It's In

My letter on "Jerusalem of Gold":-

Emptiness waiting to be filled

Sir, - Carol Novis wrote of "Jerusalem of Gold" that "critics have noted that the marketplace and Temple Mount were far from empty, as Shemer suggested; we just didn't see the Arabs who filled the place" ("Songs of our times," May 13).

But the point Naomi Shemer was making was that those places were indeed empty - not of Arabs, but of Jews. Despite UN assurances and other international guarantees, the Arabs who were in the city's eastern neighborhoods until 1967 refused Jews our right of access to the Western Wall, destroyed our synagogues and desecrated our cemeteries on the Mt. of Olives.

Today the Old City marketplace is not bustling with Jews either, but that is because of Arab terror stabbings and Israel's security failures. And the Temple Mount does not yet have a shofar blowing or Jews praying on it because Israel actually discriminates against Jews.

Given this situation, "Jerusalem of Gold" will remain our substitute anthem and our most popular song because our national aspirations remain partly unfulfilled.

YISRAEL MEDAD
Shilo