Jerusalem
Day 2 Rosh Hashanah 2000

There are two mountains that loom large in Jewish thought. There is Mount Sinai where the Torah was given to the Jewish people and there is Jerusalem's Mount Moriah where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son, an event described in this morning's Torah reading. Which one do you think is more holy -- Mount Sinai or Mount Moriah? Those of you who said to yourselves Mount Moriah are right. The reason, our rabbis tell us, is that because Abraham was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his faith there, that mountain transcended in holiness even the site where the Jewish people received the torah. Many generations after Abraham and Isaac, King Solomon built the holy Temple on that mountain.

This morning I would like to speak about the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. They have been very much in the news in the last several days because of the violent disturbances there. They stand at a fateful and historical crossroad as Israel seeks to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. And it might be that the key to resolving the conflict is the paradigm of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice for his faith on the very spot that today is the main source of contention. For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be resolved, both sides will have to compromise where they have not been prepared to compromise previously. They are going to have to swallow some national pride, reign in nationalist strivings and accept only partial fulfilment of their dreams.

Let me tell you what has to happen at this crucial juncture in Jerusalem's history." And let me emphasize it is my opinion, although it is shared by many in Israel. Its chief advocate is Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, formerly the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army. But others of you may feel quite differently, just as there are many Israelis -and I spoke to a few of them on this subject during my visit to Israel in July - who disagree with my thoughts.

Let me tell you how I arrived at my opinion. It involves a little history because history tells best what Jerusalem means not only to Jews but also to Moslems and Christians. Only by understanding the attachment of three faiths to the Holy City, will you fully appreciate why issues regarding Jerusalem are not a simple matter of black and white.

For Jews, Jerusalem is ir ha'kodesh, the Holy City. The Bible tells us it was founded by King David to be the capital of the first Israelite Commonwealth. The core of its holiness is the Temple Mount where King Solomon built the first Temple to the God of Israel. Ever since, Jerusalem has been the spiritual center of Judaism. Throughout the millennia, when an independent Jewish State was only a dream, Jews have ended their Yom Kippur service with the phrase l'shana ha'ba'ah biyrushalayim, "Next year in his Jerusalem," just as they have concluded their seders each year with those same words and that same hope. The great Spanish Jewish poet, Yehuda Ha'Levi, expressed the eternal love of the Jewish people for Jerusalem in his immortal words, Libi bmizrach va'ani b'sof maarav. " My heart is in the East though I am in the furthest reaches of the West."

Jerusalem is the only capital our nation has ever had. Equally significant is the fact that no foreign occupier of the land of Israel has ever made Jerusalem the capital of its newly conquered territory. Jerusalem is too out of the way and strategically unimportant to be of interest to other peoples. Not even during the many centuries that Palestine was ruled over by the Moslem Turks, was Jerusalem considered the capital. But for the Jews, it didn't matter that Jerusalem was a provincial, backwater town. In the eyes of the Jewish people, Jerusalem is the center of the earth, the place where God's presence is felt most intimately.

For Christians, Jerusalem is also sacred ground. Jesus taught there and was crucified there. But most important of all, the central event of Christian belief, Jesus's resurrection, occurred in the Old City of Jerusalem, allegedly, where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands. Today, because the number of Christians in Jerusalem is small and growing even smaller, Christians are not making any claims for power. They are no longer major players in the political process. The Vatican, which was once a vocal advocate to internationalize the entire city now is insisting only on international guarantees that its holy sites be safeguarded and that Christians be entitled to freely practice their faith.

Moslems venerate Jerusalem as their third holiest city - even though Jerusalem is not once mentioned in the Koran. The city first appears in a story told by one of Muhammad's early biographers. According to this story, one night Mohammad mounted his horse for a miraculous midnight journey from Mecca to the Temple Mount. From there, Mohammed ascended through the seven heavens to God's throne. Moslems believe that the Dome of the Rock in the Old City marks the very spot from which Mohammad made his ascent.

Mohammad's journey enhanced Jerusalem's holiness for Moslems in two ways. It linked Jerusalem to Mecca, and it made the Temple Mount the sacred launching pad for the prophet's journey to the heavens.

Now it is easy to dismiss Moslem and Christian claims to Jerusalem as being based on myths, bubba meises. Do I, personally, believe that Muhammad miraculously traveled on his magical steed from Mecca to Jerusalem and then ascended to Heaven? No. Do I believe in Jesus's resurrection? No. But please keep in mind that the biblical stories about Abraham, Moses and King David are also unprovable. Other than the Bible's word, no other evidence for their existence has ever been found. Since one person's religious truths may appear to others as mere myths, it doesn't behoove any of us to cast aspersions on other people's beliefs. We must treat them with respect as we would want our beliefs to be respected.

What history shows is this: Jews do not hold a monopoly on venerating Jerusalem. There is a joke surfing through the Internet that goes like this. A trilateral meeting is taking place between President Clinton, Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat. Barak begins with a history lesson. "Thousands of years ago when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the Cohayn Gadol, the High Priest, was preparing for the Yom Kippur service. As the torah requires, he took off his robes, went into the mikveh to purify himself before entering the Holy of Holies. When he emerged from the mikveh, to his astonishment, his golden robes had been stolen. And we Jews think a Palestinian stole them." At this point, Chairman Arafat rises from his seat livid at this accusation. "This is a Zionist lie," He shouts. "There were no Palestinians in those days." "Aha," Mr. Barak, exclaims. "Now that we have agreed on that point we can start the negotiations."

This is a cute story and makes an important historical point. However, the truth is that regardless of who got there first, and whether we like it or not, Jerusalem is holy to three faiths. Moreover, one of those faiths, Islam, happens to have 200,000 believers living in Jerusalem, and neither their presence there nor their spiritual attachment to Jerusalem can be safely ignored as the last several days of violence demonstrate.

So what can be done about Jerusalem? A solution begins to take form if we put unnecessary passion aside and think realistically. In order to reach a compromise, which is the only hope for peace, let the Palestinian authority be in charge in areas of East Jerusalem, including the Arab quarter of the Old City and nearby Arab neighborhoods, which are currently 99.9 per cent Moslem and Christian. According to an interview with Prime Minister Barak in Friday's Jerusalem Post, if a final peace treaty is signed, this area will be called Al Quds, which means the holy city in Arabic. It will be the capital of a future Palestinian entity.

Dividing Jerusalem so that the Palestinians have control over the areas where Arabs live and pray, and Israel has control over the sacred places that resonate in the Jewish heart and soul and that we have prayed for for 2,000 years, is the only path to peace. And doing so won't even be creating a new reality. Jerusalem is already, virtually, two entities. West Jerusalem, where most Jews live, is a modern, western city; whereas Arab East Jerusalem has the feel of the third world. In Arab sections of Jerusalem, Palestinians run their own bus system, they have their own hospitals that operate independently of the Israel health system. They get electricity from their own Palestinian controlled electric company. Their schools follow a Palestinian curriculum.

So an invisible border already exists. Few Arabs venture into Western Jerusalem, and few Jews enter the Christian or Moslem areas of East Jerusalem because each feels unwelcome on the other's turf. The one place where Palestinians and Israelis used to mingle - the shuk or market place in the Arab Quarter - no longer is common ground. Israelis don't go there because it is potentially dangerous, and because they can get better prices on Ben Yehudah Street or at the local mall. In reality, Jerusalem is already divided because neither the Jewish nor the Arab populations aspire to a shared community.

As for the Temple Mount area, where the First and Second Temples once stood and which today is home to the Dome of the Rock and the El Aqsa Mosque, sovereignty there will have to be shared. And the truth is that it is already shared. Do you know who at this very moment daily exercises control over the Temple Mount? The Moslems! How is this possible? Well, when Israel conquered the Old City in 1967, Moshe Dayan, then the Israeli Chief of Staff, kept the Moslem religious council, called the Waqf, as the ruling authority over the El Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock -- even though Israel technically has sovereignty over the area.

This verbal arrangement has basically worked for all the last 33 years. The problem arises today because of the need to put jurisdictional authority down on paper as part of a final peace agreement. To overcome the obstacles, several ideas have been suggested in recent weeks. Sovereignty would be turned over to the Security Council of the United Nations which would then delegate control of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians and control of the Western Wall to the Israelis. An old idea being revived is similar but leaves the UN out. It places the Temple Mount under Palestinian sovereignty, the Western Wall under Israeli sovereignty, whereas the earth under the El Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which presumably holds the remains of the ancient Israelite Temples, will be governed by a yet to be determined special arrangement. Whatever the particulars, it all boils down to one principle - sharing "God's holy half-kilometer."

What has become clearer than ever in the past few months, and especially in the last few days, is this: if the Jews and Moslems in Israel and in the world cannot envision sharing Jerusalem in some equitable way, there will never be peace in Israel or in the Middle East. For the Israel-Palestinian conflict to be resolved, the Arabs must accept that for Jews, Jerusalem is the paramount symbol of Jewish religious and national identity. They must accept not merely the existence - but the legitimacy - of a Jewish Zionist State. They must acknowledge that Jews are in the Holy Land not just because the Arabs couldn't defeat them, but because the Jewish people have a deep historical connection to this place.

Nor will the conflict end unless Israel recognizes that although the Moslems have the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem is also integral to Islamic history and faith. Only by acknowledging and respecting the others' claims will Jerusalem live up to and become what its lofty name states - Ir Shalom, the "City of Peace."

Shin Shalom, an Israeli poet wrote in 1968:

In Psalms, Kings David urges us, Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." Together with Jews around the world, let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem belongs to all Jews, and its fate affects us all.

With God's help and with a renewed spirit of compromise and good will among Palestinians and Israelis, may this new year see the inhabitants of Jerusalem - Jew, Moslem and Christian - living together, shoulder to shoulder in peace and in harmony.

V'chen yehi ratzon. May this be God's will. L'shana tova.