Whose Jerusalem?

Parks Fortify Israel's Claim to Jerusalem, by Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner (New York Times, May 10, 2009) - "Israel is quietly carrying out a $100 million, multiyear development plan in some of the most significant religious and national heritage sites just outside the walled Old City here as part of an effort to strengthen the status of Jerusalem as its capital."Group says Israel Plan to Cement Control of Jerusalem (AP, May 10, 2009) - "An Israeli government plan to develop parks, hiking trails and tourist sites in east Jerusalem will permanently change the landscape of the contested city and cement Israel's hold there, an Israeli group charged in a report released Sunday ahead of the pope's visit to the city. The government has undertaken an ambitious eight-year plan that will dramatically alter the 'holy basin' - the sensitive area in and around the Old City that is home to sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, according to the group, Ir Amim, which works for coexistence in Jerusalem."Israel has secret plan to thwart division of Jerusalem, by Akiva Eldar (Haaretz, May 10, 2009) - "The government and settler organizations are working to surround the Old City of Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the status quo in the city. The secret plan was assigned to the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA). In a report presented to former prime minister Ehud Olmert on September 11 last year, the JDA described the purpose of the project as 'to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City," all in the aspiration "to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.'"Al Quds University - page on the history of Jerusalem which erases the historical presence of Jews in the city and in Palestine/Israel.The First Word: A day in Jerusalem, by Yehuda Mirsky

The sword without and terror within (Deuteronomy 32:25)

Nobody who has lived in Jerusalem in recent years needs any educating about the sword from without. A week ago Thursday I discovered the terror within. It coils through Jerusalem's streets, and us.

Usually I'm not one for rallies. I don't like to shout, and waving placards isn't me. But I went to the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood on the outskirts of Mea She'arim for the counterdemonstration to a large haredi demonstration on behalf of the inauguration of several sexually segregated public bus lines. Tzniut (modesty) is a noble and crucial idea, an ethical relation in which I recede in another's presence and refrain from imposing myself and erasing his or her essential dignity. I have thought for some while that the relentless, in-your-face sexuality of Israeli society and the recent taking of the age-old ideal of tzniut to hitherto undreamed of extremes are two sides of the same coin.

And one of those extremes - sending women to the back of the bus - will be, I fear, just the beginning. Segregated public transportation, segregated streets, segregated stores, and this is not "separate but equal." Regarding all women as sexual objects, in all places, at all times, degrades them but it degrades men even more, making them into nothing but sexual predators-in-waiting.

The demonstration took place on the spot where a horrific bus bombing in August 2003 took 23 lives, mostly haredim, including seven children and one Filipino guest worker; in recent years, the bombings have come to be seen by some in the haredi community as, inter alia, divine retribution for the intolerable commingling of the sexes on Jerusalem's buses.

I WAS WITH a counterdemonstration, organized on very short notice by a law student, Avital Feldman. We were about 20 people, some religious, others secular. The de facto leader was newly-elected councilwoman Rachel Azaria from the Wake Up Jerusalem movement. We stood on the side of the large street on which the demonstration was taking place, its numbers swelling swiftly into the hundreds early on. A few had brought signs, some religiously-inflected ("We are also created in God's image"), others straightforwardly political ("Don't turn Israel into Iran") and one self-parodyingly intellectual ("Stop the eroticization of public sphere" - come to think of it, the one sign the haredim there might have agreed with).