Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Hopeless Graves -Day 6 (ish)

     The Muslim controlled Dome of the Rock, the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Jewish Kotel are all connected by a common link: Senseless hope. 

    Speaking from a secular viewpoint, these holy sites are almost meaningless. After all, all they are are  religious sites with immense historical context. Yet despite that, millions of lives, both civilian and combatant, have perished in the struggle of ownership throughout centuries of history. 

     Standing atop the Temple Mount in my make-shift skirt (supposedly my ankles are a real turn on), I can't help but laugh at the irony. My people, the Jewish people, have fought for years so that a bunch of religious Muslims could pray safely on their own territory. The same could be argued for the Christians and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Millions of innocent lives were lost in the crusades hundreds of year ago, all so that dozens of Asian tourists could stand in an ancient church and weep over a stone (the that has never scientifically been connected to Jesus Christ.

     The Western Wall is different though. I believe that the story of the wall is best summed up in the national anthem of the state of Israel. In the last line, the escalated voices of the Jewish people cry out "Zionist land in Jerusalem". For this exact reason, I chose to skip the traditional shmah prayer, and instead stand with my head high underneath the flag, and hum the national anthem. Without surprise, I teared up.

      It was not until the day after however that I fully realized why I was tearing up. Bent over the grave of Yoni Netanyahu, listening to a poem that talked of the future that never would be, I again began to get emotional. 

    I quickly understood that thousands of soliders, perished in battle just like Yoni. Though there was an even stronger realization that day: Nothing but chance separated Yoni from lying in that grave, from Rotem, my personal source of life.                 

So again I think about the lives that died fighting for these monuments. I think about the hundreds of IDF soldiers of who fought not only for the existence of my religion, but also for those of all inhabitants on earth.

     Most importantly, I think of my sister, who might too one day risk her own life, for the existence of these useless bricks. 

--Roee Landesman

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