When I was a young man living in Brooklyn, I knew a printer who showed me a letter. This was in the late 1960's. It was entitled "A Letter To the World From Jerusalem." It had been published in the now defunct Jerusalem Times in 1969 after the liberation of this city from Arab rule and after its re-unification in 1967. That letter and knowledge that a Jewish army had conquered and liberated all of our country, fighting against three more powerful nations, as well as against the approval of the world, had stolen my heart home - here.
But I did not know that then. It took nearly a quarter century for the Thief to carry the prize home.
Last night, I came to understand that fact - and why so many Israelis who immigrate from foreign nations have trouble with the idea that another country should not touch any of OUR land. I understood why they so easily accepted "realities" of world politics and so easily ignored what ought to have been the fire in their hearts burning to fight and defy the world and die, if need be..
Their hearts were not in Jerusalem. They were still in the "old country", whatever that old country was.
This all came about from a discussion I had had with the guys going out on patrol Sunday night, my fellows in the uniformed Police Volunteer Unit I belong to. Most of us who serve on Sunday nights are English speakers who came home from the States or other English speaking parts of the world, and the unit conducts most of its informal business in English (Shhhh! Don't tell anybody that!). It was the standard discussion about politics, and we had all taken our standard positions.
Most of my colleagues have no trouble giving up this or that piece of land to the Arabs to feed the "peace" monster, and view me as an extremist because I stick stubbornly to the idea that you can't divide up the land and live in peace with enemies who would sooner see you dead than see you at all. They are "realists" and adhere firmly to the "reality" they read in the Wall Street Journal, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post or the Washington Post, whatever "reality" they happen to be peddling that week.
I believe in the eternal truths of the Torah and the Tana"kh.
One of these fine gentlemen went through the list of party leaders one by one, asking his colleagues if they would prefer this person, or that person or the other person, the big three running in the election. Like good realists, they all were prepared to hold their noses and vote for the "crime minister," Ariel Sharon. I couldn't understand where their sense of outrage, justice denied, contempt of a man who went back on his word - where all this had gone. It was standing at a bus station in the northern end of the city, in the quiet of the night, holding a flashlight and watching the people board and disembark from the various buses stopping there when the realization hit me.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
Ruvy,
First of all, I intimately understand your piece from a different perspective. As a New Yorker who has lived or visited many other places on six continents, I can say that my heart is always here in my home city. I never became a Londoner or a Madrileno or a Dubliner or any other because I am forever a New Yorker.
The difference is I didn't belong in those cities as one removed and returned (like your father with Poland). Even when I stayed in places like Paris, Germany, or Italy (where my ancestors came from) I never felt "home" or even remotely home. My only feeling of home might be say descending into a Metro station for example, but it would be too clean and nothing like back home.
Anyway, you may never convince the others, but your heart is in the right place (and thus so are you).
I enjoyed your post!
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Victor,
Thank you so much for your kind words about this article. Now I have to fix my errors! I left Brooklyn to live in Minnesota for a number of years. I never felt at home anywhere in the world except Brooklyn - until I came home to Jerusalem.
I cannot believe that as a child I drew maps of the kind of streets and passageways I have found here.
I wish you much success with your book, "The Savage Quite September Sun."
3 - pogblog
I visited the farm of my youth forty years later and it was the terriblest of any ideas I ever perpetrated upon myself. The 'forest' behind 'my' house was a few spindly trees. All my spatial memories were wrong. I trashed my inner idyll with the overlay of this benighted visit.
Hard to believe, but it took me one more visit to a different farm and the appalling dislocation, the travesties that 'the wretched new people' had visited upon 'my' house to learn 'You Can't Go Home Again' for sure.
It might work ok in a city where there is less intimacy and perhaps more of the self-edited dream to remain, but I'd at least advise extreme caution. Like most romance, the idea is better than the often fairly (or unfairly?) forlorn facts.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Poblog, you just can't go home again. It don't matter where you are. The memories of childhood never seem to meet with what our adult eyes see.
The narrow dingy staircases of the apartment buildings I grew up in just aren't the wide and fascinating staircases of my childhood - "once I was young and now I'm grown old" - and age just messes up the memories.
But if you have moved where G-d meant you to move, you have momentary flashbacks from things you saw as a child - and see them around you where you are now. This happens to me.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I'd been worried what would happen if my "anglo" colleagues read this essay.
http://ruvysroost.blogspot.com You can view it there. Needless to say, it reflects a point of view quite different from my own.
One of them posted a lenghthy response at my blogsite.
I will only say this much about its author. He is a gentleman, a decent man, and I rely on him to guard me on patrol - as he relies on me.
We were on patrol together last night. Our personal views are put aside when we share a "foxhole."
6 - Aaman
Too bad neither of you are fox-hunting men, like Siegfred Sassoon
7 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, I read your friend's comments to your post and can understand why you are so worried. But trust me, it's all going to work out okay, my pessimistic pal.
8 - David Ben-Ariel
And I am a Christian Zionist and the Vatican hates us both!
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Shavua Tov,
A brief update on events.
The fellow who answered my essay on my blog seems to have a somewhat different attitude towards our cousins since the little war in the summertime. Now he serves in the Border Patrol as well as in the uniformed patrol I serve in. I also have to note that he is in much better physical shape since joining that unit as a volunteer.
David - are there any Ohio politicians you can contact who might help you out?
10 - Ruvy
It's been a while since I've lived in Jerusalem and I have to admit that I miss living there. I'll always be a city boy at heart. The reason I'm returning to this article is because of the man who inspired the title of the article, Eliezer ben Yisrael, otherwise known in his native South Africa as Stanley Goldfoot, z"l.
I received this e-mail this evening from Ruth Matar, of Women in Green:
In honor of "Jerusalem Day - Land of Israel Day" Women in Green would like to share with you once again the famous letter written by Stanley Goldfoot in August 1969: "LETTER TO THE WORLD".
Stanley and Helen Goldfoot have been fighting for the Land of Israel since before the creation of the State of Israel. Stanley passed away in 2006 at the age of 92. Helen, may she be blessed till 120 with good health, lives in Herzliya. Both were dear friends and active members of Women in Green.
A four minute video-clip based on Stanley's letter was made. It is very powerful.