The American Jewish Committee

The gates of Beit Moses, the AJC “embassy” in the heart of Jerusalem, remained closed for two days this week: Snow, heavy and glorious, shut down our capital city for most business—but not for politics, which went on fast and furious, leading to the swearing in of Sharon’s center-right government yesterday. The remarkable thing was the sense of joy, fun, let’s-get-away-from-our-daily-troubles that greeted God’s gift to the city: time to spend with your children, or rather, an excuse to frolic like a child yourself, in the amazing landscapes transformed into a winter dreamland.

This provided a good time to stop and think—not about terrorism (of which, thanks to the intense efforts of the IDF, and to some degree of sobering up on the part of many Palestinians, we have had rather less in February than in any month within memory since October 2000); not about politics (of which we have had a surfeit, leaving many people around Prime Minister Sharon wondering whether this was all necessary, part of a design to cut his party colleagues down to size, or simply the usual run of snafus common to the making of most Israeli cabinets); and not even about economics, that dismal science, which looks set to become even more dismal in the short run.

It is time to think of the things that make this country, even in difficult times, not just worth living in, but a lively and lovely place. The three other dots of our Star of David—side by side with the military, political, and economic business of state—could be said to be formed by:

·        The sheer beauty of this land, made meaningful and significant by Jewish history. You could sense this as long lines of drivers from the Tel Aviv region drove slowly—very slowly, but with little ill-feeling— to see Ir HaKodesh, the Holy City, so transformed;

·        The resilience of a society, diverse and yet determined, that continues to look hopefully to the future (although you would not know this from the gloomy pages of Ha’aretz), that happily counts every inch in the rising waters of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), ten feet in all, this wonderful winter, and that awaits the outcome of the Iraqi crisis with a sense of sober anticipation;

·        The creative energy that continues to drive much of our industry, culture, and the daily business of life.

I recently picked up a guide for internal Israeli tourism, and the sheer volume of creative, cultural, and yes, culinary offerings around the country at any given time was quite impressive. It is in such pages that the diversity of Israel becomes a cause for celebration, not a political hindrance: from religious rites to a feminist arts festival in Holon (of all places—historically, the dullest of Israeli cities, but now home to a fine children’s museum and plenty of open-air art); from classical quartets (not the diplomatic variety—the real musical thing, almost always comprised of recent olim from the Former Soviet Union) to Kurdish kubbeh in cozy, home-style restaurants in the heart of Jerusalem, a nostalgic trip to the food of  someone’s grandmother in Northern Iraq; not to mention the reviving business of Arab and Druze hospitality, as memories of October 2000 begin to recede.

We intend, in other words, to continue to thrive on our contradictions, on the inability and unwillingness of Israel and Israelis to be reduced to one-liners. And here is a good one, from an unexpected source, the new ultra-Orthodox, highly likeable mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupoliansky: “Some of you may have expected the city to go ‘black’ [a reference to the standard garb of Haredi men]—and here it is in white.”