Translation of an
article published
in
Ma'ariv, June, 2000
Diskotel:
PAGAN RITES
by
Uri Avnery
"A religious discotheque" - thus
did the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz describe the Western Wall. A
pious Jews, he considered the ceremonies there pagan rites.
Therefore I don't get excited about
the now storm raging around the wall. The orthodox want to turn it into a
synagogue? Let them. They want to enact a law that will impose a penalty of
seven years in prison on women who pray there in a Jewish prayer mantle?
Well, not so long ago they would have them stoned to death. So there's some
progress.
All this was born in sin. If I were
a religious person believing in a merciful and just god, I would be
convinced that god has cursed the place. In the words of the prophet
Jesaia: "Hear the words of the Lord: My soul hates your feasts, they are
a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them…Ye, when you make many
prayers, I will not hear, your hands are full of blood…Your ministers
are companions of thieves, every one of them loves bribes and longs for
money, they do not defend the fatherless neither do they take up the
cause of the widow…Wash yourself, put away the evil of your doings from
before my eyes, cease to do evil…" (Yesaya 1).
Actually, the whole matter of the
Wall is very doubtful from a religious, historical point of view. It is
a remnant of the building operations of king Herod, without doubt the
greatest Jewish statesman of all times. Yet he was never accepted by his
people because of his Edomite origin. People at that time were not less
racist then today. Trying in vain to gain their love, he build them a
magnificent temple. This building was destroyed by the Romans, when they
suppressed the great Jewish revolt, a mad enterprise of the Zealots, who
rejected the wisdom of Herod. Nothing remained but a part of the outer
wall supporting the site on which the structure stood.
A holy place? For centuries it had
no importance to Jews. They prayed on the Mount of Olives, facing the
site of the temple. The Wall entered the holy business only many
centuries later, in the course of local religious-political bickering.
The Wall reminds me of two personal
experiences. For the first time I went there in the early 40s. We walked
through the twisting, narrow alleys of the Old City, and suddenly -
there was the Wall. The alley in front of it was so narrow that we had
to twist our heads back to look at it. It was monumental, gigantic, of
unique grandeur.
The second time I went to the Old
City immediately after it was conquered in 1967. I witnessed the
frightened flight of the inhabitants of the Mughrabi (Moroccan) quarter,
who were ordered to get out within hours. Crying children were carrying
heavy armchairs on their backs, old women dragged beds. A terrible
sight.
Teddy Kollek destroyed this
century-old quarter, which was built by pious Muslim pilgrims from
Morocco who decided to stay in Palestine and live next to the holy
place. The holy bulldozers of Kollek, the arch-settler posing as a
peacenik, obliterated the quarter.
Not only was this a war crime
according to the Geneva convention, but it also was a crime against
Jerusalem. The destruction created a vast empty space, a kind of holy
parking place, dwarfing the Wall, which looks now like any other wall,
an object of religious politicians, crazy fanatics and "Jerusalem
Syndrome" types.
I don't mind turning this place
over to the orthodox, if they leave us in peace. There will be no more
state functions there. In a synagogue managed by army shirkers, there
will be no more swearing-in ceremonies for secular soldiers - ceremonies
reminiscent of the pagan-nationalist ceremonies of loathsome regimes. Of
course, foreign kings and presidents will no more be dragged there and
compelled to wear scull-caps. Even Ehud Barak will no more be obliged to
go there for ridiculous photo opportunities, putting between the stones
slips of papers containing wishes which will not be fulfilled anyhow.
(There is a story about a person
consumed by curiosity who went to the Wall in the middle of the night to
find out what people write on these slips. He found that all of them
were stamped "Rejected".)
I am ready to turn the Wall over to
the orthodox. It doesn't fit anymore the new State of Israel emerging
now: A secular Israel, proud of its place as No. 2 in the world of
high-tech, wanting peace and prosperity, loathing military adventures of
the Ariel Sharon type, ready for compromises undreamed of by Ehud Barak.
In this Israel, women will be able
to do what men do, whatever they want, to their hearts content and the
glory of Israel.
Get this article in
Hebrew
Wie ein
einsamer Komet am Himmel:
Yeshayahu Leibowitz zur Erinnerung
Der größte Teil der
Öffentlichkeit versteht nun, was Leibowitz
vom ersten Augenblick an verstanden hatte:
dass die Siedlungen für Israel ein Unglück
seien... |