Isaac Herzog: Jerusalem: City of heart and soul
When I was elected president of Israel, my wife Michal and I privately celebrated for another reason, besides the great responsibility and trust placed in me: the fact that from now on, we would have the privilege of living in Jerusalem, a city that has had a deep place in our hearts for many years.Ethiopian Jews mourn the thousands who died on the journey to Israel
Yes, it is a privilege to live in Jerusalem. And every morning over the past year, waking up in Jerusalem, we have felt a certain excitement, an excitement of the sort that only life in Jerusalem can provide.
The poet Yehuda Amichai, for whom Jerusalem was his heart and soul, wrote in one of his poems a verse that captures something of my feelings: “Jerusalem is a swing: sometimes I descend into the generations and sometimes I rise into the heavens.” And that’s Jerusalem: a city in which polar opposites, diversity and change are all fused with each other, lending it its unique character.
There is no other city in the world like Jerusalem. A city that people pine for, a city that they face to pray, and for whose sake they pray, a city to which so many look up. A city that serves as common ground but is often also a locus of frictions. A city that contains everything of everything: the spirit of sanctity and the vibrancy of day-to-day life.
Jerusalem is a city whose one million inhabitants reflect the entire mosaic of Israeli society and its complexity, a city whose name means “peace,” yet a city that has also known many wars.
Jerusalem Day is a symbol of one of the formative events in the city’s history. From the day that Jerusalem was unified, all parts of it have been growing and developing. And while safeguarding its sovereignty as the State of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem also promises freedom of worship for members of all religions, and no less importantly – a form of coexistence that does not diminish difference and tradition, and which brings to light the hidden power of our ability to live together and work together hand in hand.
Immigration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata on Sunday said she was working to expand awareness about the thousands of Ethiopian Jews estimated to have died while immigrating to Israel, and to provide greater benefits to their families.Dore Gold: Yom Yerushalayim: Correcting a Historical Injustice
“As immigration and absorption minister, no decision has been more important for me than the decision to create dozens of memorial rooms that are scattered throughout the country to remember the Jews of Ethiopia who died along the way,” Tamano-Shata said, speaking at an annual memorial ceremony at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery. These efforts were made, she noted, in collaboration with local authorities and members of the Ethiopian community.
“Another important decision… was creating a team to put together assistance for the families of the fallen and to continue presenting the story of the journey and those that made it. Soon we should receive the committee’s recommendations,” she said.
Between 1979 and 1990, Israel organized several transport operations, bringing Ethiopian Jews to Israel via Sudan.
Some 4,000 people are estimated to have died on the trip — largely made by foot — from Ethiopia to the Sudanese camps from where they left to Israel, either on the march itself or in the camps, which had poor sanitation.
The names of some 1,700 people who died en route are engraved on a monument at Mount Herzl. Though more names are added to the monument each year, many are likely to remain forgotten.
How are we to understand the meaning of Jerusalem Day, when we commemorate the reunification of our historical capital? In 1997 I served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, and I asked for instruction from our foreign minister at the time, Ariel Sharon. He sent me back to the speech our first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave to the Knesset on Dec. 5, 1949.
Ben-Gurion was taking a historical decision at the end of the first Arab-Israeli War. He decided to move Israel’s capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion was told by Israel’s closest friends not to undertake this move. According to UN General Assembly Resolution 181, Jerusalem was supposed to be a “separate entity” — a corpus separatum, in the language of the United Nations.
But what occurred in the war was that Jerusalem was surrounded by a coalition of Arab armies and bombarded by their artillery. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ethnically cleansed. Its great synagogues, some dating back to the 13th century, were leveled. What the war had proven was that if Jerusalem were not under Israel’s sovereignty and protection, the consequences would be catastrophic. Ben-Gurion told the Knesset:
“But for our successful stand against aggressor’s activity in defiance of the United Nations, Jewish Jerusalem would have been annihilated and the State of Israel would never have arisen.”
Ben-Gurion had a message to the world about Jerusalem:
“The people which has faithfully honored for 2,500 years the oath sworn by the first exiles by the Rivers of Babylon, not to forget Jerusalem — this people will never reconcile itself with separation from Jerusalem.”