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Pilgrimage Road and Palestinian Memory
(Wall Street Journal) Meir Soloveichik - Two thousand years ago Jews walked the Pilgrimage Road as they came from around the world to visit the Temple. Rabbinic texts abound with descriptions of the processions that occurred, and the road - first discovered 15 years ago - parallels these details in an exquisite way. Now pilgrims will be able to ascend stairs as their predecessors once did. But the Pilgrimage Road is located on land in eastern Jerusalem that Palestinians claim for themselves. Palestinian official Saeb Erekat contended that the road is a "lie that has nothing to do with history." Erekat and many other Palestinian leaders have long denied what archaeologists and historians consider basic and uncontroversial facts, such as the existence of the Temple. The excavated path is only one bit of a literal mountain of archaeological evidence, uncovered in most cases by secular archaeologists, that confirms the historical fact of Jerusalem's ancient connection to the Jewish people. In an age where actual facts are all too often eschewed for "personal narrative," the Pilgrimage Road is another reminder that peace can only be attained through the recognition of historical truth. The writer is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan and director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University.