Opinion

Other Views

`Now The Stones Will Speak'

growing number of academics and
Philadelphia
intellectuals, King David and his king-
or those who hate Israel, one
dom, which has served for 3,000 years
of the most dangerous things
as an integral symbol of the Jewish
a Jew can do in Jerusalem is
nation, is simply a piece of fiction.
to start digging. The more you dig
Building on the work of deconstruc-
there, the worse it gets for those who
tionists, who have turned the study of
would like to pretend that Israelis are
literature into a morass of
alien colonists imposing
moral relativism and intel-
their rule on the so-
lectual cant that seeks to
called indigenous people
undermine the very idea
of the region.
of historic truth, a new
That's why an interest
school of historians has
in archaeology has always
arisen since the 1970s.
been a key factor in the
Their purpose is to chal-
century-long struggle to
lenge not only the veracity
recreate and then main-
of the biblical narrative,
tain Jewish sovereignty in
The seal inscribed with
the land of Israel.
the name 7erucal ben but also the very idea of
You might think argu-
Shelemiah, ben Shevi" Jewish nationhood having
its roots in the distant past.
ments claiming that the
But the debunkers of
Jews were alien to the
Jewish history got some bad news. This
place are limited to the nonsensical
month, Dr. Eilat Mazar, senior fellow
propaganda emanating from less
of the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center's
enlightened portions of the Islamic
Institute for the Archaeology of the
world. Claims from the Muslim Wald*
Jewish
People, made public the results
that administers the Temple Mount in
of
the
dig
she had been conducting
Jerusalem that the place has been a
since February south of the walls of the
mosque since the days of Adam and
Old City of Jerusalem, where scholars
Eve are, we hope, laughed off by those
believe the city of David existed.
who read the mainstream press.
Amid the soil and rocks of the place
In recent decades, a new front in the
that is now the village of Silwan, Mazar
war on Israel was opened in intellectu-
uncovered the ruins of the building she's
al journals and classrooms. Its goal? To
sure
was the palace of David itself —
trash the notion that the Bible's
the very same structure that was built,
accounts of the history of ancient
according to the Bible, by King Hiram
Israel have the slightest value, and to
of Tyre for Israel's greatest king, around
debunk the idea that the United
1,000 B.C.E. "It was obvious from the
Kingdom of David ever existed. For a
first glance that we are not speaking
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of
about a private house," recounts Mazar.
the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. E-
"The walls are huge. The construction
mail: jtobin@jewishexponent.com.
involved was massive."

F

A Gift In Gratitude

I

n 1930, Annie and Abe Oreck
and their four young children
were stranded in Fresno, Calif.,
thousands of miles from their home in
Duluth, Minn. Like many small towns
in the Midwest, Duluth was devastat-
ed by unemployment and real poverty
that caused frightened, jobless families
to leave.
Hoping to find work in the "golden
West," my father had taken us to this
small town in California, where my
mother's family lived. After almost a
year of crowding in with poor relatives

Marge Alpern is a Bloomfield Hills
resident.

8/18
2005

86

and finding only temporary work, my
young parents decided to return home
to Duluth, where life would be easier
and safer; and at least there would be
familiar people in the place where they
had been born and had lived all of
their lives.
If it hadn't been for the Hebrew Free
Loan Association, I wonder what
would have happened to our family.
My father obtained a loan of $100
from the association, which he consid-
ered not to be welfare, charity or the
dole. It was an interest-free loan or, as
my father described it: It was one
Jewish man helping another Jewish
man.
It didn't matter that these men were
not really friends, as he put it. He
accepted the money with gratitude but
not a trace of shame or guilt.

Directly underneath the
building upon the work of past
structure were "masses of pot-
generations of archaeologists
tery," all dating to the 11th
and by reading a crucial verse
and 12th centuries B.C.E., the
in the book of Samuel II 5:17,
era that archaeologists call Iron
decided that if David had gone
Age I, which predates the era
down from where he was to
of David. By its position in the
his fortress, then Silwan was
site, this pottery, which was a
the spot where David's abode
unique find in and of itself,
JON A THAN might be found.
makes it clear that "Iron I was
The dig was sponsored by
S. T OBIN
over or almost over by the time
the
Hebrew University and
Spe ci al
the building was started," said
Shalem,
financed by American
Comm entary
Mazar. "I had to ask myself,
investor Roger Hertog and car-
`What do we have in hand?'"
ried out with the help of the
Mazar, 48, is the granddaughter of
landowner, Ir David Foundation. But
pioneering Israeli archeologist Benjamin
after years of work and planning, the
Mazar. She grew up in the world of
proof was waiting in the ground. "Once
digs and worked with her grandfather
I started to excavate," says Mazar, "it
as a research assistant on his excavations
was as if I had written nothing. Nov,
on the Temple Mount. She had talked
the stones will speak, not me."
with him before his death 10 years ago
And speak they do. For those who
about the possibility of this project and,
contend that what she found was more

An aerial view of the dig in the City of David

My father, on many occa-
hard to make the return trip an
sions, reminded us of the
exciting adventure for us and
loan as he mailed installment
we stopped at all the tourist
payments back to California
highlights. The Grand Canyon
after he "got on his feet" in •
was the best part of the whole
Duluth.
trip for me.
The $100 loan paid all the
We made it home and
expenses for six people to
crammed into my father's par-
drive across the country in a
ents' home until my father
MARGE
found work and life became
two-door Tin Lizzie Ford. Or
ALPERN
am I wrong about the
more secure. It was the right
Community
amount of the loan? It sounds
move,
for the large extended
View
impossible, even for those
Oreck family stood together
days of deep Depression.
and thrived as the country
I remember very little about the
regained its economic strength.
trip, except eating a lot of peanut but-
The Editor's Notebook in the
Detroit Jewish News about the
ter sandwiches and struggling to get a
seat by the window. I was about 10
Bloomfield Township-based Hebrew
Free Loan Association ("Uplifting
years old.
We children were never afraid or
Loans," June 9, page 5) brought forth
this flood of memories. Therefore, in
even uneasy. My parents tried very