The earliest
memories of every Jew are tied to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is
mentioned repeatedly in our daily prayers and in the Grace after
Meals. In our most supreme moment of happiness, at a wedding, we
break a glass, because no joy can be complete while the Temple
remains unbuilt and the bridegroom vows festively "If I forget
thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning." Each
year, three entire weeks – culminating in the fast of Tisha B'Av –
are devoted to mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is
mentioned no fewer than 667 times in the Bible – and not even once
in the Koran. Both Yom Kippur and the Pesach seder, which are
celebrated almost universally, even by assimilated Jews, close
with the fervent hope: "Next Year in Jerusalem. "
This "Jerusalem-orientation" of the Jewish people even finds
expression in the fact that no matter where they are, Jews face
Jerusalem to pray. In contrast, when Egypt's President Sadat
visited the Temple Mount, he turned his face in prayer to Mecca –
and his back to Jerusalem. The roots of every Jew are embedded in
this city. The Israeli writer Shai Agnon, a native of Buchach, in
Galicia, was indeed correct when he announced, upon receiving the
Nobel Prize, that he was born in Jerusalem.
To the collective affinity of the Jewish people with Jerusalem
I would like to add my personal connection. As a child growing up
in Basel, I witnessed many Zionist Congresses, planning the return
to Zion and Jerusalem. It was due to the Chief Rabbi of Basel, my
grandfather Arthur (Asher Michael) Cohn, that the first Zionist
Congresses could take place in Basel, as other respected rabbis in
Germany and Austria had refused to support the Zionistic Vision.
My grandfather, who also personally addressed the First Zionist
Congress, was very pleased Theodor Herzl declared that the return
to Judaism preceded the return to a Jewish land, and that the
Zionist movement would do nothing that could harm any religious
belief in Judaism.
My father, of blessed memory, Dr. Marcus Cohn, was a devoted
Zionist and a world renowned specialist in Jewish law. For him,
the phrase "Zion will be redeemed with justice" was a guiding
principle. He immigrated to Israel after the establishment of the
State, and served in the Ministry of Justice as Advisor on Matters
of Jewish Law, a position later filled by Prof. Menachem Elon and
Prof. Nachum Rackover. He was also closely attached to the late
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and worked together with him in Degel
Yerushalayim, an organization that was active in the pre-State
period.
I never created a professional work about Jerusalem. I didn't
write about Jerusalem in the days I worked as a journalist; nor,
did I, as a producer, make any films about the city. Nevertheless,
Jerusalem is an integral part of all of my creations. Such is the
power of Jerusalem that it gives every Jew an energizing flow of
Jewish spirituality that inspires all his creative works,
consciously and subconsciously.
Jerusalem, it seems to me, symbolizes three basic elements in
our collective consciousness:
1. identification with the Jewish tradition;
2.
yearning for the Land of Israel; and
3. a desire for a
divinely inspired, just society.
I have worked on
many films dealing with social problems and ways of solving them.
The theme of Two Bits, starring Al Pacino, is the importance of
keeping our dreams alive, because one who stops dreaming stops
living. In Central Station, two people in far away Brazil are in
search of their identity despite their biting poverty. In both
movies, Central Station and Two Bits, children do not despair, but
rather, they seek ways to transcend their situation and build a
society based on brotherly love. According to a famous midrash,
Jerusalem was chosen as the eternal capital of the Jewish people
because of the love of two brothers for each other. This is the
doctrine of Jerusalem: out of a belief in tikun olam – to become a
model of a just society.
The Jewish-Jerusalem element is prominent in a number of my
other films, and I would like to share this with you. Beyond being
artistic expressions, these films express something of the spirit
of Jerusalem.
Our generation still lives under the shadow of the horrors of
the Holocaust that decimated our people. The Garden of the Finzi
Continis portrays two Jewish families in Ferrara, Italy, who
cannot escape their common Jewish destiny. In both families - even
the assimilated one - their Jewishness finds expression in the
night of the seder, which links them to the history of the Jewish
people. During the seder night, we explain to the younger
generation sitting with us around the table where we come from -
so that we may understand where we are going. Knowledge and
consciousness of the past are essential to providing a national
anchor and directing us toward the ultimate aim of Jewish history
in the future. There is a direct connection between awareness of
the past -- "When Israel went out of Egypt" -- and the longing for
the future -- "Next Year in Jerusalem."
As a sequel to The Garden of the Finzi Continis, the
documentary Children of the Night portrays the murder of 1,300,000
Jewish children in the Holocaust. These are the very same children
who stand at the center of the Jewish historical experience of the
seder night, the same children that are the focal point of the
exodus from Egypt. Moses said to Pharaoh: "We shall go with our
young and our old," and the Torah charges us with the task of
keeping alive this formative experience in the life of our people,
through the mitzvah of "You shall tell it to your children." But
"the children of the night" were doomed to a barbaric death in
exile, instead of, in the words of the prophet Zechariah, filling
the streets of Jerusalem in play.
A totally different type of film, Dangerous Moves, deals with a
chess championship. The Soviet champion and his personal physician
are both Jewish. While the film focuses on the Soviet efforts to
promote their candidate, the Jewish issue is a secondary theme.
Because he wants to emigrate to Israel, the doctor is forbidden to
accompany his sick patient from Moscow to the international
competition in Geneva, Switzerland. The chess champion dies with
Shema Yisrael and words of loyalty to Jerusalem on his lips.
In recent generations, Jews have been able to give concrete
expression to their loyalty to Jerusalem. Zionism deals with the
renewal of the bond between the people of Israel and their land
and language. But, as far back as close to a century ago, the Arab
residents of the region initiated savage terror attacks against
Jews wishing to settle in the Land of Israel. Contrary to often
repeated claims, terror did not begin after the Six-Day War. Even
the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), which later became
the Palestinian Authority, was established three years earlier, in
1964, when there were no so-called "occupied" territories to
liberate.
My film One Day in September, about the Israeli athletes who
were murdered in Munich in 1972, deals with terror, a topic that
began to attract world attention only in recent years, notably
after September 11, 2001. In the "Olympic" atmosphere of love and
understanding, terrorists dispatched by the Palestine Liberation
Organization infiltrated the Israeli pavilion at the Olympic
Games, killed two sportsmen and took hostage nine more, whom they
later murdered. The victims, most of whom were immigrants from
Eastern Europe who had long dreamed of realizing the words of
Hatikva, "to be a free nation in our land, the Land of Zion and
Jerusalem," would never hear them sung in honor of an Israeli
victory at the Olympics in Munich.
It was with great emotional difficulty that I decided prior to
the release of the film to include at its end an authentic
interview with the last surviving terrorist of the terror team in
Munich, whom we located in a hiding place in Africa. His words,
however, proved tragically correct. He stated: "I do not regret
our attack at the Olympic Games. We succeeded brilliantly in
bringing the political aims of the Palestinians to the awareness
of untold millions all over the world." Terror, which sabotages
our lives in every possible way, unfortunately is succeeding in
winning the sympathy of public opinion in its war against Israel.
Zion and Jerusalem symbolize the history of the Jewish people
in the Land of Israel. They also embody the yearning for the
establishment of a renewed, enlightened society in Eretz Yisrael,
in which Jerusalem – once the heart of the Jewish people – is once
again the capital of Israel, to which representatives of all
peoples will stream to hear the words of redemption.
The film One Day in September warns against the destruction of
the Zionist dream as a result of physical terror. But it doesn't
mention a terror that is possibly even worse: ideological terror.
Recent years have witnessed an alarming explosion of
sophisticated Arab propaganda that has been delegitimizing the
Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. This attitude can be
summarized by the phrase in a Palestinian schoolbook for the sixth
grade, which says explicitly: "The argument that Jews have
historic rights in Palestine is the greatest lie in human
history."
According to a study by Dr. Yitzhak Reiter, conducted for the
Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, even the history of
Jerusalem has gradually been rewritten. The claim that Jews have
no real connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites has been
adopted by the Palestinian leadership and has become entrenched in
Arab and Muslim communities. At the heart of this new version is
the argument that Arabs ruled Jerusalem thousands of years before
the Children of Israel. The most amazing element of the new
history is the claim that the First and Second Temples are lies,
fabricated by the Jews. This view was even adopted by the website
of the Egyptian Embassy in Washington which declared that there
has never been any archaeological evidence of Jewish life in the
Jerusalem of ancient times. No wonder, then, that the Palestinians
seize every opportunity to destroy in the most uncivilized way all
the precious archaeological findings beneath the surface of the
Temple Mount. What an irony: No other people except the Jews has
ever made Jerusalem its capital, despite its conquest by many
imperial powers, but now clear facts are denied and history is
rewritten.
While history is being rewritten, old myths and libels against
Israel and the Jews are being revived – and new ones created.
Examples of modern "blood libels" are the poisoning of Arab women
and children, the use of the blood of Arab children to bake
matzot, the dissemination of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
and the denial of the Holocaust.
By denying the historic/religious bond between the Jewish
people and its land, the Arabs portray the Jewish settlement
enterprise in the entire State of Israel as theft of their lands.
This includes even those lands on which Jews have lived for
generations, and those acquired at great cost and sacrifice. Just
as the blood libels encouraged the murder of Jews, the
contemporary libel that speaks about the theft of the Holy Land by
the Zionists and Israel legitimizes acts of terror against the
Jews.
The most problematic word, "occupation", with all its negative
connotations is added to the accusation of "theft" when referring
to the lands that came into Israeli hands as a result of the
Six-Day War, including even the old City of Jerusalem. Although
the so-called "occupied territories" were not taken from legal
owners, but from Egypt and Jordan – whose claims to the West Bank
were never recognized internationally (and who themselves later
relinquished their claims to these areas); despite the fact that
they were taken in a defensive war; and even though these
territories were given in a League of Nations decision (1922) to
the Jewish people for habitation and residence. Notwithstanding
the fact that the Palestinians, who are demanding these lands,
only in recent years discovered their existence as a national
entity, they are trying, by the use of the term "occupation", to
further delegitimize our right to the Land of Israel. However, the
accusation of "theft" in the Arab textbooks and communications
media - or, as the Palestinians call it, "The Rape of Palestine" -
is applied to the entire State of Israel, with no distinction made
between Shechem and Tel Aviv, between Jericho and Haifa.
The influence of this historic revisionism, together with the
vilification of Israel and Jews, on Arab youth – particularly
Palestinian youth – must be of major concern to us. The media, the
textbooks, and the sermons in the mosques are fraught with
perverse libels and lies that distort both the historic past and
the present. They prevent any possibility of coexistence and peace
in the foreseeable future and poison the minds of future
generations.
Whoever wants to defend Zion and whoever holds Jerusalem dear
must take an active role in the struggle against this ideological
terror. He must utterly repudiate the false and libelous
accusations, and tell the true facts about both historical and
contemporary events. Movies can play a tremendous role -- a recent
pseudo-historical film has demonstrated just how strong their
negative influence can be – but each person, in his or her own way
and according to the means at his disposal, must expose these
horrendous lies and slanders against the Jewish people.
This evening is sponsored by Bar-Ilan University. Bar-Ilan
contributes greatly to disclosing the historic truth, not only in
its ongoing academic activity, but also through its special
institutes like the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies,
which organizes conferences and puts out publications in honor of
Jerusalem in its true historical and spiritual dimensions. Of
course, Bar-Ilan also deals with teaching young adults; it
understands the tremendous importance of giving students, in
addition to professional training, a solid Jewish-Zionist
foundation as part of their basic studies. The university must
expand such activity, for the benefit of the general public, in
coordination with other academic bodies.
It is crucial that all those who are faithful to Jerusalem join
in the struggle against the anti-Semitic slander that denies the
Jewish people's rights to its land and to its spiritual heart.
Although Israeli society and the Jewish world are divided on many
issues, there is a broad consensus on basic matters that must be
stressed in every forum and discussion. Bar-Ilan, in particular,
as an academic and apolitical institution whose teachers represent
a wide range of views on existential matters, is an appropriate
place to emphasize that which unites us, rather than that which
divides us. It is the duty of every responsible Jew to stress
always at the beginning of his/her articles, lectures and talks
the basic Jewish and Zionist beliefs that we all share.
The deep and abiding connection between the Jewish people and
Jerusalem is both an historic and an existential fact. Jerusalem
is a city that unites all of us, the city that must join together
the various factions of the Jewish people and unite them in
defending it. Avital Sharansky, in her admirable speech at the
mass rally for Jerusalem organized by her husband and the Mayor of
Jerusalem, declared forcefully: "Jerusalem is the heart of the
Jewish people. The heart is not only the seat of our feelings and
emotions, but also pumps vital life-giving blood to the entire
organism." Just as dreams of Jerusalem sustained the Jewish people
throughout the generations in their darkest moments, today, too,
Jerusalem nourishes the Jewish people wherever they may be.
If we have no historic-national rights over Jerusalem, then
"for thousands of generations, we have dreamt of you" in vain. If
Jerusalem does not belong to us, our entire connection with this
land is in question.
Every person needs both roots and wings. Only he who is
nourished by the firm ground of his past can give creative
expression to his personal dreams. Nations, too, can only soar to
new horizons if they are established on sound foundations. The
roots that have bound us to this land for thousands of years are
strong and deep. They allow us to survive the strongest tempests
and to persist in our unique way of life. Thanks to these roots,
the Jewish people was able, even after the horrors of the
Holocaust, to renew itself and flourish in all paths of life. The
winds of time cannot undermine us so long as stability of the
foundations of our existence, our Jewish and Zionist roots, remain
firm. Therefore, we must protect, with vigor and devotion, the
deep roots of our tradition in Zion and Jerusalem.
We all must be defenders of Jerusalem. We all are Guardians of
Zion.
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