I am 18 years old as I step off the plane for the first time in the land of my ancestors. Lekh Lekha L’Artzekha. This romantic moment marred with heavy sleep deprivation and jet lag. As I walk into the terminal, my mind races with thoughts about the current conflict that engulfs the region. Security concerns. Human rights violations. Disproportionate bombing. Most moral army in the world. Radical settlers. Start Up Nation. Me. Here I am in the crosshairs of one of the most complicated conflicts of our era.
I get on the bus and head towards the aspirations of two millennia. We face her in our prayers and decry her destruction and our absence yearly at the seder. A city of gold. Peace embedded in her name. War embedded in her history. Jerusalem, in my heart, in my mind and now, in my experience. We dawn upon her landscape like sunrise in the West. She lies in glorious ruins. A city never more researched, begging to be discovered. A love story without an ending. A shrine of history. An uncertain future.
I look at the stones of the Kotel, have we hit a wall? Each stone, integral to the next, accumulating in the compromise of our aspirations. Few foundational stones on the plaza, growing, multiplying like the stars in the sky. Settling for a wall and calling it “the holiest site in Judaism.” A symbol of destruction, but to so many, construction. Ripped shirt, ripped jeans, ripped spirits. Destruction of Jerusalem, the birthday of Zionism. My note was short, my hopes high. Like the stones, I stood, one among many.
I ponder during the evenings in Jerusalem. The bloodshed of Jews and Arabs on these very streets where I stand looms large. Families orphaned. For what? For us to fall victim to the colonialist’s divide-and-conquer strategy? For the dreams of a people? Dead. All dead. The dreams of half a homeland downed like sunset in the East. Injustices. Unresolved. All signs tell me that our story is not complete. That history is being written on the streets right here. Revolution. No solution. The dream to liberate a homeland from foreign rule echos our aspirations of years past. HaTikvah. The hope of liberation. To liberate our homeland from the British occupier.
Land of Canaan, inventors of purple, we can only see green. Green line. Bottom line. Artificial. Two maps, two peoples, no lines. Another wall, a wall without stones.
A whisper in the winds of the past. Daniel’s story demands telling but a dead storyteller. A yeshiva boy in Lithuania murdered by hatred. Daniel. Hopeless. Stateless. Daniel, two years my junior will always be 16 while I stand in Jerusalem. Not Jerusalem of Lithuania but Israel. That’s us. We are Israel. One Jerusalem. Capital. One Israel. Nation.
The nation of Yehuda. A leader among leader.
The nation of King David. Slayer of giants.
The nation of Yehuda HaMaccabi. The freedom fighter who fought the cultural imperialism of hellenization.
The nation of Elazar Ben Yair who gave his life in one last attempt to find peace in Pax Romana.
The nation that survived without a home.
The nation of dear Daniel. Forever 16.
The nation of two Eliyahus who believed that after two thousand years, a Hebrew State was possible.
The nation of Shai. A stone in the wall. Part of a larger story. Writing history by living a great story. A story of advancing Jewish history. A story of pain and great triumph. A story of heroism and incompetence. Colonized. Colonize. Exile. Redemption.
We. We stand on the edge of glory. We hit a wall but walls we have hit before. A state at last. Agency. We. Us. The nation of Israel. We have a voice in the world after centuries without. We have a place in the world. A capital, desolate and vibrant, like her people. We are allowed to exist.
