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Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's Capital: It Should Have Been Done Decades Ago

(JTA) Ammiel Hirsch - We have yearned for Jerusalem for two millennia. It is the source of our strength, the place where our people was formed, where the Bible was written. Jews made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for a thousand years. With the exception of one small party, there is wall-to-wall agreement among the Zionist parties in the Knesset supporting the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The world's superpower finally did the right thing, and some opposed it - not on the principle, but on the "timing." Two thousand years later and it is still not the right time? There were critics who accused the civil rights movement of moving too quickly. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s response: "The time is always ripe to do what is right....We must come to see that justice too long delayed is justice denied." Israel's opponents have so distorted history that so many around the world question the very legitimacy of Jewish ties to Zion and Jerusalem. Judaism without Eretz Yisrael is not Judaism. Judaism without Jerusalem is not Judaism. This is not to deny that others consider Jerusalem holy. But peace will never rise on foundations of sand. Any agreement will collapse if constructed on a scaffolding of lies. President Trump simply acknowledged reality. It is about time. It should have been done decades ago. We should urge the international community to disabuse the Palestinian national movement of its exaggerated expectations and its insidious efforts to undermine and erase our connection to Zion. Until that happens, peace is an illusion. The writer is senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York and former executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America/World Union for Progressive Judaism.
2017-12-20 00:00:00
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