Sunday, March 09, 2014

Elisheva Goldberg's (Woe Is) Jerusalem

In the latest issue of Sh'ma, there's a contribution of astute thought by a former Beinart bunny (is that misogynist? anti-feminist? or simply satire?) and current Burg babe (oops, did I do it again?).

A section:




She does quote the Gemara but typically castrates the section:




The concluding sentences there in Tractate Ta'anit are:

Is there then a heavenly Jerusalem? - Yes; for it is written, Jerusalem thou art builded as a city that is compact together

"Builded".  And we all know, or should know, what "Jerusalem rebuilt" means in traditional Jewish sources.  Even Sinem knows.

The Temple.

Isaiah 2:2 -

And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

The city below becomes united with the celestial city in terms of holiness and completeness when the Temple is extant.  That reality, for sure, would be anathema to Ms. Goldberg.  She wants to "end the occupation", a situation in which Mulsims claim the Temple never exited, that the Temple Mount surely does not have any Jewish connection and that the Western Wall had nothing to do as a retaining wall of the Temple platform but was where Muhammed tethered his mythical winged horse.

It's not the "Temple Mount" but Al-Aqsa, Haram E-Sharif.  Is this here "reality"?  Her "earthly Jerusalem"?

At the end of the Pesah seder, we read in the Haggada:


Nirtzah
Afterwards say:


NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM!

But Ms. Elisheva hates the "occupation" (what happens to united Jerusalem, the earthly Jerusalem when that status is eliminated?) and writes of "participants" of a "project" that "essentially steals property", people who "deny civil liberties".  She is good at the blame game, especially when Jews are, somehow, involved -- or rather not but that doesn't upset her.

To whom did the original Jerusalem belong?  Of which people was it a capital, a religious center? Whose people fought invading Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs?  Which fighters for liberation made the Temple Mount precincts their last stand for freedom of worship and national independence?

Ms. Goldberg either doesn't know, forgot, couldn't care or, for sure, doesn't want you to know.

Who killed Jews because of their desire to live and pray in Jerusalem even when the "occupation" did not exist, in the years prior to 1967?

Such a sick ideology.


By the way, at the beginning she quotes Yehuda Amichai:


As opposed to that poem, there is Uri Tzvi Greenberg, who wrote



And I say: There is one truth and not two.

As there is one sun and as there are not two Jerusalems.


The whole poem:



^

3 comments:

Itamar said...

Misogynist? mildly, but yes.

Unnecessarily undermining your own writing by starting right out as some old dirty man condescending to a little girl? Absolutely.

YMedad said...

"Dirty old man"?
Methink you have your metaphors mixed.

Anyway, it got a lot of hits and believe me, she deserved it.

Her accusation were much more dirty, and spiteful.

Itamar said...

Wait do you mean that I put the words in the wrong order? Because that does not a mixed metaphor make.

Also I'd venture a guess that most of that traffic came from her Facebook page.

And even if not, this is the Internet so being needlessly offensive only helps.