Israel – Jerusalemites Outraged at Elie Wiesel Over His Appeal to Barack Obama

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    Jerusalem – An extraordinary row has broken out between Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel peace prize winner, and a group of Jewish residents of Jerusalem over who speaks for the future of the disputed city.

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    Wiesel prompted the argument with an open letter to Barack Obama appealing for him not to “politicise” differences over Jerusalem by pressing Israel to stop Jewish settlement construction there.

    In a reflection of the divisions that sometimes exist between Jews who live in the city and those who idealise it from afar, 100 Jewish residents have responded with their own open letter expressing “outrage” at Wiesel’s call, and accusing him of sentimentality and falsely claiming that there is no discrimination against Jerusalem’s Arab population.

    Wiesel, who lives in the US, made the appeal to Obama in adverts in American newspapers last month.

    “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics,” he wrote. “It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.” He went on to appeal to Obama not to press Israel on the issue of Jerusalem.

    “Pressure will not produce a solution. Is there a solution? There must be, there will be. Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely?” he asked. “Jerusalem must remain the world’s Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope.”

    The 100 Jewish Jerusalemites, who include academics and political activists, responded in a letter in the New York Review of Books this week that expressed “frustration, even outrage” at Wiesel’s claims and at being “sacrificed for the fantasies of those who love our city from afar”.

    “We cannot recognise our city in the sentimental abstraction you call by its name,” they wrote. “Your Jerusalem is an ideal, an object of prayers and a bearer of the collective memory of a people whose members actually bear many individual memories. Our Jerusalem is populated with people, young and old, women and men, who wish their city to be a symbol of dignity – not of hubris, inequality and discrimination. You speak of the celestial Jerusalem; we live in the earthly one.”

    The writers accused Wiesel of being blind to history and the realities of life in Jerusalem today, including systematic discrimination against the Arab population and the efforts of “crafty politicians and sentimental populists” frantically trying to Judaize the Arab areas of the city “in order to transform its geopolitics beyond recognition”.

    “Your claim that Jerusalem is above politics is doubly outrageous. First, because contemporary Jerusalem was created by a political decision and politics alone keeps it formally unified. The tortuous municipal boundaries of today’s Jerusalem were drawn by Israeli generals and politicians shortly after the 1967 war,” they wrote.

    The writers added that by grabbing Palestinian land and villages and incorporating them into a greatly expanded Jerusalem, the Israeli government created “an unwieldy behemoth” larger than Paris.

    “Now they call this artificial fabrication ‘Jerusalem’ in order to obviate any approaching chance for peace,” they said. The writers tartly noted that Wiesel chooses not to live in the city he claims such attachment to.

    “We prefer the hardship of realizing citizenship in this city to the convenience of merely yearning for it,” they said.

    Last month, a former Israeli cabinet minister, Yossi Sarid, responded to Wiesel with an open letter in which he said the author had been “deceived” into believing that all the city’s residents live freely and equally. He took Wiesel to task for claiming that Arabs were free to build anywhere in Jerusalem. The city’s Arab residents face routine obstacles to obtaining planning permission to build in the east and almost never receive authorisation for the west. “Not only may an Arab not build ‘anywhere’, but he may thank his God if he is not evicted from his home and thrown out on to the street with his family and property,” Sarid wrote.

    He pointed to Arabs forcibly removed to make way for Jews.

    “Those same zealous Jews insist on inserting themselves like so many bones in the throats of Arab neighbourhoods, purifying and Judaizing them with the help of rich American benefactors, several of whom you may know personally,” Sarid wrote. “Barack Obama appears well aware of his obligations to try to resolve the world’s ills, particularly ours here. Why then undercut him and tie his hands?”


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    21 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    We are our own worst enemy. If there is no Yerushalayim, there is no Israel. These are the same type of idiots as those who continue to support Obama.

    Askupeh
    Askupeh
    13 years ago

    If the city of Yerushalayim consists only the Old City and outside its walls is not Yerushalayim as they call it an ”artificial fabrication” then they too, not only Elie Wiesel are living outside Yerushalayim; so what gives them any more right to speak on its behalf then Elie Wiesel? What hypocrisy?

    Sounds like this article was written by Noam Chomsky. This article calls all land outside of the Old City “Arab land”; that’s where they are coming from. I didn’t know that the Yishuv Hayoshen stole Arab land in 1880 to build Meah Sheorim? Did you?

    They accuse us of trying to to Judaize Jerusalem but they totally ignore the orchestrated effort of the Arab world and its sympathizers of trying to de-Judaize Jerusalem and Eretz Yisroel; and they still have the Chutzpah of accusing Elie Wiesel of falsifying history? It is they who are falsifying history and it is Elie Wiesel who speaks the heart of Klal Yisroel and the truth. Elie, may you have Arichas Yomim Veshonim; you too are on my short list of candidates for president of Israel.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    These aren’t Jerusalemites, these are Chelemites.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    It’s ours not because of the UN, it’s ours because G-D gave it to us. The UN did the right thing to return it to its owners and that’s about it.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Yossi Sarid is a well-known left wing extremist, openly anti torah, and a failure to boot.
    Elie Wiesel is a highly respected non-political figure of international respect and repute.
    It’s a pity about his personal shmirat torah and miztvot but at least he is not an open enemy.
    Enough said.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Enemies from within.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Whenever Jews publicly argue with one another, there’s inevitably chillul HaShem, r”l. It doesn’t matter what segment of the population (eg: frum, non-frum, secular, right/left-wing, etc.) those involved are labeled, the result is the same and just as painful to observe.

    Would it be better to remain silent on critical issues that affect all Yidden? Probably not. But, I wish we’d come up with a way to do it more constructively.

    baruch
    baruch
    13 years ago

    The most tepid of appeals on the part of Wiesel has elicited a roar of disapproval from elements who are more neo-Canaanite than Jewish. I guess Elie hit a tender spot despite his back-breaking effort at tactfulness . We only can wait and hope that the angry responses to his mild and “reasonable suggestion” serves as an object lesson about the deep and black hatred for living Jews and a thriving Jewishness is once again resurgent in this world. Does one negotiate with a rattlesnake in the grass or burn it out? Wiesel along with the rest of Am Yisroel is receiving yet another wake-up call; will we just roll-over and go back to sleep?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Between the Natrina, the NK’s and left-wing Jews we’ll be ok.
    The main thing is to battle ideological differences in front of the world.
    Then the world is going to love us as is these exceptionally smart peoples’ goal.

    And now we can all sleep peacefully.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Sorry, Elie. But you sound so pathetic begging…and we cry that the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter…

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    These writers complain about Jews de-Arabizing Jerusalem but say nothing about the Arabs de-Judiaizing East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. When Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, it kicked out all the Jews and destroyed over 20 synagogues. It’s funny how some very vocal Jews care more about the Arabs than the Arabs care about them. Let East Jerusalem become Arab and see how fast Jews are discriminated against there. We are our own worst enemies.

    jj
    jj
    13 years ago

    the lefties are the ARAV RAV –

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    No. 10. The Ungvarer Rav and elie Wiesel are not from the same town. one is from ungvar the other is from Sighet . Mr . Wiesel used to come to the Ungvarer Rav once a week for an hour or so .They were both in Paris after the war .

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    No. 12. Apologetic ,is a better word .

    baruch
    baruch
    13 years ago

    The truest and strongest response to the confusion that has unleashed the chaos that currently threatens us, is together under the banner of the Ribbono Shel Olam. Despite the multiplicity of political perspectives that divide and weaken us, we all acknowledge that the Aibershter, his Torah and Am Yisroel are one. The ahavas and achdus Yisroel displayed by Yidden gathering world-wide to say tehillim and beseech the Almighty (without political statements) would arouse the greatest nachas ruach above and draw down the yeshuah (including the consternation and silencing of our enemies) we so desperately need.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    The 100 signators are a drop in the bucket, a bunch of fringe lefties who pish in the wind.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    The Israeli bleeding hearts are blasting Elie Wiesel for taking a public position on Jerusalem given the fact that he doesn’t live there. Fair enough. Conversely, the Israeli bleeding hearts, who don’t live in the United States, need to refrain from public comment concerning an American foreign policy dispute between Mr.Weisel and the president.