"OK, you loved her, and thought about her, but it does not give you the right to kill her children, bulldoze her rose garden, and put your boots on her dining room table." — Israel Shamir
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Rape of Dulcinea
by Israel Shamir
January 27, 2001
The touching words of Elie Wiesel (Jerusalem in My Heart, NYT 1/25/2001)
painted a beautiful portrait of the Jewish people, yearning for Jerusalem,
loving and praying for it over the centuries and cherishing its name from
generation to generation.
This potent image reminded me, an Israeli writer from Jaffa, of something
familiar yet elusive. I finally made the connection by revisiting my
well-thumbed volume of Don Quixote. Wiesel's evocative article is so
wonderfully reminiscent of the immortal love of the Knight of Sad Visage for
his belle Dulcinea de Toboso. Don Quixote traveled all over Spain
proclaiming her name. He performed formidable feats, defeated giants, who
turned out to be windmills, brought justice to the oppressed, and so much more for the
sake of his beloved. When he decided that his achievements made him worthy,
he sent his arms bearer, Sancho Pansa, to his Dame with a message of
adoration.
Now I find myself in the somewhat embarrassing position of Sancho Pansa. I
have to inform my master, Don Wiesel Quixote, that his Dulcinea is well. She
is happily married, has a bunch of kids, and she is quite busy with laundry
and other domestic chores. While he fought brigands and restored governors,
somebody else took care of his beloved, provided her with food,
made love to her, made her a mother and grandmother. Do not rush, dear
knight, to Toboso, or it will break your heart.
Elie, the Jerusalem that you write of so movingly is not now and never has
been desolate. She has lived happily across the centuries in the embrace of
another people, the Palestinians of Jerusalem, who have taken good care of
her. They made her the beautiful city she is, adorned her with a
magnificent piece of jewelry, the Golden Dome of Haram al Sharif, built
their houses with pointed arches and wide porches and planted cypresses and
palm trees.
They do not mind if the knight-errant visits their beloved city on his way
from New York to Saragosa. But be reasonable, old man. Stay within the
frame of the story and within the bounds of common decency. Don Quixote
did not drive on his jeep into Toboso to rape his old flame. OK, you loved
her, and thought about her, but it does not give you the right to kill her
children, bulldoze her rose garden, and put your boots on her dining room
table. All your words just prove that you confuse your desires with reality.
If you must continue to ask why the Palestinians want Jerusalem? Because
she belongs to them, because they live there and it is their hometown.
Granted, you dreamed about her in your remote Polish hamlet. So did many people
around the world. She is so wonderful and certainly worth dreaming about.
Elie, many people have adored this city across the ages. Swedish craftsmen
left their villages and moved there to build the lovely American Colony
together with the Vesters, a devout Christian family from Chicago. You can
read about it in the works of Selma Lagerlof, another Nobel Prize winner.
On the slopes of the Mount of Olives, the Russians built the dainty church
of Mary Magdalene. Ethiopians erected their Resurrection monastery amid the
ruins left by the Crusaders.
The British died for her and left as their architectural legacy the St
George Cathedral and St Andrew's. The Germans built the lovely German Colony
and nursed the city's sick in the Schneller Hospital. My devout
great-grandfather moved into the protection of her thick walls in 1870-s
from a Lithuanian Jewish village and threw his lot with the hospitable
Jerusalemites. He found his eternal rest until the day of Resurrection on
the slopes of Mount of Olives. None of them thought to rape their Dulcinea.
They just left bouquets of architectural flowers as testament of their
adoration.
Those who love Jerusalem are legion. It is disingenuous of Elie Wiesel to
reduce the struggle for this city as a tug of war between Muslims and Jews.
It is a question of coveting property versus having the deed of ownership.
The resolution of this case should be based on the 10th commandment,
observed by our fathers. They knew that veneration does not amount to the
right of ownership. Millions of Protestants venerate the Catholic-owned
Gethsemane Garden, but it does not transfer the garden into their hands.
Millions of Catholics visit the Tomb of Mary, but it still belongs to the
Eastern Church. For generations, the Moslems have come to kneel at the
birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, but the church remains Christian forever.
What water did to Gremlins in Spielberg's movies, Zionism has inflicted on
the jolly Jewish folk of Eastern Europe. It caused them to carry out the
ethnic clearing of Gentiles in West Jerusalem, to convert Schneller hospital
and church into a military base, and to build a Holiday Inn on top of the
venerated shrine of Sheik Bader. The Israeli State forbids the Christians
of Bethlehem to pray in the Holy Sepulcher and bans Moslems below the age
of 40 from attending Friday prayers at al Aqsa mosque. These changes of the
city by the Israeli government amount to her rape.
In order to justify this rape, you invoke the names of King Solomon and
Jeremiah, quote the Koran and the Bible. Let me tell you a Jewish Hassidic
tale, one you might have heard in your Polish schtetl. A Jewish midrash, a
legend, mentions that Abraham had a daughter. A simple-minded Hassid asked
his Rabbi, why Abraham did not wed his daughter and his son Isaac. The
Rabbi responded that Abraham did not want to marry a real son to a
legendary daughter.
The legends are the stuff the dreams are made of. Some are charming, some
are horrible, and none is valid as a deed to the land or as a political
platform. Elie, you certainly would not like to lose your private home in
New York because of a few verses written in the Book of Mormon. This game
of spreading the Zionist gospel is becoming irrelevant, but I will play one
more round with you for the entertainment of the crowd. As every
archaeologist will tell you, King Solomon and his temple belong to the
fantasy realm of Abraham's daughter. Moreover, and not that it matters, but the name of
Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Jewish Holy Book, the Torah.
Elie, you want to play some more games? I'll tell you more. The Jews are
not even mentioned in the Jewish Bible. Get that thick book off your
shelf and check it. None of the great and legendary men you named, from
King David to the prophets, were called "the Jews." This ethnonym appears the first
and only time in the Bible in the Persian story of the very late Book of
Esther. The self-identification of the Jews with the tribes of Israel and with the
heroes of the Bible is as valid as the story of Rome being founded by the
Trojan prince Aeneus. If the modern Turks, who call themselves "the
descendants of Troy" would conquer Rome, dynamite Borromini's baroque
masterpieces and expel her inhabitants in order to re-establish the legacy
of Aeneus, they would just be repeating the folly of the Zionists.
Our ancestors, the humble East European folk of Yids, whose language was
Yiddish, had a tradition of adorning themselves with the impressive
heraldic lions of Biblical heroes. Their claim of descent from these
legends was as valid as the claims of Thomas Hardy's ambitious farmer girl, Tess. But even
the fictional Tess did not conspire to evict the lords from their castle
and claim the manor for herself.
Once, walking with the Christian pilgrims to the great Church of the Holy
Sepulcher, I was stopped by a Hassidic Jew. He inquired whether my
companions were Jews, and, receiving a negative reply, exclaimed in
amazement: "What are these Goyyim Gentiles looking for in the holy city?"
He had never heard of the Passion of Jesus Christ, whose name he used as a
swear word. I am equally amazed that a Jewish professor from Boston
University is as ignorant as the simple-minded Hassidic Jew. Jerusalem is
holy to billions of believers: Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Christians,
Sunni and Shia Moslems, to thousands of Hassidic and Sephardic Jews. Still,
as a city, Jerusalem is not different from any place in the world; she
belongs to her citizens.
Twenty more years of Zionist control of this ancient city would turn her
into just another Milwaukee and forever ruin her charm. Jerusalem needs to
be restored to its inhabitants. The seized properties in Talbieh and Lifta,
Katamon and Malcha should be returned to their owners. Professor Wiesel,
respect the Gentile property rights as you would like Gentiles to respect
your right to your lovely house. The holy sites of Jerusalem are regulated
by the 150 year old international statute (Status Quo) that should not be
tampered with. Last attempt to touch it caused the siege of Sevastopol and
the charge of the light brigade at Balaclava. Next attempt could cause a
nuclear war.
Israel Shamir, is one of best-known and most respected Russian Israeli
writers and journalists. He wrote for Haaretz, BBC, Pravda and translated
Agnon, Joyce and Homer into Russian. He lives in Tel Aviv and writes a
weekly column in the Vesti, the biggest Russian-language paper in Israel. Several of his recent articles can be found at the UKAR Israel Shamir INDEX, and may be freely transmitted and published online. Permission from the author should be sought for hardcopy publication.
Israel Shamir can be emailed at [email protected], or written to at P.O.B. 23714 Tel Aviv 61236.
