Religion and the issue of Jerusalem

[Hadel]

I liked the following article from the Jordan Times and I wanted to share it.

In Christ,
Hadel

   
Religion and the issue of Jerusalem
By Jonathan Kuttab
   
   
It has often been assumed that the problem of Jerusalem is exceptionally difficult because of religious claims made upon the Holy City and its holy sites by members of the three monotheistic religions. But the current mood of optimism in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a good reason for us to take a new look at the issue of Jerusalem.
It is true that often exclusive claims have been made, and many wars have been fought to “liberate the holy sites” or rid the Holy City of the infidels (being a reference to the adherents of the other monotheistic faiths), yet this did not necessarily have to be the case. Within each religious tradition, there has always been a strain of openness, tolerance and acceptance of the other monotheistic faiths, as well as a rejection of the idolatry of concentrating one's faith and religion on temporal sites viewed as holy.

Without denigrating the important emotional, and indeed spiritual, significance of holy sites and shrines, and pilgrimage to them, one can still find within each of the three monotheistic faiths religious principles that reject as idolatrous the adamant exclusivity regarding the holy sites in Jerusalem.

The clearest example of this is found in Christianity. The historical memory of Middle Eastern people concentrates on the Crusades and the brutality with which Crusaders massacred members of the other faiths and destroyed their places of worship by using religious sentiments to mobilise soldiers to conquer and hold the Holy City, particularly the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yet a strong argument can be made that such sentiment was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ.

In a significant episode in the New Testament, Jesus was asked by the Samaritan woman at the well: “Where is the true place for worship: here in Samaria or in Jerusalem, as the Jews say?” Jesus replied to her: “Neither here nor there. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

These profound words, given within a Jewish religious context, but which became normative for Christians, indicate that God is in fact divine and universal, and need not be confined to one geographic location, as the idols and tribal gods of the ancient world were. Christians, with the exception of those in the Crusader period, have repudiated exclusive religious claims over Jerusalem, and have insisted that true spiritual worship of God can be conducted in any part of the world, and not only in the Holy Sepulchre, the Holy Land, or in other religious shrines; God is enshrined in our hearts, and any attempt to insist on the sanctity of a particular place or shrine or location has been suspect in Christian theology.

A similar movement can also be found in Judaism, after the destruction of the Second Temple. The temple was the place where ritual sacrifices were made and where the chief priest once a year would enter the Holy of Holies to atone for his sins and the sins of the people. With the utter destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., these rituals ended, resulting in a major spiritual crisis. Yet, after time, Judaism developed to the point where the Torah and the synagogue became the centre of religious and community life for Jews, and the significance of the temporal Temple receded into mythological and distant significance.

It is true that the hope “next year” has been maintained over the years, but in real, practical, as well as spiritual terms, emphasis shifted from temple-centred sacrifices to a broader faith, until the twentieth century, when the secular movement of Zionism tried to revive the centrality of Jerusalem and Zion in its temporal aspect. In the present day, only a very small and marginal minority of Jews seriously contemplates the reestablishment of temple worship. This dangerous element openly plots the destruction of the Haram Al Sharif for this purpose. Although a number of attempts and conspiracies towards that aim have been unearthed, the clear consensus of the Israeli population and of Jewish rabbis and spiritual leaders is in opposition to this extremist minority, and the emphasis remains, as it has been for the last two thousand years, on the universal aspects of Judaism, rather than the temporal one.

With Islam, mainstream thought is also in favour of the more universal aspects of the religion, including respect for the other two monotheistic faiths. Jerusalem has great spiritual significance for Muslims, with both the Burak Wall (the Jewish Western Wall) and the Haram Al Sharif, which is the third holiest site in Islam. Yet Islam, perhaps more so than Judaism and Christianity, has always emphasised its universal nature and its openness to all people throughout the world. Some argue that, coming chronologically after the first two monotheistic religions, it has accepted, legitimised, and shown more tolerance to the other monotheistic traditions than they showed to Islam. In Jerusalem itself, Muslim rule has reflected this openness and tolerance more often than not.

These examples are cited because it is all too often claimed that religion is a divisive factor in the politics surrounding Jerusalem. It does not have to be so. There is enough within each of the three religions to generate a different interpretation, and it is perhaps incumbent upon religious leaders from each religion to emphasise these tolerant elements and to insist that true spirituality does not come with specific, much less exclusivist, territorial claims over Jerusalem or its religious shrines, but, as Jesus said, through worship in spirit and in truth of the one single God worshipped and revered in the three monotheistic religions.

The current atmosphere of optimism requires a fresh look at the question of Jerusalem. It is up to the religious leaders of all three religions to emphasise those elements of tolerance and spirituality in their respective traditions, and thereby neutralise the religious fundamentalists who promote exclusivity, hatred and violence in the name of God.

The writer is a Jerusalem-based Palestinian human rights lawyer and peace activist. This article was contributed to The Jordan Times by the Common Ground News Service.

Thursday, June 2, 2005

   
   

[MBZ]

Hi all!

Hadel, I am going to try as much as possible to adhere to my cyberrule of not discussing the israeli-Arab conflict online & will refer to it only to the minimal extent necessary.

Kuttab wrote:

A similar movement can also be found in Judaism, after the destruction of the Second Temple. The temple was the place where ritual sacrifices were made and where the chief priest once a year would enter the Holy of Holies to atone for his sins and the sins of the people. With the utter destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., these rituals ended, resulting in a major spiritual crisis. Yet, after time, Judaism developed to the point where the Torah and the synagogue became the centre of religious and community life for Jews, and the significance of the temporal Temple receded into mythological and distant significance.

It is true that the hope “next year” has been maintained over the years, but in real, practical, as well as spiritual terms, emphasis shifted from temple-centred sacrifices to a broader faith, until the twentieth century, when the secular movement of Zionism tried to revive the centrality of Jerusalem and Zion in its temporal aspect. In the present day, only a very small and marginal minority of Jews seriously contemplates the reestablishment of temple worship. This dangerous element openly plots the destruction of the Haram Al Sharif for this purpose. Although a number of attempts and conspiracies towards that aim have been unearthed, the clear consensus of the Israeli population and of Jewish rabbis and spiritual leaders is in opposition to this extremist minority, and the emphasis remains, as it has been for the last two thousand years, on the universal aspects of Judaism, rather than the temporal one.

Since the day after the Second Temple was destroyed :'( religious Jews have (fervently!) prayed (3 times a day) for the reconstruction of the Temple & the restoration of the order of offerings. It is an article of (normative, historical, i.e. orthodox) Judaism that that Temple will be rebuilt and that the order of offerings will be restored. The Torah verses, and concomitant laws regarding, the order of offerings are lovingly studied in anticipation of the day when this will happen. Thus, Kuttub's statement that

In the present day, only a very small and marginal minority of Jews seriously contemplates the reestablishment of temple worship.

is both disingenuous & just plain wrong. All orthodox Jews seriously contemplate the reestablishment of Temple worship! Psalm 137:5-6

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you; if I do not set Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.

is sung at every (orthodox) wedding & is recited at every circumcision because no Jew's joy can be complete as long as the Temple is not rebuilt. It is customary to leave a (visible!) part of a wall in one's home unpainted & unplastered in order to remind us of the Temple's ruined state (how can our houses be whole when God's house is not?). We fast on the anniversary of the Temple's destruction (http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayd.htm). There is, however, a t-i-n-y minority of extremists who plot to do harm to the Dome of the rock & the Al-Aqsa Mosque but the delusions of a few fanatics cannot reflect on the much wider group of orthodox Jews, try as Mr. Kuttub might. Jerusalem & the Temple Mount are the heart of Judaism much as Mr. Kuttub would like to marginalize its importance to us.

Mr. Kuttub also wrote:

Yet Islam, perhaps more so than Judaism and Christianity, has always emphasised its universal nature and its openness to all people throughout the world. Some argue that, coming chronologically after the first two monotheistic religions, it has accepted, legitimised, and shown more tolerance to the other monotheistic traditions than they showed to Islam. In Jerusalem itself, Muslim rule has reflected this openness and tolerance more often than not.

The underlined portions are simply rubbish and do not at all jibe with the historical record (I cite http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf20.html; the source of every statement & direct quote cited below is given in extensive footnotes):

In violation of the 1949 Armistice Agreement (http://tinyurl.com/attz2), Jordan denied Israelis access to the Western Wall (http://tinyurl.com/afa3z) and to the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, where Jews have buried their dead for more than 2,500 years.

Under paragraph eight of the agreement, Jordan and Israel had agreed to establish committees to arrange the resumption of the normal functioning of cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mt. Scopus, and free access to that area; use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and free access to holy places and cultural institutions.

Under Jordanian rule, "Israeli Christians were subjected to various restrictions during their seasonal pilgrimages to their holy places" in Jerusalem, noted Teddy Kollek (http://tinyurl.com/azvfe). "Only limited numbers were grudgingly permitted to briefly visit the Old City and Bethlehem at Christmas and Easter."10

In 1955 and 1964, Jordan passed laws imposing strict government control on Christian schools, including restrictions on the opening of new schools, state control over school finances and appointment of teachers and the requirements that the Koran be taught. In 1953 and 1965, Jordan adopted laws abrogating the right of Christian religious and charitable institutions to acquire real estate in Jerusalem.

In 1958, police seized the Armenian Patriarch-elect and deported him from Jordan, paving the way for the election of a patriarch supported by King Hussein's government. Because of these repressive policies, many Christians emigrated from Jerusalem. Their numbers declined from 25,000 in 1949 to less than 13,000 in June 1967.11

These discriminatory laws were abolished by Israel after the city was reunited in 1967.
___

Jordan desecrated Jewish holy places. King Hussein permitted the construction of a road to the Intercontinental Hotel across the Mount of Olives cemetery. Hundreds of Jewish graves were destroyed by a highway that could have easily been built elsewhere. The gravestones, honoring the memory of rabbis and sages, were used by the engineer corps of the Jordanian Arab Legion as pavement and latrines in army camps (inscriptions on the stones were still visible when Israel liberated the city).

The ancient Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ravaged, 58 Jerusalem synagogues — some centuries old — were destroyed or ruined, others were turned into stables and chicken coops. Slum dwellings were built abutting the Western Wall.
_____

After the 1967 war, Israel abolished all the discriminatory laws promulgated by Jordan and adopted its own tough standard for safeguarding access to religious shrines. "Whoever does anything that is likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the various religions to the places sacred to them," Israeli law stipulates, is "liable to imprisonment for a term of five years." Israel also entrusted administration of the holy places to their respective religious authorities. Thus, for example, the Muslim Waqf has responsibility for the mosques on the Temple Mount.

Les Filles de la Charite de l'Hospice Saint Vincent de Paul of Jerusalem repudiated attacks on Israel's conduct in Jerusalem a few months after Israel took control of the city:

Our work here has been made especially happy and its path smoother by the goodwill of Israeli authorities...smoother not only for ourselves, but (more importantly) for the Arabs in our care.14

Former President Jimmy Carter acknowledged that religious freedom has been enhanced under Israeli rule. There is "no doubt" that Israel did a better job safeguarding access to the city's holy places than did Jordan. "There is unimpeded access today," Carter noted. "There wasn't from 1948-67."

The State Department notes that although Israel has no constitution, the law provides for freedom of worship, and the Government respects this right.

Mr. Kuttub does not mention the criminal & ongoing destruction of precious archaeological artifacts from the Temple Mount as the Islamic Waqf pursues excavations in order to build underground mosques (see http://tinyurl.com/7onp9, http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp483.htm & http://www.har-habayt.org/).

How many suicide bombings have been perpetrated in Jerusalem in the past three years by Jews or Christians? I can think of no greater desecration of this holy city (I'm at my downtown Jerusalem office even as I post) than the wanton, pre-meditated slaughter of innocents in it. (See http://tinyurl.com/2gwql, http://tinyurl.com/2e8ho, http://tinyurl.com/de62l, http://tinyurl.com/65txd, http://tinyurl.com/azbnq, http://tinyurl.com/c65yx, http://tinyurl.com/29ocs & http://tinyurl.com/94s4b) to name just eight. On these Mr. Kuttub is silent.

This http://tinyurl.com/5dhg8 is a good listing of links about Jerusalem.

Be well!

MBZ

[Hadel]

Hi MBZ,

As always, I appreciate your input....I was not concerned about the "political" aspect; there will always be wrong information and historical rubbish on both sides....I just believe in the three religious tolerance....most would disagree with me on this forum, but I am a peaceful person who believes in "talks" and not "guns" and understanding among all religions and not "hatred."

I did not place this article to anger you or anyone else.... only that we are starting somewhere (with religion) and not with guns for a change or bomb threats etc....

Yes, I am tired of extremists on all sides, we all need to wake up.

With God,
Hadel

[cizinec]

Why should I care about the Al-Aqsa Mosque when these same people are burning down hundreds of our churches, all of which are sacred?  Burn it down and rebuild the temple.  They've burned down our churches.  What's the difference?

Oh, that's right.  Christian churches are meaningless in world politics but we have to protect and love all mosques to prove ourselves enlightened.

[Elisha]

How many suicide bombings have been perpetrated in Jerusalem in the past three years by Jews or Christians? I can think of no greater desecration of this holy city (I'm at my downtown Jerusalem office even as I post) than the wanton, pre-meditated slaughter of innocents in it. (See http://tinyurl.com/2gwql, http://tinyurl.com/2e8ho, http://tinyurl.com/de62l, http://tinyurl.com/65txd, http://tinyurl.com/azbnq, http://tinyurl.com/c65yx, http://tinyurl.com/29ocs & http://tinyurl.com/94s4b) to name just eight. On these Mr. Kuttub is silent.

Exactly. I don't hear about any Chrisitans beheading Muslims. I don't hear about any Christians destroying mosques in Serbia. Islam shows more tolerance than the other two relgions. Riiiiiiiiiight.....To quote Wayne's World, "Yeah, and Monkey's might fly out of my butt."

[cizinec]

BTW, did any of you watch the frontline documentary on the soldiers in Iraq? An Orthodox church was blown up and they showed the soldiers going out to help.

Piece by piece they are trying to remove us from the Earth, just like they want to do with the Jews. Just like the Germans did SUCCESSFULLY to the Jews. It's not about our tollerance of Islam or the "extremists" on their side. Show me one "tolerant" imam and I'll show you my flocks of flying pigs.

[Tikhon29605]

Show me one "tolerant" imam and I'll show you my flocks of flying pigs.


ROFLOL Good point, and you have such a delightful way with words.

P.S. I see that the Matriarch of Social Security is gone and Nixon the Bowler has returned!

[cizinec]

Elisha, there were two mosques damaged in Serbia in response to the burning of churches. I looked at the reports from the Muslim press and they discussed that at length and never once mentioned the churches burning. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/58325AA8-4236-429B-B0D7-A8BEA671C838.htm

The churches are not being restored by the perpetrators and the two mosques are being repaired at the expense of the Serbian people.

I also noticed that the article doesn't discuss the wholesale destruction of Jewish culture in Baghdad, Damascus, Egypt, etc. after 1949. The local Arabs took control of Jewish property. Then, when the Jews went to Israel because they had no place else to go and they displaced the Palestinians, did these other Arabs give the Palestinians the properties they took from their local Jews? HA! They put them in squalid camps and then trained them to blame all Jews.

[SamB]

I am not going to join in the discussion of Israeli/Arab matters.  My views are known on the board.

I will say one thing in direct response to the article.  That is not a correct representation of Christian theology -apostolic, in any case - as I know  it.  It denies not merely the significance of, but graces obtained through both pilgrimages and relics, places and things that have been graced with the Lord's physical Presence, the sanctification of matter.

In one word, Jerusalem is the Christian Mecca, and maintains that significance.  Extrapolating a verse from the Bible does not challenge any of this.  So, yes, the concept of 'holy places' and 'sacred space' is integral to Christianity.

As for God maintining a Unique Presence in His house, that is no pagan notion and it does exist in Christianity with God's sacramental Presence within the church, and in Temple Judaism, the notion of the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies.

The article is quite inaccurate in its conclusions on Christian teachings in these matters.

In IC XC
Samer

[cizinec]

Samer,

Actually, I'm curious as to your position on the right of Jews' return to their properties in, say, Baghdad, where they made up a sizable portion of the population before their expulsion.

Edit:  Expulsion in 1949.

[Elisha]

I am not going to join in the discussion of Israeli/Arab matters. My views are known on the board.

They are?  Care to reference an old post?  Thanks.

[MBZ]

Hi all!

Hadel, you posted:

....I just believe in the three religious tolerance....most would disagree with me on this forum, but I am a peaceful person who believes in "talks" and not "guns" and understanding among all religions and not "hatred."

I agree! DW & I tell Da Boyz that we do not hate Arabs or Muslims & that churches & mosques are where, "The Christian and Muslim people talk to God."

I did not place this article to anger you or anyone else....

I know that!

Yes, I am tired of extremists on all sides, we all need to wake up.

I agree!

Does Father Georgios Tsiboutktzakis get much press?

June 12, 2001 - Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis, 34, a Greek Orthodox monk from St. George's Monastery in Wadi Kelt near Jericho, was shot and killed while driving on the Jerusalem-Ma'ale Adumim road.

Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis was returning to the monastery at about 22:30 on Tuesday night. He had just passed the Israeli Border Police roadblock outside Jerusalem when Palestinians opened fire on his car, which bears yellow Israeli plates. He was fatally wounded, and was announced dead at the scene.

Tsibouktzakis was born near Saloniki, in Greece. In 1990 he was sent to Jerusalem by Patriarch Deodoros I, for religious training. He became a monk in December 1993, and in 1994 was sent to the St. George Monastery. He was one of the two monks who lived in and maintained the monastery, perched on a ledge in Wadi Kelt in the Judean desert. In March 2000 he was appointed to the priesthood by the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

Father Georgios Tsibouktzakis was well known to residents of the district and to veteran hikers. The Ma'ale Adumim police told yesterday of how the monk used his jeep last year to help retrieve the body of a tourist killed after falling into the wadi. He also helped the police when two Israeli youths were killed in the wadi three years ago by Palestinians. People who knew Tsibouktzakis said that he was a lover of peace and always glad to help others.

He was buried at St. George's Monastery.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/9sf4x

This is his photo.

Be well!

MBZ

[SamB]

I do not oppose the repatriation of Arab Jews or reclamation of properties lost (or compensation, if preferred).  It is their right.

In fact, decades ago, Iraq asked of them to return. 

It should also be said that Israel also bombed Jewish centres in Baghdad.

In IC XC
Samer

[cizinec]

Yes, Samer, but it's much more complicated than that. 

Did anyone take that "offer" seriously?  Unfortunately, Arab leaders are predominately from the Amin al-Husseini school of thought, which was profoundly affected by Nazi hatred for Jews, Gypsies and Slavs (particularly Serbs).

I'm not going to defend every action by the state of Israel, but the truth is that Jews were being expelled from the late 1930s through the 1950s and no one wanted them.  A group of radical (even terrorist) zionists capitalized on this situation in order to achieve a goal for which most Jews worldwide had opposed.  I wish I could remember his name, but there was a Jewish, British Lord who opined that if Israel was a state, the nations of the world would expel their Jewish citizens.  That was the prevailing sentiment until the mass expulsion and slaughter of the Jewish people throughout Europe and the Middle East before the State of Israel existed. 

You cannot divorce the existence of the State of Israel from 20th Century fascism, both European and Near Eastern, any more than you can divorce the history of the State of Oklahoma from mass expulsion and "ethnic cleansing," if you will.  Neither can you divorce America's actions in Bosnia from September 11th.  The effects of fascism and, imho, European colonialism (in which America, Canada and Mexico took part) is the driving force behind current international relations and sentiments.

I wish we could all just point our fingers at the one bad guy (the Soviets, Bin Laden, etc.) and free the world from all war and injustice.  It doesn't work that way.  The only way to get past injustice is through forgiveness; a concept with which we all have to struggle.

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