"Jerusalem" by Safam

Let them out tonight
Let my people go.
Where can they turn to,
Once they are free?
Home to Jerusalem
That’s where they’ll be
Jerusalem, I can still recall
The first time I laid eyes upon your golden walls
Jerusalem, ah your very name
Brings the images of my year with you
Rushing back again.
Jerusalem, oh your precious stone
Tells the story of the ages that man has known.
Jerusalem, with each step I take
Brings me closer to the one I know
And let’s me see my heritage.
From King David’s tomb up to Har Tzofim
Back to the Kotel again
You know I will return I’m going back someday
To Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, you will always be
The city of our people ‘til eternity.
Jerusalem, there are some of those
Who will see you burn, they haven’t learned
That all mankind can call you home.

If anything can sum up my vision of Jerusalem, it’s this song. I’m not sure anymore if I learned this song before I’d ever been to Israel or shortly after, so I don’t know when the song influenced how I feel, but I know I feel strongly for Jerusalem. Whenever I think of Jerusalem, this song comes to mind. It stirs up memories of various sites in Jerusalem and the message it sends that Jerusalem is home to me and every Jew.

The first time I went to Israel was during my sophomore year of college, on the 2001 KOACH birthright israel trip. Before that trip, like many birthright israel participants, I had never felt a strong connection to Jerusalem or Israel, and like many alumni, once I got there, the connection became very strong.

Much of my thoughts on Jerusalem are indistinguishable from my thoughts about Israel as a whole. It is a beautiful country and many amazing people call it home. That said, Jerusalem is at the center of everything Israeli. Jerusalem is where my birthright israel trip spent most of its time and which, when I went back, I called home for 2 months. It is the only place I want to call home when I’m in Israel.

It’s hard to think of Jerusalem and Israel without thinking about the intifada, especially considering the only Israel I have known personally has been since the conflict began. Still, that’s not what I usually think about when I’m in Israel or when I think about the memories of my time spent there.

Much of Jerusalem still looks as I imagine it looked in Biblical times. Everything is made of the same beautiful, golden-colored Jerusalem stone. While at first thought this seems somewhat boring, I also think it is unifying. Not only are most buildings in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel made of this stone, but many Jewish buildings in the US also have used this stone, in order to feel more connected to Jerusalem.

The first place many Jews visit upon arrival in Jerusalem is the Kotel, or Western Wall. This was an early stop in my birthright israel trip as well. Many of us went with the expectation that we would be very emotional, feeling a deep connection, but were disappointed to find that wasn’t so. If not for the history, I would probably not feel any connection to the Kotel. I think it’s hard for egalitarian women to feel connected because on the outside, the Kotel is very much the opposite of egalitarianism.

My first vision of the Kotel was the separate men’s and women’s sides, with very religious-looking Jews on each side. My first thought was "I don’t belong here." I believe very strongly in men and women davening together, as well as in not feeling pressured to dress a certain way. It’s also hard to picture the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) still standing and to imagine what women with an egalitarian ideology would have done when if it were still in use. But then I think how long that piece of wall has been there and how many Jews have passed it by, stopping for short prayers or traveling hundreds of miles a few times a year. It’s pretty awesome, in the true meaning of awe, to think about how many Jews throughout so many centuries have prayed and cried and celebrated at the same place.

birthright israel participants in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem

After participating in the birthright israel trip, I went back to Israel for a longer stay one and a half years later. I spent the summer of 2002 in Jerusalem, learning at the Conservative Yeshiva and having more time to visit and spend quality time at places all over Jerusalem and Israel. Most of my more vivid memories are from that summer. This was the first "real" Jewish learning that I had done and there’s no place I’d have rather learned than there. The history alone of the city is overwhelming. Everything Jewish feels more real, more tangible, when you think that so much of what happened to the Jewish people occurred right where you are standing, breathing and living.

I also had the opportunity to experience Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem. Tisha B’Av, or the "ninth of Av," commemorates the fall of both the first and second Temples in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively. There were groups from the Conservative Yeshiva going to a few different places in Jerusalem to hear Eikhah or Lamentations, which is read on Tisha B’Av, and I chose to go to the Southern Wall, which is a different section of the outside wall of the Beit HaMikdash. This section is often used for egalitarian services. I chose this location over going to the Haas Promenade, which overlooks all of Jerusalem, because of the significance of the Beit HaMikdash to the holiday.

At first, I regretted this choice. I had thought that being at a section of Temple wall where I was accepted with my egalitarian beliefs would intensify my connection to the location, but it didn’t. It suddenly seemed it might have been more powerful for me to be at the Promenade, where I could see all of Jerusalem and mark out where the city was first breached on the 17^th of Tammuz (a few weeks earlier) and where the attacks were first made on the outer walls of the Old City leading into the destruction of the Temples.

I had the good fortune, however, to be sitting near my roommate, who had made aliyah from England a few years before. She had grown up in a religious home and knew much more about the significance of the location. She made it her mission to help me feel connected. She reminded me of all our ancestors who had been right there, of the Sages in Jewish history, who also stood there. She told me to just imagine Rabbi Akiva standing there and what he would be doing. I’m not sure if this helped immediately, but looking back, I can say that I stood where the kohanim performed sacrifices, where our ancestors sought to feel close to God, where our people stood up for what they believed in and where Jews have come for almost 2600 years to pray and feel connected to the Jewish people. I am forevermore connected to Jerusalem.