Jerusalem, the Old City
An Introduction
Is a history of Jerusalem or Al-Quds possible? How many of the hundreds of books and tourist guides really inform us? The real accumulation of humanity in Jerusalem over millennia, the diversity of its life and the variety of its architecture, are constantly being overshadowed by single narratives. People have always needed mythic narratives to sustain them. But when a narrative subverts or attempts to erase real history to serve political ends, it verges on moral abuse. This introduction is intended to make some observations and cautions for readers to consider when reading other sources.
Writing any "history"-especially a history of Jerusalem-is problematic. Current scholarship is questioning ancient and modern narratives, including those records of Greek or Roman or other times that have been assumed to be accurate. With Jerusalem, the lenses of observation remain more distorted than elsewhere. The city is subjected to processes of enlarged focus or of blurring that are affected by multiple narratives and past or present claims. Available descriptions of the "Holy Land" have been filtered through cultural and political agendas, as well as conflicting monotheistic traditions.
Sometimes, these descriptions were written by "absent" travelers who relied on second-hand accounts. A 14th-century account by John Mandeville , for example, has only recently been shown to be a fabrication copied from earlier crusader and other reports. In 1607, George Sandys produced a more factual description but portrayed Palestine as a neglected land (a logic intended to justify that it should be conquered), despite his own mention of productive farming in many areas. Thomas Fuller wrote an entire geography of Palestine in 1650, without ever visiting the country. Later 19th-century travelers, many fundamentalist clergy, created portraits of the land and its people as fossilized biblical remains rather than as living human beings. Today, tourist information and the media still perpetuate similar impressions and stereotypes.
The current mythology about the city's name and associations are typical examples. The "salem" or "shalim" in Jerusalem does not come from the word for "peace," as is circulated. "Shalim" is the god associated with the city's founding by the Canaanite Jebusites ("Uru-shalim," the city or foundation of the god Shalim, cited in ancient Egyptian texts). There are systematic efforts, however, to link Jerusalem with David (thus the recent Israeli "3000" anniversary celebrations). However, as Thomas L. Thompson has noted, there are three different biblical accounts involving the "conquest" of Jerusalem. The efforts to connect the city with David are intended to formalize connections between present Jews or Israelis and that idealized biblical community called "Israelites." The city's archaeological and other documentation, however, demonstrates actual habitation by the Jebusites about 5000 years ago.
Even biblical scholars now acknowledge that the reported conquest by David did not result in any changes in population or religion. Others confirm that David never existed as a tribal chief-except in the huge realm of legend. What is called the "Tower of David" in Jerusalem (made into a showcase museum by Israel) has nothing to do with David. Meron Benvenisti, among others, has deflated the mythic creations about the Tower, which was built in more recent centuries. Jerusalem has no trace at all of a person called "King David."
The work of many scholars (Philip R. Davies, Marc Zvi Brettler, Keith W. Whitelam , Thomas L. Thompson, Lester Grabbe, Donald B. Redford , Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, to name a few) has cast irreversible doubts about the actuality of other characters and events. The "conquest" as described in "Joshua" never occurred. The Exodus story is nothing more than Canaanite cultural memory appropriated by "Israelites" as their tradition. Initially, Canaanite-derived gods were both male and female, including the pairs 'Asherah (Mother of Gods) and El (Father of Gods), 'Anat and Ba'al, and also later 'Asherah and Yahweh. Such information is shaking certain monopolies on religious truth. This scholarship has filtered into discussions among Israeli academicians, but some are afraid it is a threat to the legitimacy of Israel's creation.
The key to clarifying the history of Jerusalem and Palestine lies in distinguishing between literary tradition and recorded history, between imagined memory and material evidence. It is equally important that an effort be made to establish a history based on people and their continuity rather than a history based on which political power or religious ideology was present in the land and then left it.
Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists. These are recorded conquests (not literary legends), whose facts and remains are documented. Meanwhile, another development was the evolution of monotheistic faiths that followed the "pagan" religions. It is crucial to keep these two developments as distinct as possible, for the sake of not confusing issues and identities. The people of Palestine may have become more mixed with each consecutive conquest, or may have changed religions, but essentially (especially in villages) the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian, though many villagers were tragically dislocated in the 1948 Nakba .
Old Jaffa (1936), now vacant of its Palestinian inhabitants, deserted except for the occasional Isreali "artist" gallery
The Dome of the Rock is a focus of veneration for hundreds of millions of Muslim worshippers. It is also a visible and impressive work of architecture, around which much lore has developed. It was built in times of recorded history, on previously unoccupied ground, though the spot probably had ancient associations impossible to trace today. The Muslim caliph, as Christians and Jews at the time mention, had avoided harming Christian or Jewish sensitivities. Both Christian and Jewish responses to the coming of Islam in 638 AD indicate that Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived in Jerusalem together as "people of the book"-despite any biases one may cite.
Karen Armstrong points to the irony that, upon capturing Jerusalem, the Muslims "invited the Jews to return to the holy city and left the Christian shrines and residences undisturbed" (The New York Times, 16 July 2000). Though Armstrong's work shows a strong attraction to biblical lore, she maintains that the history of persecution in Jerusalem is largely connected to Christian and Jewish movements (often imported), with considerably fewer instances of Muslim intolerance. As Jewish historian Moshe Gil mentions, it was not until 638 that a Jewish quarter was assigned in the city, when Muslims invited Jewish families to reside there.
No one today is discrediting or diminishing Jewish freedom to venerate the Wall and to worship there. No one is making calls and threats against the Wailing Wall similar to those continuously being directed, over the past three decades, against the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. An attack by an extremist destroyed portions of the mosque in 1969, and several recent attempts have been foiled. Extremist groups are now calling for the destruction the Dome and mosque, in order that a "third temple" can be built there instead. Such planned actions could have real apocalyptic consequences. (See the web site of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz for special features on this issue). On the other hand, the Israeli government destroyed many old Jerusalem buildings to expand the area near the Wailing Wall, and evicted all their Palestinian occupants. Extensive Israeli excavations have only threatened the foundations beneath the Dome complex but produced none of the desired links.
Israel also continues to impose other changes in demography and geography, altering facts that took millennia to accumulate. Populations are imported and local inhabitants dislocated. Throughout all of Palestine, place names have been changed to coincide with locations transmitted in the Bible or other names hypothesized by pseudo-archaeologists. In fact, because of linguistic continuities, modern Arabic place names are much closer to the ancient Canaanite names than those transcribed in biblical texts. Such forced actions by Israel are premised merely on theorized connections to the ancient past, though they are also politically expedient. They create a situation and a logic that could be compared, say, to Afghani Muslims deciding to claim sole ownership of Mecca.
In short, what is happening to the picture of Jerusalem today points to an increase in extremist, exclusivist interpretations that are neither historically nor religiously justifiable. The atmosphere of claims and intolerance creates, unfortunately, a counter-effect and an increase in reactive fundamentalism.
Until recent decades, religions had developed and were passed on from age to age without affecting the continuity of indigenous people in Palestine, who inherited a composite religious understanding. All the three monotheistic religions have traditions of mercy and sympathy for the oppressed-which one hopes could be revitalized. It is only when uses and appropriations are politicized that religious feelings are exasperated and polarized, that tolerance is diminished or destroyed.
We should all be respectful of traditional sensitivities. Though not necessarily very accurate from a historical perspective, traditions obviously shape present emotions and mental states of populations. These mental conditions should be tolerated for what they are and what they represent, but should by no means be allowed to consolidate exclusivity and conflict.
A time of tranquility, at the 'Oujeh stream, 1935
Credits: Two postcards by Noel Jabbour; postcard "Shepherd's Field" from Star Cards; black and white photos by Elia Kahvedjian (courtesy Elia Photo Service, Old City); black and white photo of Jerusalem with palm tree, 1907, by Kerkor Kevorkian (courtesy Studio Varouj, Old City); text by Basem Ra'ad
source:
The Arab University In Jerusalem
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