loints of view

0, Jerusalem! from page 31

An Israeli centers Ronna and Stuart Gold and Jim

Randa and Rick Feldman of West Bloomfield join

Rose and Michael Fabian of West Bloomfield take in

and Edie Schneider, all of West Bloomfield, at the

the temple mission's Israeli Independence Day

Jerusalem's Old City on the plaza of the Western

Machaneh Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.

march along King David Street in Jerusalem.

Wall, the holiest site of the Jewish people.

"I always tell this story" Loss told me, "because it's
such a special reminder of belief in the certainty of
the Israel experience. I still get emotional telling it!'
This spiritual crossroads is that alluring.
Mission-goer Janice Salter of Farmington Hills
put it this way: "For over 60 years, I have wished
at Passover seder to spend 'next year in Jerusalem;
and this became a reality. I was overwhelmed with
emotions of pride and sentimentality as I realized
that this was really home ... to my people, to my
family. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure
that the fabulous vista from Mount Scopus was
truly real, and I had finally made it to Jerusalem!'

Revisionist History
Against this backdrop, it's disheartening to
hear Palestinians try to discredit Jewish ties to
Jerusalem, starting with the folly that the Western
Wall is actually the western wall of the Al Aqsa
Mosque.
To deny the Temple's existence, you have to not
only believe that the Tanach (Hebrew Bible)
and the New Testament accounts are fan-
tasy, but also that such famous authors as
Josephus, Tacitus and Cassius Dio joined the
conspiracy.
Besides, excavation the Muslims them-
selves have done has unearthed evidence
of the Temple. Meanwhile, the Western Wall
itself is incontrovertible evidence. The mas-
sive stones date from late in the first cen-
tury BCE when King Herod improved the
Temple. That upgrade was 600 years before
Muhammad was alive, let alone rose toward
heaven, as Muslims believe, from the site of
the Dome of the Rock.
Every falsehood contributes to the
Palestinian belief that Israelis are interlopers
without roots in the Holy Land. Denying the
reality of the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish
site, further enhances the Palestinians' crude
dance with revisionism.
Just this month, Palestinian Authority
Chairman Maumoud Abbas, Israel's supposed
peace.partner, referred to Israel's presence
and activities in Jerusalem as "Judaization"
and said Israel is stealing what he called the
"cultural, human and Islamic-Christian reli-
gious history," according to Palestinian Media
Watch, a respected Israeli political watchdog.

32

May 17 a 2012

Israel might be willing to grant some autonomy
to Arab neighborhoods without surrendering the
entire eastern sector of Jerusalem, but certainly not
when Temple deniers stand shoulder to shoulder
with Holocaust deniers among the vanguard of
Palestinian leadership.
Nothing more represents the Jews' determination
the world over to keep Israel a Jewish state than the
widespread commitment among all Jewish religious
ideologies to preserving Israeli sovereignty over
Jerusalem. Despite a revolving door of ruling forces,
from the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans
and Byzantines to the Crusaders, Muslims, Ottoman
Turks and British, Jews have had a presence in
Jerusalem for nearly 2,000 years and have been the
majority since the 1840s.
While praying at the Western Wall during
Kabbalat Shabbat on April 27, angel dust seemed to
envelop me, reinforcing that no political party has
the right to bargain away the God-given distinction
of a united Jerusalem under Israeli control. _7

Dry Bones Egg

AND THEN, ACTION BY
ME U.S. OR ISRAEL
WAS DELAYED BY A
FEVER

B'not Mitzvah By The Wall

Bette Landaw of Farmington Hills with Gail Katz and

Michelle Slutsky, both of West Bloomfield

I Gail Katz

M

ichelle Slutsky, Bette Landaw and I had the won-
derful opportunity to chant our Torah portions for
our b'not mitzvah at the southern steps near the
Western Wall in Jerusalem. These steps were at one time the
main entrance to the Holy Temple the Romans destroyed in
70 CE.
Before I chanted my portion from Sh'Iach Lecha, I
explained to my fellow Temple Israel of West Bloomfield
travelers why an adult bat mitzvah was so meaningful to
me. As a young girl growing up in Montgomery County, Md.,
I was the only Jewish child in my classroom and frequently
felt like the "other." I was given no Jewish education during
these years; thus, I also felt very out of place in the syna-
gogue when my family would go about three times a year.
It wasn't until we moved to Metro Detroit, and my
Orthodox grandfather came to live with us, that I realized
how much I yearned for that meaningful connection to my
Jewish faith and Jewish community.
Israel called to me as a young adult: I worked on a kib-
butz the summer I was 19 and lived in Jerusalem when I
was 21.
My time in Israel has always been so special. This trip
with my new Jewish community, Temple Israel, has been an
incredible experience! To connect with my faith tradition, I
have immersed myself in the study of Judaism with classes
in Torah, Talmud, Mussar and the Torah portion of the week.
Chanting the Hebrew words of my Torah portion, as I
looked out over the holy city of Jerusalem, was the high-
light of my trip to Israel. ,_j