Biblical Disneyland
“Visits of condolence is all we get from them
They squat at the Holocaust memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel’s Tomb and Herzl’s Tomb
And on the top of ammunition hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust over our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head, there’s an arch from the Roman Period. Just right of his head.” “But he’s moving, he’s moving!” I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, “You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruits and vegetables for his family.””
To be completely honest, when I read the poem Tourists by Yehuda Amichai for the first time I felt like it was a little selfish. The history of Jerusalem is fascinating, and I didn’t understand why it was wrong to explore it. But after studying Jerusalem for a semester I’ve realized what I was missing. I was looking at Jerusalem through the lens of its rich history. But besides that history, there are also people who live in Jerusalem today. In order to have a holistic view of Jerusalem, we cannot just look at its history. We have to consider the people living in Jerusalem today. Focusing on the history above the people at best makes them feel ignored, as Yehuda Amichai describes. At worst, it actively harms them.
First, we need to realize that looking at history in isolation from the present day is impossible. Even the tourists who come to Jerusalem have to deal with the very real and very present threat of violence. We’ve talked about the Damascus Gate before in this class, it’s one of the entrances to the old city, and has a large amount of history behind it. In 2016, the Washington Post published a review about how violence at the Damascus Gate is a very real threat. One of the most interesting parts of that article was the interviews of the different people at the gate. From the article, we can see that the tourists passing through the gate didn’t seem overly bothered by the prospect of violence. In a way, that makes sense. The tourists at the Damascus gate are usually only there one day of their lives. The people that were really worried about the violence were people who worked at the Gate. They were the people who were there every day, so they were the ones who had to daily deal with the threat of violence and conflict.
This conflict that is happening, at the Damascus Gate and all around Jerusalem, is rooted in history. The conflict centers around who has the historical claim to the land of Jerusalem. Michael Romann and Alex Weingrad wrote a book called Living Together Separately, which carefully pieces apart Israeli and Palestinian daily interactions to try to figure out what the conflict in Jerusalem centers around. They end up concluding that if it was simply religious or cultural differences, both sides would be more respectful and have a kind of “live and let live” attitude. They prove this throughout their book by bringing up examples of religious and cultural differences that are a non-contentious part of daily life in Jerusalem. They propose that the conflict is instead around sovereignty, who has the historical right to the land. That seems to be the issue that Israeli and Palestinian people cannot agree on, under any circumstances.
The way that Israel makes its historical claims to the land of Jerusalem is very intentional. Alona Nitzan-Shiftan in Modernism and the Middle East writes about how the architecture of Jerusalem was intentionally chosen to make Jerusalem appear as a historical site. This emphasis on the historicity of the Old City created a theme for Jerusalem as a holy city. The theme of the holy city of Israel gives legitimacy to Israel's political control of the city. This is only made possible by that focus on the historicity of Jerusalem.
The focus on the history of Jerusalem pays off for the state of Israel. Crowds of tourists come to Jerusalem every year to view that history. To encourage this tourism, the state of Israel capitalizes on their history. They carefully preserve their historical sites, and they support as many archaeology projects as they can. Yaacov Shavit studied what impact that focus on history has in the way it complicates politics. He refers to Israel’s zeal for archaeology as “the cult of history.” I think this is an effective description. One of the most common behaviors we see in cults is insider versus outsider thinking. Essentially, everyone inside the group is good and everyone outside the group is bad, and should not be interacted with. The question then becomes, if Israel and its history is the insider, who is the outsider? What happens to them?
While we know that Zionist Jews are a powerful push behind the state of Israel, Religious News Services marks that Messianic Christians are an even more powerful force. They believe that if all the Jewish people return to Jerusalem, the Messiah will return. Once again, we see politics being shifted by historical tradition. As Messianic Christians focus more on Jerusalem and its politics, more tourism comes into Jerusalem. Haaertz, an Israeli news service, marks this tourism boom. It notes how the boom in tourism is more than the Old City can handle, and is actively harmful to the people who work as part of the tourism industry. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel marks that 76% of the residents of East Jerusalem live in poverty. We can see that the people who live in Jerusalem are being actively glossed over in order to preserve historical tradition.
Maybe the clearest example of history being held above the people of Jerusalem is the idea of Biblical Disneyland. In City of David, a documentary by CBS news in 2010, we hear the mayor of Jerusalem’s plan to remove the neighborhood of Silwan and put a “Biblical-based tourist theme park” in its place. Neil Asher Silbermann describes this prioritization of tourism and history, even above the people that live there, as “Biblical Disneyland.” The mayor argues in the documentary that the neighborhood is a slum anyways, so it’ll be better for the city to remove it. But once again, from this we see the needs of the city’s tourism industry being actively prioritized above its residents.
The focus on commercialization of history is making the problems of poverty and conflict in Jerusalem worse. The history of Jerusalem is important, but it cannot be prioritized above the residents that live there. Because if it is, the residents have to bear the burden of the problems.
Works Cited:
Booth, William and Eglash, Ruth. 2016. “Jerusalem’s ancient Damascus Gate is at the heart of a
modern wave of violence.” Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/jerusalems-ancient-damascus-gate-is-at-the-heart-of-a-modern-wave-of-violence/2016/02/16/a3da07f8-d42a-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html?utm_term=.9edaa5b17793
Chabin, Micheal. 2018. “For some, the US Embassy’s move to Jerusalem fulfills divine prophecy.” Religious News Services, May 14.
https://religionnews.com/2018/05/14/some-christians-and-jews-hail-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-as-key-to-a-biblical-plan/
“Jerusalem: City of David” YouTube video, 10:05, posted by “CBS News” October 17, 2010. https://youtu.be/vvOVvu1S0s0
Maltz, Judy. 2018. “Israel is welcoming record numbers of tourists- and it’s a nightmare.” Haaertz, March 6.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-is-welcoming-record-numbers-of-tourists-and-it-s-a-nightmare-1.5869097
Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. 2008. “Modernisms in Conflict. Architecture and Cultural Politics in Post-1967 Jerusalem.” In Modernism and the Middle East:
Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century, edited by Sandy Isenstadt and Kishway Rizvi, 161-185. Seattle: University of Washington
Press.
Romann, Michael and Alex Weingrad. 1991. Living Together Separately. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Shavit, Yaacov. 1997. “Archaeology, Political Culture, and Culture in Israel.” In The Archaeology of Israel, edited by Silbermann and Small. 48-61.
Sheffield: Arndemic Press.
Silbermann, Neil A. 1997. “”Structuring the Past: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Symbolic Authority of Archaeological Monuments.” In The
Archaeology of Israel,” edited by Silbermann and Small. 62-81. Sheffield: Arndemic Press.
The Association for Civil RIghts in Israel. 2017. East Jerusalem Facts and Figures. May 2017.
https://law.acri.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Facts-and-Figures-2017-1.pdf
They squat at the Holocaust memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel’s Tomb and Herzl’s Tomb
And on the top of ammunition hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust over our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head, there’s an arch from the Roman Period. Just right of his head.” “But he’s moving, he’s moving!” I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, “You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruits and vegetables for his family.””
To be completely honest, when I read the poem Tourists by Yehuda Amichai for the first time I felt like it was a little selfish. The history of Jerusalem is fascinating, and I didn’t understand why it was wrong to explore it. But after studying Jerusalem for a semester I’ve realized what I was missing. I was looking at Jerusalem through the lens of its rich history. But besides that history, there are also people who live in Jerusalem today. In order to have a holistic view of Jerusalem, we cannot just look at its history. We have to consider the people living in Jerusalem today. Focusing on the history above the people at best makes them feel ignored, as Yehuda Amichai describes. At worst, it actively harms them.
First, we need to realize that looking at history in isolation from the present day is impossible. Even the tourists who come to Jerusalem have to deal with the very real and very present threat of violence. We’ve talked about the Damascus Gate before in this class, it’s one of the entrances to the old city, and has a large amount of history behind it. In 2016, the Washington Post published a review about how violence at the Damascus Gate is a very real threat. One of the most interesting parts of that article was the interviews of the different people at the gate. From the article, we can see that the tourists passing through the gate didn’t seem overly bothered by the prospect of violence. In a way, that makes sense. The tourists at the Damascus gate are usually only there one day of their lives. The people that were really worried about the violence were people who worked at the Gate. They were the people who were there every day, so they were the ones who had to daily deal with the threat of violence and conflict.
This conflict that is happening, at the Damascus Gate and all around Jerusalem, is rooted in history. The conflict centers around who has the historical claim to the land of Jerusalem. Michael Romann and Alex Weingrad wrote a book called Living Together Separately, which carefully pieces apart Israeli and Palestinian daily interactions to try to figure out what the conflict in Jerusalem centers around. They end up concluding that if it was simply religious or cultural differences, both sides would be more respectful and have a kind of “live and let live” attitude. They prove this throughout their book by bringing up examples of religious and cultural differences that are a non-contentious part of daily life in Jerusalem. They propose that the conflict is instead around sovereignty, who has the historical right to the land. That seems to be the issue that Israeli and Palestinian people cannot agree on, under any circumstances.
The way that Israel makes its historical claims to the land of Jerusalem is very intentional. Alona Nitzan-Shiftan in Modernism and the Middle East writes about how the architecture of Jerusalem was intentionally chosen to make Jerusalem appear as a historical site. This emphasis on the historicity of the Old City created a theme for Jerusalem as a holy city. The theme of the holy city of Israel gives legitimacy to Israel's political control of the city. This is only made possible by that focus on the historicity of Jerusalem.
The focus on the history of Jerusalem pays off for the state of Israel. Crowds of tourists come to Jerusalem every year to view that history. To encourage this tourism, the state of Israel capitalizes on their history. They carefully preserve their historical sites, and they support as many archaeology projects as they can. Yaacov Shavit studied what impact that focus on history has in the way it complicates politics. He refers to Israel’s zeal for archaeology as “the cult of history.” I think this is an effective description. One of the most common behaviors we see in cults is insider versus outsider thinking. Essentially, everyone inside the group is good and everyone outside the group is bad, and should not be interacted with. The question then becomes, if Israel and its history is the insider, who is the outsider? What happens to them?
While we know that Zionist Jews are a powerful push behind the state of Israel, Religious News Services marks that Messianic Christians are an even more powerful force. They believe that if all the Jewish people return to Jerusalem, the Messiah will return. Once again, we see politics being shifted by historical tradition. As Messianic Christians focus more on Jerusalem and its politics, more tourism comes into Jerusalem. Haaertz, an Israeli news service, marks this tourism boom. It notes how the boom in tourism is more than the Old City can handle, and is actively harmful to the people who work as part of the tourism industry. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel marks that 76% of the residents of East Jerusalem live in poverty. We can see that the people who live in Jerusalem are being actively glossed over in order to preserve historical tradition.
Maybe the clearest example of history being held above the people of Jerusalem is the idea of Biblical Disneyland. In City of David, a documentary by CBS news in 2010, we hear the mayor of Jerusalem’s plan to remove the neighborhood of Silwan and put a “Biblical-based tourist theme park” in its place. Neil Asher Silbermann describes this prioritization of tourism and history, even above the people that live there, as “Biblical Disneyland.” The mayor argues in the documentary that the neighborhood is a slum anyways, so it’ll be better for the city to remove it. But once again, from this we see the needs of the city’s tourism industry being actively prioritized above its residents.
The focus on commercialization of history is making the problems of poverty and conflict in Jerusalem worse. The history of Jerusalem is important, but it cannot be prioritized above the residents that live there. Because if it is, the residents have to bear the burden of the problems.
Works Cited:
Booth, William and Eglash, Ruth. 2016. “Jerusalem’s ancient Damascus Gate is at the heart of a
modern wave of violence.” Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/jerusalems-ancient-damascus-gate-is-at-the-heart-of-a-modern-wave-of-violence/2016/02/16/a3da07f8-d42a-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html?utm_term=.9edaa5b17793
Chabin, Micheal. 2018. “For some, the US Embassy’s move to Jerusalem fulfills divine prophecy.” Religious News Services, May 14.
https://religionnews.com/2018/05/14/some-christians-and-jews-hail-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-as-key-to-a-biblical-plan/
“Jerusalem: City of David” YouTube video, 10:05, posted by “CBS News” October 17, 2010. https://youtu.be/vvOVvu1S0s0
Maltz, Judy. 2018. “Israel is welcoming record numbers of tourists- and it’s a nightmare.” Haaertz, March 6.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-is-welcoming-record-numbers-of-tourists-and-it-s-a-nightmare-1.5869097
Nitzan-Shiftan, Alona. 2008. “Modernisms in Conflict. Architecture and Cultural Politics in Post-1967 Jerusalem.” In Modernism and the Middle East:
Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century, edited by Sandy Isenstadt and Kishway Rizvi, 161-185. Seattle: University of Washington
Press.
Romann, Michael and Alex Weingrad. 1991. Living Together Separately. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Shavit, Yaacov. 1997. “Archaeology, Political Culture, and Culture in Israel.” In The Archaeology of Israel, edited by Silbermann and Small. 48-61.
Sheffield: Arndemic Press.
Silbermann, Neil A. 1997. “”Structuring the Past: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Symbolic Authority of Archaeological Monuments.” In The
Archaeology of Israel,” edited by Silbermann and Small. 62-81. Sheffield: Arndemic Press.
The Association for Civil RIghts in Israel. 2017. East Jerusalem Facts and Figures. May 2017.
https://law.acri.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Facts-and-Figures-2017-1.pdf
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