should be able to meet together in order to discuss what might be considered the best steps for the future course of Jerusalem and its situation. Jerusalem has occupied a central position in the life of the Jewish people for 3000 years and more. Now this central position of Jerusalem in Jewish history, religion, law, and tradition is fully recognized by enlightened world opinion. In the 1944 edition of the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible prepared by Christian theological authorities, Jerusalem is described in the following words: “The sacred city and well known capital of Judah, of Judea, of Palestine and of the Jews throughout the world.”

We have come here this evening to talk apparently about the future of Jerusalem. Yet, surely, so far as we are concerned, we are all believers, and surely would agree that the future of Jerusalem has already been determined long ago by the authority wherewith, no less than Scripture itself! We are not going to quibble with what is written, for example, in the book of Samuel, where we are told how David, after he had reigned for seven-and-a-half years in Hebron, moved to Jerusalem and took Jerusalem from the Jebusitesand established it as the capital of his kingdom because it was in a very convenient position. It was high up in the mountains surrounded by hills. It was possible from there, because of its relevant position to Judea and Samaria [and] because of the fact that it was in the position between the south and the north of the country, it was possible for him to rule the whole of the country. And so he made Jerusalem the capital of all Israel. His son, King Solomon, sanctified it. And I want to say very clearly that it was King Solomon who sanctified not only the place in which the Temple itself was built, but he sanctified the whole of the city. If you look in the Book of Kings in the third chapter, you’ll find the words which tell us how he married a strange wife, the daughter of Pharaoh: “And he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his house and the House of the Lord and the wall of Jerusalem roundabout.” The city was known as Ir David, the City of David. It was known as Metzudat David, the Fortress of David, because David actually lived for a while within that fortress so that he should be safe. It was known as Tzion [Zion], and of course it was known as Yerushalayim [Jerusalem]. The texts I have quoted refer to Jerusalem in all of those terms.

When King Solomon had finished building the Temple, he assembled the people and consecrated it, and prayed a very long and distinguished prayer which you will find in the eighth chapter in the Book of Kings. He referred there to “Their land which Thou gavest to our fathers … the City which you have chosen – and also this House which I have built for Thy Name.” So Solomon consecrated the city as a whole, not merely the Temple Mount .

In order to avoid a long historical record, you know that after some few hundred years that commonwealth and state was destroyed, in the year 586 BCE. It was in relation to this that the psalmist spoke that magnificent psalm, “By the river of Babylon there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion.” No other nation in the whole of history has wept for Zion. “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand be cut off.” W h i c h other nation in the world has had that kind of sentiment?Zion, Jerusalem, was the soul of the nation.

It wasn’t very long, barely half a century after that destruction that the whole of the Babylonian empire was itself conquered by the Persian empire, and the new emperor, Cyrus, issued his famous edict (of which we read in the first few verses of the Book of Ezra, as well as in the Book of Chronicles and elsewhere) in which he says: “Now I be made emperor over all these nations.” And he calls upon the Jews within his empire to rise up and go back where? To Jerusalem! “He has chosen me to build Him the House in Jerusalem. Who is of His people that want to go back, let them go back.”

Jerusalem and which people? The Jewish people, all in exile. Go back to the city which is yours. Already at that time there was a clearly established link between Jerusalem and the Jewish people. And it wasn’t very long after that that Nehemiah was charged to go back also in order to re-assist in the rebuilding of the walls of the city of Jerusalem.

If we are talking in terms of the future of Jerusalem, we must turn our minds back to what has been said in that relevance by Scriptural sources. There are the well-known words from Isaiah, “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Dabru al lev Yerushalayim – Speak to the heart of Jerusalem” It’s all in one verse – the people and Jerusalem. Again, the 27th chapter: “It shall come to pass in that day, there will be as great shofar sounded and those who are lost in the land of Assyria [Ashur] shall come and those who are oppressed and scattered in the land of Egypt.” They should all come back. “Vehishtachavu laKodesh- and they will worship to the Lord in the holy city on the holy mountainbeYerushalayim – in Jerusalem.” Who shall come back? All the scattered ones of the people of Israel. Again in the 52nd chapter: “You open, broad places of Jerusalem, open your mouths and speak forth with song, [all of you together], for the Lord has comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem.” Over and over again – His people and Jerusalem. Psalms 88: “Bonei Yerushalayim Hashem, The Lord doth build Jerusalem, He will gather in the scattered ones from Israel.”Perhaps one more from Zachariah (8th Chapter): “I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country, and I will bring them and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.”

When we read Scripture we read it meaningfully and directly. No roundabout ideas and suggestions as to what it might have meant or what it could be suggested to mean, later on, a thousand years later or something like that. We read it directly straight as it says. We understand it.

Jerusalem, or Zion, is spoken of very frequently, and the Jewish people are spoken of very frequently as the Daughter of Zion. In the year 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and the Second Jewish Commonwealth, Jerusalem itself was orphaned, its mother people scattered into exile.

And from then it was ruled by a succession of foreign rulers and conquerors, step-fathers and step-mothers and treated by them as the proverbial orphaned child. It was beaten; neglected, left desolate, dirty, despoiled, devastated and uncared for. The Romans not only destroyed it, but razed it to the ground. They even tried to change its name, to Aelia Capitolina, so that the very name Jerusalem should be forgotten. Then came the Byzantines. After their conversion to Christianity, Byzantine rulers began to look back to Jerusalem. And they went and tried to mark out certain places and certain spots in the city in which certain events according to their tradition had taken place which were of sacred meaning to them. They wanted to mark those spots with chimes, churches, convents and monasteries, and to make them places of pilgrimage. They did not think of Jerusalem only as a place where people live. It was thought of mainly as a spiritual center, hence they wanted to have a link with those special spots which meant something to them.

After the Byzantine period came the Arab-Muslim period. And what happened during that period? Please note: that was only in the 7th Century, 638 C.E. For so much as we are concerned, that is only around the corner. Jerusalem had already been the capital of Israel for over 1000 years before that and the world had accepted it as the capital of Israel for all of that period. When the Arabs ruled it, they didn’t regard Jerusalem as their main city. Their main city was Mecca and their second was Medina. Mohammed turned away from Jerusalem and towards Mecca and since then when they pray followers of Islam have turned in the direction of Mecca, not of Jerusalem. Only Jews turn in the direction of Jerusalem when they pray.

The Arab Muslims did in fact build that very beautiful building known as the Dome of the Rock. It is a very fine, big mosque, but people were never encouraged to go there for their pilgrimage. When Muslims go on a pilgrimage – their hajj as they call it – they go to Mecca. Jerusalem was not even the capital city when they ruled the country. They built themselves a special new town to serve them as their main city, the town of Ramle.

The Christian theologian Professor Stendow has written as follows: “For Christians and Muslims, the term ‘holy site’ is an adequate expression of what matters. Here are sacred places hallowed by holy events. Here are the places for pilgrimage. But Judaism is different. Its religion is not tied to sites, but to the land. Not to what happened in Jerusalem, but to Jerusalem itself. And that I can’t help feeling is a fundamental difference between Judaism and the other religions. As far as Judaism is concerned, the whole of Jerusalem is holy and sacred and fundamental to its belief.”

A little later, in 1099, the Crusaders became the new foreign conquerors and rulers of the land. Their period was marked by what? By murder and pillage. They tried to prevent Jews from coming into the city of Jerusalem altogether. The Jews managed with a bit of bribery and were allowed in sometimes for special occasions like Tisha b’Av. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks came on the scene, and ruled it as part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, from 1517 until 1917, when towards the end of the First World War the British under General Allenby marched in and took possession. During that whole 400-year period, Jerusalem was little more than a backwater, so far as the Ottomans were concerned – a neglected, distant province. And even during the time when the British were in charge, from 1917 until they gave it up in 1948, there was discrimination against Jews too. I’m sorry to have to say it, but it is true. I’ll give you one or two illustrations. The majority of the population during the whole of that period was Jewish. Jerusalem has had a majority Jewish population for well over 100 years, yet they insisted that the mayor of Jerusalem must always be an Arab. The climax to all this came in 1948 and for the years that followed up until 1967. That is the period marked by what is called Jordanian rule. It should more correctly be called the rule by the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, since it was Transjordan that unleashed war and conquered that part of Jerusalem – I mean the old, original part of Jerusalem. They also conquered the rest of the territory on the West Bank – the euphemism for Samaria and Judea – conquered and misruled it for nineteen years.

It is not easy to speak about that period without a certain amount of emotion. During the whole of those nineteen years Jews were literally forbidden to enter the city of Jerusalem. I’m not talking about the new city outside the confines of the walls. I’m talking about the original, Old City of Jerusalem which is now in our hands. Almost all of the synagogues were reduced to rubble. On the Mt. of Olives, some 38 000 s tombstones in that ancient cemetery of Jewish sacred interest were pulled up and broken and used for terrible purposes – for making roads, for building bunkers, and for constructing, if you’ll excuse me, latrines. Sacred scrolls of the law, which had been preserved for hundreds of years were torn and burnt and destroyed and left lying as part of the rubbish. There was an attempt made during that time period to obliterate every trace of the Jewish past. The city was divided and it was disfigured. It was made Judenrein;the only time in the whole of its history when that was successfully carried out. Where was the voice of protest at that time with regard to the Jewish holy places? We waited in vain to hear such a voice.

In light of this historical record, I am driven to ask the question, is there any other nation apart from ours that has any basis for a claim to rulership over the Holy City? Is there any other faith, any other group of people, any other central authority that has an entitlement to say how the city as a city be ruled and controlled? Never! In 1967, came the end of what might be termed the Arabization policy. There was an end to all bans and restraints at that time and the beginning of freedom of movement for everybody. There was a religious freedom to all faiths and an accessibility to all the holy places was immediately guaranteed.

I had the privilege of being in Jerusalem in those days. I remember when the wall dividing the Old City from the New City was pulled down. I remember how thousands upon thousands of people – Jews, Arabs, Moslems, Christians – all came down to see each other. Not only Jews, [but] Arabs living in Israel flocked to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque to pray for the first time in nineteen years. It was for them a homecoming too, in a way. Christians from Israel who had had difficulty in crossing from the New City of Jerusalem to the Old City, were now free to do so, and have been ever since.

Now, something very special has been said with regard to the internationalizing or the policy otherwise [know as] the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem. I want to voice what appears to me to be the basis of Jewish, and more particularly of Israeli objections to this policy which has been proposed and apparently is still the avouched policy of the Holy See. Let me go through this very quickly. First, we claim that there are Jewish rites in this city, which are historic rites going back 3000 years, and that can likely not be set aside and there is nobody else in the world that can claim that. Secondly, if we had any sort of international control, there would presumably have to be an international body to control it – a commissioner, a counsel; some governmental machinery in order to control it of an international character would it not necessarily and inevitably reflect the politics of the states comprising that body? And if it is to be under the auspices of the United Nations, for example, would we wish a country like Russia to have a direct say in the control of the holy city?

The safety of the holy places does not require a policy of internationalization. The government of Israel soon after 1967 made it abundantly clear that the holy places would be respected of all religions and it’s a wonderful thing to say that to this very day sixteen years have gone by [and] I don’t think there has ever been a period in the entire history of the city of Jerusalem where there has been such openness and such freedom of worship and of religious tolerance and of availability and accessibility of all holy places and shrines. Why to suggest that there should be an internationalization of Jerusalem because there are holy places in it? One might as well suggest that Italy should give up and internationalize the city of Rome because The Vatican is in it. True, it’s a very

important center and seat. There is no reason whatsoever, it seem to me, to encroach upon the civil liberties of Jerusalem’s population because of holy places. Israel, the government of Israel, has granted administrative powers. The government of Israel says that we don’t want to rule the holy places of India, or any one of the great faiths or religions. They must rule the holy places themselves. We grant them administrative rights and powers and let them arrange what has to be arranged and let them manage their affairs. On the contrary, the government of Israel has assisted in restoring many of the damaged places of worship, [and] other holy places: of putting them into a play, a situation of dignity, and of honor and of reverence, without , at all, a policy of internationalization.

The present system is one of a peaceful co-existence: people of all faiths intermingle freely.

There is a regularity and normalcy of social and commercial intercourse in the whole of the city. People do business together, talk together. They have cultural activities and go into the streets together. Go into the marketplaces and you will see them all mingling, thousands of them together, crowds of them together. It is true that there are problems as well. Can you tell me one country in the world where there are not problems? But I would say that this is the first time in 2000 years that there has been such an air of peaceful coexistence in the holy city of Jerusalem. Why? It reminds me again of that verse in Zachariah: “Thus said the Lord of Hosts, there shall yet old men and old women sit in the streets of Jerusalem. Every man with his staff in his hand for very age, and the broad places of the city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.”That is Jerusalem today.

We are facing a world today which seems to be threatened with lengthening shadows. In the midst of this darkness, the time is ripe for us to join hands and to build and strengthen and expand that Holy City of Jerusalem to be the beacon of light that it was intended to be so that it may illumine the world. Let us all join hands in promoting that openness and freedom of the city of Jerusalem. And let a free and united Jerusalem proclaim redemption to all mankind.