Re: Yerushalayim shel zahav

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

Without wanting to get in a big discussion about this--I can represent what I 
have been told about objections to "Jerusalem of Gold," but am not a primary 
source, and apparently no one else on the list is--but this issue is not with 
the "Hashiveynu." Rather, I have been told that when Shemer describes the 
markets in the Old City as "empty" there is a problem. The markets were empty 
of Jews (gee, wonder how that happened), but certainly in no other sense 
"empty". In that sense, the poem is seen by some as dehumanizing those who were 
teeming in the markets--the Arabs--but who weren't Jewish.

I hope I have represented this reasonably. Please don't press me on it, as I 
agree, partially, with the premise (well, yes, it is rather unfortunate to 
refer to the Old City markets as empty when they aren't), but can probably also 
be heard to have some problems with the disingenuousness of the argument 
(already pointed out--how did we get there and who is taking responsibility?).

So, no, hard as it is to believe, I don't think this is a theological thing :-).

ari

At 02:47 AM 9/24/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>I don't mean or intend to get sidetracked into a discussion of settlements, 
>etc.--surely not the place--but I do want to note, in re Lori's comment on 
>(by comparison) "Al Kol Eyle," that "the last line of the chorus--"return us 
>and we will be returned...to the good land"--expresses a core traditional 
>Jewish value, iterated and reiterated (as Shlomo Riskin used to say) 
>throughout the liturgy--including (Jewish calendar-wise) both the High 
>Holidays liturgy and the Regalim (e.g., Sukkot) liturgy.  Obviously some may 
>find support in that lyric for a particular political position--which really 
>means a particular priority--that not all share, but I'm not sure what Lori 
>means by the "original more general [meaning]."
>
>Naomi Shemer may have appropriated the "Hashiveinu" line from Eits Chayim 
>and Tanach and conjoined it to "the good land"--in the original context it 
>refers to a more general "returning" (teshuvah) to G*d), so maybe that's 
>what Lori means; but that Jews should return to the Land of Israel is, 
>again, a core traditional value--not a political spin.
>
>--Robert Cohen
>
>
>
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