Do Jews Have the Right to Live Anywhere in Jerusalem?
SHANKS, HERSHEL
PERSPECTIVE Do Jews Have the Right to Live Anywhere in Jerusalem? During the week before Easter, 150 ultranationalistjews occupied St. John's Hospice in the heart of the Christian Quarter of the...
...Don't we have enough trouble with the Moslems, do we need to upset the Christians as well...
...The question really is whether Christians and Moslems are entitled, as a matter of right, to have their traditional quarters of the Qld City reserved for them...
...The Likud government itself was behind the takeover...
...In other parts, Christians, Moslems and Armenians have the right to live as a Christian, Moslem or Armenian community...
...One side relies on a principle—the right of Jews to live anywhere in their own holy city—and the other argues that, whether or not such a right exists, it is unwise to exercise it under current circumstances...
...Worse still, $1.5 to $2 million of the $4 million reportedly paid for the lease was supplied by the Likud caretaker government...
...they were not permitted to land, let alone to live, on the shore...
...Jerusalem is not a melting pot, the American ideal...
...I conclude that Jews do not have a right to live anywhere they choose in Jerusalem...
...John's Hospice in the heart of the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem...
...In recent years, Moslems have also encroached on establishments in the Christian Quarter...
...John's Hospice defend the right of secular, sabbath-desecrating Jews to settle in Mea She'arim...
...Admittedly, Jordan ruthlessly failed to respect this division during its 19-year occupation of the Old City...
...the rights of each community must be respected...
...But this is no justification for Jewish infringement of the principle of exclusivity in the Christian Quarter...
...It must also be recorded that the Jewish group has been unjustly charged with interfering with Christian religious observance...
...But all this does not alter the fact that the Jewish takeover was not simply untimely, but wrong...
...In the end their criticism is vaguely unsettling...
...The argument has great appeal...
...Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany found doors all over the world closed to them...
...Closer to our time, as late as the early 20th century in Russia, Jews were for the most part forced to live within the confines of the Pale of Settlement...
...This gives the Christian and Moslem communities reasonable grounds to conclude that the Likud government indeed wants to dispossess them...
...Would the defenders of the Jews who leased and occupied St...
...The critics of the St...
...Observant Jews, I recall thinking, are entitled to some place in this world where they can live as a community without the disturbances of secular culture...
...For this reason, the Jewish critics of the takeover—and that includes everyone from Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek to leaders of most American Jewish organizations—generally avoid the question of the right of Jews to live anywhere in Jerusalem, and, instead, confine their criticisms of the takeover to whether the move was wise, rather than whether it was legal...
...With this history, who would dare say that Jews have no right to live in every section of their holiest city, once it has come, after 2,000 years, under Jewish sovereignty...
...Jews and Christians live side by side in harmony in many places in Jerusalem—in Abu Tor, in Ein Karem, on Ethiopia Street, on Agron Street, near King George Street—to name just a few—but the Old City of Jerusalem is a special place because traditionally sections of it are reserved for four different religious communities— Jewish, Christian, Moslem and Armenian...
...In short, Jews have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem only to the extent that this does not infringe the rights of other groups...
...It did no such thing...
...John's Hospice takeover avoid the question of principle...
...I quickly—and respectfully—retreated...
...Of all times, they say, the week before Easter...
...How insensitive can you get...
...The damage is serious, despite Israel's 42-year history of respect for all religious communities and institutions...
...it seems to come down to "not now, but maybe later...
...Even earlier, in 1290, we were expelled from England...
...The defenders of the Jewish occupants, including the Jerusalem Post in its new right-wing incarnation, maintain that, regardless of whatever else may be said, Jews have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem—certainly in Jerusalem...
...Jews in Jerusalem—under Jewish rule—have the right to be treated j equally with other groups, like Christians and Moslems, but Jews are not entitled to infringe the rights of these other groups...
...John's Hospice called forth some antisemitic statements, often from surprising sources...
...At that time the Jewish Quarter, including synagogues, yeshivol and other religious institutions, was almost totally destroyed and Jews were excluded...
...This argument is easy to understand...
...Not until 1948 did the United States declare unenforceable common restrictive covenants forbidding the sale of private homes to Jews (and even more so to blacks...
...When Arabs tried to settle in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, an Israeli court order prevented them, as it should have...
...Forthright corrective steps need to be taken speedily and openly before more damage is done...
...In parts of the Old City, Jews have this right...
...John's Hospice were a small fringe group acting independently...
...But in Israel today a different rule applies...
...The Jewish group used a front, so that the lessor would not know the true lessee of the property...
...It is also true that the Jewish occupation of St...
...What is to be gained by this foolishness...
...As Teddy Kollek has effectively argued, Jerusalem is a mosaic of communities...
...Yet to many millions, the front-page picture of the woman kneeling at the closed door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre meant that the Jews had forced the closing of the church—a scandalous misimpression, reinforced by some Christian clerics...
...In America, the answer would be different...
...I remember, years ago, accidentally driving into a dali (observant) community on Shabbat...
...why offend a community that in many places in the world, including the United States, has supported us...
...In two years, we will observe the 500th anniversary of the Jews' expulsion from Spain...
...We are trying to show that we respect the right of all religious communities to live together in a united Jerusalem...
...At this point, I would like to be able to end by saying that the ultranational-ist Jews who occupied St...
...H.S...
...Unfortunately, this is not the case...
...They took possession of the previously unoccupied building pursuant to a lease, the validity of which is being contested and, as of this writing, has not been finally determined by the Israeli courts...
...The reason is the same for Christians and Moslems (and even secular Jews) who do not have the right to live J anywhere they choose in Jerusalem...
...I propose to face the question...
...Yes, even in America, in the memory of many of us, resorts announced "No Jews or dogs allowed...
...Jews are entitled to live anywhere—except when they infringe upon the rights of other communities, just as Christians, Moslems and Armenians must respect the rights of the Jewish community...
...Framed in this way, the defenders and the critics argue past each other...
...The mosaic principle applies not only between Jew and Christian but also between secular and observant Jew...
Vol. 15 • August 1990 • No. 4
