Author Topic: A Letter to the World (1969)  (Read 1992 times)

Offline SuperFlyer

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A Letter to the World (1969)
« on: July 12, 2010, 05:52:18 PM »
A  Letter to the World - Stanley Goldfoot, Editor, The Times of  Israel, published in 1969, appropriate then as now.



A  Letter to the World from Jerusalem by Eliezer ben Yisrael ( Stanley  Goldfoot)


I  am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a  Jerusalemite-like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my  city, an integral part of my people.
I have a few things to get off my  chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not  have to please you or even persuade you.


I  owe you nothing. You did not build this city, you did not live in it, you  did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.
There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York . When Berlin , Moscow , London , and Paris were miasmal forest and  swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the  world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves-  a humane moral code.
Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like  forked lightning.


Here  a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of  heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled  themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender,  and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity,  swore that before they forgot Jerusalem , they would see their tongues  cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.


For  two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed  daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty:  "Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land,  return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy City, and swell in it as Thou promised."  On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next  year would find us in Jerusalem .
Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions,  the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota  systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the  holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it)- all these have not  broken us.


They  may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they  forged us into steel. Do you think that you can break us now after all we  have been through? Do you really believe that after Dachau andAuschwitz we  are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions?
We have been  to Hell and back- a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have  in your arsenal that could scare us?


I  have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves  civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and  children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to  internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the  job-British officers, Arab gunners, and American-made cannon. And then the  savage sacking of the Old City-the willful slaughter, the wanton  destruction of every synagogue and religious school, the desecration of  Jewish cemeteries, the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for  building materials, for poultry runs, army camps, even latrines.
And you  never said a word.


You  never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the  holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they  had made after the war- a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision  of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their  spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the  walls.


Your  hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift "to save  the gallant Berliners." But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews  starved in besieged Jerusalem . You thundered against the wall which the  East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital-but not one peep  out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of  Jerusalem .
And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the  Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of theHoly City again, did  any of you do anything?


The  only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you  wrung your hands and spoke loftily of "justice" and need for the "Christian"  quality of turning the other cheek.
The truth-and you know it deep  inside your gut - you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have  it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age old  prejudices seep out of every word.


If  our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had  better reexamine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are  not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are  to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your savior.
For the first  time since the year 70, there is now complete religious freedom for all in  Jerusalem . For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple ,  everyone has equal rights (You prefer to have some more equal than others.)  We loathe the sword-but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave  peace, but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us  to.


We  are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over  the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We are redeeming the pledge made  by our forefathers: Jerusalem is being rebuilt. "Next year" and the year  after, and after, and after, until the end of time- "in Jerusalem  "!

Offline ChAiM'l

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Offline SuperFlyer

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Re: A Letter to the World (1969)
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2010, 06:56:43 PM »
it's not the same letter, but nonetheless brilliant.

Offline mevinyavin

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Re: A Letter to the World (1969)
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2023, 08:37:28 AM »
A bump that registers on the Richter scale, perhaps...
This post is as relevant as it was in 2010, if not more. And where are all the likes?
Quote from: ExGingi
Echo chambers are boring and don't contribute much to deeper thinking and understanding!

Offline Lurker

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  • Location: As always, silence is NOT an admission of agreement on DDF. It just means that people lack the stamina to keep on arguing with made up "facts", illogical arguments, deceiving statements, nasty and degrading comments, and fuzzy math. - @yelped
Re: A Letter to the World (1969)
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2023, 08:42:42 AM »
A bump that registers on the Richter scale, perhaps...
This post is as relevant as it was in 2010, if not more. And where are all the likes?

Like Jerusalem predates Moscow and NY, this post was shared when the the area of the like button was no more than empty gray space.
Failing at maintaining Lurker status.

Offline mevinyavin

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Re: A Letter to the World (1969)
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2023, 09:02:39 AM »
Like Jerusalem predates Moscow and NY, this post was shared when the the area of the like button was no more than empty gray space.
Aaah. I knew there had to be a reason.

But we can make up for it now!
Quote from: ExGingi
Echo chambers are boring and don't contribute much to deeper thinking and understanding!