Jerusalem: City of Peace

By Gil Troy

Review of Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century by Martin Gilbert

Avi Chai-Featured Reading: Notable Non-Fiction, May 2, 2002

The death toll is devastating. Each casualty represents a family shattered, a world destroyed: Yardena Shoshani, ten years old; Esther Ben Shimon, nine years old; Benjamin Yehezkel, eight years old—all shot just outside Jerusalem, the Jewish people’s venerable capital. These three innocents are part of a broader tapestry of pain, including 77 Jewish nurses, doctors, and administrators slaughtered in one bloody ambush; in total, 1,256 Jews murdered in five months for the simple crime of wanting to live free Jewish lives in the Jewish homeland.

These names and numbers, which echo today’s tragic headlines, are in fact from the bad old days – the five months preceding the British withdrawal from Palestine in May 1948. Then as now, the Jews had accepted a painful, internationally brokered compromise, in that case the 1947 United Nations plan to partition Palestine. Then as now, the Arabs rejected the compromise and unleashed a brutal war of terror against Jewish children and Jewish parents, Jewish doctors and Jewish nurses, Jewish civilians and Jewish soldiers. Then, as now, Jerusalem was at the center of the battle.

Reading Martin Gilbert’s sweeping volume, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, contemplating the bloody history of this most beautiful of cities, is both depressing and exhilarating. The pain – intensified by Gilbert’s vivid ability to personalize the deaths, to give the statistics a name, an age, and sometimes a life story – stings, even half a century later. And the fact that the fight continues between the same peoples over the same turf, is numbing. It is hard not to wonder, especially from the comfortable and safe vantage point of North America, why can’t these people just get along.

But Gilbert’s tale, Jerusalem’s story, is inspiring as well. For starters, it has not been an unrelenting tale of woe. Even today, mired as we are in the conflict, we see that the bloodlust has subsided before – and will do so again. Yes, the Muslim cry of "kill the Jews: there is no punishment for killing Jews," provoked rioting in 1920 and 1929, in 1936 and 1947, and random acts of violence have repeatedly pockmarked Jerusalem’s golden facade. But again and again, when faced with Jewish willpower, unity and strength, the violence ended. And sometimes, what came in its wake was not simply a state of non-war, but true acts of neighborliness.

The story of Jerusalem of Gold, Yerushalayim shel zahav, then, is the story of the Jewish state.

Although too often stricken by war, Jerusalem remains a city of peace. In fact, the story of Jerusalem in the 20th century is a microcosm of the story of Israel, an inspiring case study of renewal, rebirth, and redemption. One hundred years ago, the ancient capital of the Jewish people was a dump. In a town of 70,000 people, 45,000 were overwhelmingly poor Jews; 25,000 were overwhelmingly poor Arabs. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was delusional enough to envision a Jewish state fifty years down the line – but Jerusalem overpowered even his unique powers of imagination. "Shouts, smells, tawdry colours," he recorded in his diary in 1898, "people in rags crowding the narrow, airless streets, beggars, cripples, starving children, screaming women, bellowing shopkeepers. The once royal city had indeed sunk to the lowest depths."

The Zionist revival of Jerusalem overturned Herzl’s words. Even twenty years later, the city was progressing. British census reports would show that in Jerusalem, as elsewhere in Palestine, the Zionist boom attracted both Arab and Jewish immigrants. Between 1921 and 1933, 20,000 Jews immigrated to Jerusalem, as did over 21,000 Arabs from as far away as Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Yemen. Over the decades, Jerusalem thrived economically, culturally, politically and architecturally. The little people of Jerusalem, the shopkeepers and the teachers, the artists and the bureaucrats, the businessmen and the charwomen, both Jewish and Arab, would be the true stars of the show. But Jerusalem would be blessed by remarkable leaders –Bernard Joseph who led the city through the 1948 siege, David Ben-Gurion who made the city Israel’s functional capital, Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan, who helped reunite the city in 1967, and most notably, Teddy Kollek.

Kollek is the mayor of the century. He polished the stones of Jerusalem while working to unite its people. Gilbert reports that during Kollek’s tenure from 1965 to 1993, "facilities were provided for the Arab population of East Jerusalem beyond anything introduced under Jordanian rule [which lasted between 1948 and 1967], including sewage, a piped water system, clinics, parks and gardens. Access to Israeli hospitals was unrestricted." By 1994 there were 420,000 Jews living in this modern gleaming metropolis, in relative harmony with 155,000 Arabs.

The story of Jerusalem of Gold, Yerushalayim shel zahav, then, is the story of the Jewish state. It teaches us to hope for peace, to pray for good times, and to work to achieve a new and better reality. Even amid the frustrations of 2002, the Jewish people’s 3,000-year-old capital retains its magic. It is remarkable how the city thrived in the twentieth century, despite being a flashpoint between Arab and Jew. Perhaps in the 21st century, we will be able to use our common love for this ancient city to build common bonds and a more peaceful future for our eight year olds, our nine year olds, and our ten year olds, our doctors and our nurses, our civilians and our soldiers.