Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

The most famous modern song about Jerusalem is undoubtedly Naomi Shemer’s Jerusalem of Gold. It contains verses of erasure. “No one frequents Temple Mount,” and “no one goes down to the Dead Sea by the Jericho road.”

This is not the Jerusalem I dream of. This is the Jerusalem of the throngs that tomorrow will shut down the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, terrify and humiliate the residents, telling them that they will be replaced, that their ‘mosques will burn’; the Jerusalem in which Christian clergy and pilgrims come to sanctify the city that means so much to so many as a symbol and prophetic dream of future justice and peace; the sign of the consummation of history in glory and comity and shared prosperity and dignity are more and more frequently attacked and assaulted and abused, their holy sites and places of worship vandalized.

This is not the Jerusalem envisioned in the majestic Psalm 122, a “city bound up together to itself” where “all who love her be tranquil.”

The great playwright, literary scholar, and lyricist Dan Almagor wrote a response to Shemer’s vision of an ethnically cleansed Jerusalem (set to music by Benny Nagari). The first time I heard it as a teenager, I wept. And it still often makes me tear up. For I once, too, dreamed of standing guard over this city that means so much to me and to so many. And I still dream of the day it will no longer need guardians and all its lovers will live here and come here in peace. And this is why tomorrow I will guard Jerusalem once again.

[Please consider participating in the email campaign linked in the comments addressed to the Mayor, the Chief of Police, the Commissioner of the Jerusalem District, and the Minister for Jewish Heritage and Jerusalem Affairs pleading to change the parade route so it does not go through the Muslim Quarter where it cannot be prevented from broadcasting incitement and abuse and terror.

I don’t have the technical skills to make it as easy as it should be. But please click both buttons to register your support and then to send an email. Text is provided that you can copy and paste into the pop-up email or compose your own message. It won’t change anything. But it’s crucial for as many voices as possible to plead and “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Please please please.

The Guardian of the Walls

I stand upon the wall.
Stand solitary in the rain,
and the entire Old City
lies in my palm.
I look upon her, I’m in love.
I always come up here
just to look.
But now I find myself here on duty.
But now I find myself here on duty.

[Chorus]

Yes, yes, who dreamed
dreamed in the classroom
when we learned to recite
“upon your walls, Jerusalem
I have stationed guardians”
that the day would come
and I would be one of them,
that the day would come
and I would be one of them,
that the day would come
and I would be one of them.

I stand upon the wall,
stand and listen to the sounds,
the sounds of the market
the sounds of the shopkeepers
and the carts.
And now the call of the muezzin
and now the ring of the bell.
But I must listen for the sound
for an explosion of a grenade,
for an explosion of a grenade.

I stand upon the wall
trembling with cold.
And now the sun has set.
I stand watch night after night
as the light of the waxing moon
washes the walls.
When will the day come when
we will no longer need guardians,
we will no longer need guardians.