Spectator's Journal/Christians in Zion
Aikman, David
Christians in Zion by David Aikman Jerusalem T he Feast of TabernaclesSukkot in Hebrew—is one of the most light-hearted of Jewish holidays, as well as one of the pleasantest times of the year to...
...The Palestinians, by contrast, seem to want a sort of Berlin or Sarajevo solution, whereby they get the East as their capital—and maybe some more later on—while Israel is left for the time being with the 1948-1967 West segment...
...To be sacred in this multifarious way may have advantages for tourism, but it has distinct liabilities in diplomacy...
...part of the Old City, another Anglican church, Christ Church, is eagerly Zionist and takes an active part in the Feast of Tabernacles celebrations...
...Israel started off the beginning of the 15-month celebrations September 4 with a gathering in the Knesset and a boisterous sound-and-light and fireworks display around the Israel Museum...
...They put up with the annoyance for strategic reasons: the belief that any consistent pro-Israeli lobby group, however politically partisan, is of long-termvalue to the state of Israel and should not be alienated...
...But this year, for the first time, some Christians in the audience clapped politely but refused to stand for Prime Minister Rabin after his speech...
...And in St...
...A nd it certainly won't hurt tourism...
...John Tidy, an Englishman, disapproves of Christians who attend the Feast of Tabernacles as "somewhat fundamentalist in their readings of scripture, Zionist in their stance...
...The Dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev...
...0 A s the issue of Jerusalem becomes increasingly salient in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the significance of such remarks is unmistakable...
...Christians in Zion by David Aikman Jerusalem T he Feast of TabernaclesSukkot in Hebrew—is one of the most light-hearted of Jewish holidays, as well as one of the pleasantest times of the year to be in Israel...
...They are the people who elect the politicians that make decisions about Jerusalem...
...Their attitude had already been set late last year in a document imposingly entitled "Memorandum of Their Beatitudes the Patriarchs and of the Heads of Christian Communities in Jerusalem on the Significance of Jerusalem for Christians...
...For the first time, too, an Israeli opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, received a far more boisterous welcome than the prime minister...
...The very orthodox eat, sleep, and often sing during the feast's seven days inside brightly decorated screened-off enclosures outside their homes, sometimes on balconies, sometimes at street level...
...Something of the odd-sightedness of this perspective showed up in section five of the Memorandum, entitled "Lessons of History...
...The tiny community of Anglicans in Jerusalem, for example, is overwhelmingly Arab in composition...
...The U.S...
...Whether for Begin, Shamir, Peres, or Rabin, David Aikman, a former senior correspondent for Time, is the author most recently of Hope: The Heart's Great Quest (Servant Publications...
...This was diplomatically staged in the Western part of the city, but the gesture was still not enough for fifty-three of the seventy embassies invited, which chose to keep their ambassadors away...
...George's, seat of the Diocese of Jerusalem in the Eastern part of the city, political passions are unequivocally pro-Palestinian...
...One Christian group closely associated with the feast, the Christian Friends of Israel Community Development Foundation, has even founded an "Adopt-a-settlement" program, under which pro-Zionist American churches can actually contribute financially to settlements in the West Bank or, as they inevitably call it, Judea and Samaria...
...Visit on...
...The annual feast is also one of the most refreshing times of year for Israeli political leaders...
...No wonder that the city's mayor, Ehud Olmert, positively beamed with delight after his own address to the applauding pilgrims from overseas...
...As more and more Christians, not just in America but in places like Brazil (which sent more than 600 participants to the Feast), get stirred up to come to Jerusalem, the city's economy will surely flourish...
...Ever since the early 1980s, by far the largest group of tourists who have thronged the city in October have not been Jews but ardent, pro-Zionist Christians, mostly Protestant, who are eager to express an overflowing love for Israel...
...Yet in one The American Spectator December 1995 65...
...The catalyst for this unusual split among Jerusalem's Christians is the International Christian Embassy, a well-organized Jerusalem non-profit foundation staffed full-time by more than 50 people...
...According to Israeli Ministry of Tourism figures, 61 percent of visitors to Israel in 1994 were Christian, compared with 49 percent in 1986...
...Elect on...
...For reasons that seem to be unmistakably political, Israel has chosen to celebrate 1995-1996 as "Jerusalem 3000," a reference to the three millennia since the biblical Israelites, under King David, stormed the citadel of the capital of the Jebusites and helped transform Jerusalem into not just the Jewish capital, but a sacred city for the three monotheistic religions of mankind...
...Their largely Arab communities are "indigenous," i.e., Palestinian...
...To keep that process going even Rabin will put up with folks who won't give him a standing ovation...
...As he said, in awkward words for this audience: "I believe that God believes in those who help themselves...
...Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud's leader and quite possibly Israel's next prime minister, this year told Christian audiences that he would "guarantee" thatthe partnership between Jews and Zionist Christians would "safeguard the Jewish land, safeguard Jerusalem...
...Since 1981 every Israeli prime minister has made an annual political pilgrimage to receive the blessings—and the often noisy prayers—of 4,000 Christians apparently eager to endorse almost everything Israel does...
...standing ovations have been given every time, a pleasant contrast to the often cacophonous greetings the leaders receive during Knesset debates...
...Director Johann Luckhoff, a South African, describes his organization's goals as "building up all over the Christian world the Biblical roots of the Christian faith and the need for Christians to build bridges with the Jewish community...
...Ambassador reportedly had a prior 64 The American Spectator December 1995 engagement) The city's various historic Christian communities, who are largely pro-Palestinian—the Greek Orthodox, the Armenians, the Chaldeans, the Maronites, the Roman Catholics and Anglicans—were hardly thrilled by Jerusalem 3000's opening concert—Beethoven's "Christ on the Mount of Olives," performed by a German orchestra and choir, and conducted by a Jew...
...sraeli diplomats and supporters of the Labor Party are not naive about the partisanship of the pro-Israel Christian pilgrims during the Feast of Tabernacles...
...They know that if the Christian visitors had an Israeli vote, they would pull the lever almost unanimously for Likud...
...The scorching dryness of the summer has given way to warm but invigorating days and refreshingly cool evenings...
...He adds: "The impact on Israeli politics has been tremendous," noting that Jerusalem's city authorities eagerly quote Embassy spokesmen when refuting occasional criticism of the city's Jewish governance by the historic Christian churches in the Old City or East Jerusalem...
...The three-paragraph section manages to avoid the words "Jew" and "Jewish" altogether, as though the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the Maccabees, and the 700-plus references to Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible somehow had never existed...
...Just weeks away are the long-awaited rains of autumn...
...At no time is this truer than the current 15-month period between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year in 1995, and the end of calendar 1996...
...Elsewhere, the patriarchal newspeak veers off into quasi-liturgical rhapsody, such as "In Jerusalem is born every Christian...
...Their Beatitudes called for "an international guarantee" for the city, perhaps having in mind similar guarantees for, say, Trieste or Sarajevo...
...Said the document, in part: "Those who govern the city should make it 'The Capital of humankind.— But just how to do that...
...Here come people," he said, "who represent a large group of supporters around the world...
...The Embassy has produced the Christian Celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles from its inception fifteen years ago...
...The reason for the discrimination is simple: Christian Zionists seem as dismayed as the most ardent right-wing Israeli settlers that the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements will lead to the giving up of central parts of Eretz Israel—the biblical "land of Israel"—to a Palestinian regime still apparently committed eventually to gaining all of it...
...Most of the "historic" Christian churches in Jerusalem are in or very near the Old City, which came under Israeli control only in 1967...
...Ever since 1948, and especially since 1967, when Israel took possession of all parts of the city, the international community has refused to accept united Jerusalem as Israel's capital, clinging to the increasingly unrealistic notion that the entire city should somehow be "internationalized...
...The occasion for their presence is the event-filled, eight-day "Christian Celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles," an amalgam of daytime seminars on various Christian and Jewish topics and glittery evening pageants complete with choirs, splashy-robed dancers, zestful audience singing, and earnest prayers proclaimed from the podium...
...Or help Jerusalem...
Vol. 28 • December 1995 • No. 12
