"O, JERUSALEM"

 “O, JERUSALEM”

In early summer of 1967, after my junior year in college, I was preparing to take an extended trip out west with a college buddy, Sidney Cassell.  Sidney was from Tunica, Mississippi, and his was the only Jewish family in Tunica.  His family ran a small motel called the Tunica Motel.  This was decades before Tunica became one of the most popular casino sites in the country. It is about 30 miles from Helena, across the Mississippi River.  It was going to be a great adventure for us. We were scheduled to leave on June 6, leaving for Oklahoma that day, then Amarillo, then Albuquerque, then Las Vegas, then on to the great state of California, places where neither of us had been.

But, on June 5, Israel launched its Six Day War against Egypt and Syria, and the world held its breath as the superpowers lined up on each side.  Sidney called me that day from Tunica to tell me that we might have to put off our trip or even cancel it altogether.  American Jews had been put on notice to be prepared to defend Israel, and Sidney was planning to go to Israel to join the Israeli army, if he was needed.  He told me:  “I must defend Jerusalem and my homeland.”  I was shocked, and I replied:  “Mississippi is your homeland, though a crummy one it is.”  “No,” he said, “I live in Mississippi – Israel is my homeland.”  For the first time, I got a glimpse into the meaning of Jerusalem and Israel for Jews all over the world.  Up until that moment, I had not adequately understood the depth of commitment expressed by the Psalmist:  “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!  Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”  (Ps. 137)

     Israel obliterated the Arab forces in 6 days, recaptured the divided Jerusalem, and set up the current configurations which still make peace so elusive in the Middle East.  Sidney and I made our trip out west, and it was a great and growing time.  His loyalty to Israel has lingered with me over these 50+ years, and it helps me to understand the deep commitment to Israel.  I also understand the deep anti-Judaism that resides in the world, but especially in the West.  There were a significant number of Jewish families in Helena, where I grew up, enough to have a synagogue and a rabbi at that time.  My mother did the hair of many Jewish women in her beauty shop, and I knew Jewish students at our segregated school.  I breathed in the anti-Judaism, however, and as I have written in two of my books, on one occasion I came home to tell my mother that I hated Jews.  She asked me:  “Nibs, why do you hate Jews?” “I just do, Momma, they’re bad people,” was my unconsidered reply.  “Nibs, do you hate Rayman?”  “No, Momma,” I replied, “he’s my friend.”  She came back, “What about Ruth, do you hate her?”  “No, Momma, she’s nice – she’s a girl, but she’s nice.”  Mother then said, “Well, Nibs, they both are Jewish.  Do you hate them?”  I was astonished and perplexed and replied: “Wow, Mother, you are kidding.  They are Jews?”  She laughed and said, “Of course they are, Nibs, you better be careful about how you start grouping people to hate.”  

That lesson has stayed with me.  I did not know any people of Arab or Palestinian descent as I grew up.  I sort of lumped them in with Jewish people in my childhood sorting of groups and racial classifications.  I learned much later that we did have at least one prominent Arab family in Helena.  There was a famous drug store/lunch counter/pharmacy on Main Street that many people patronized.  It was called “Habby’s,” spelled Habib’s.  When my longtime friend David Billings came back to the Delta to do some anti-racism training, he was accompanied by a fellow trainer who was Arab-American.  As they were driving through Helena, David pointed to Habby’s and noted that it was where his dad used to eat lunch on his breaks from his accounting firm.  His friend laughed and replied and said “That’s not Habby’s – that’s Habeeb’s – you all mispronounced his name all those years – I’ll bet that family is from Lebanon.” And, sure enough they were.  When David told me that story, I remembered again how much racism was imbedded in our souls, and how much people who were not classified as “white” had to shrink and be careful around those of us who were classified as “white.”

I have great sympathy for Israel, and as I noted last week, I have a tiny bit of understanding as to why the nation of Israel is so determined to maintain itself and to seek to recover its “old” borders.  It took me a lot longer to discover Palestinians, and I will write next week about that discovery, one which astonished me and which also reminded me of how provincial my upbringing had been.  

In the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to seek to turn the corner on the God movement that he has started, but near the city, he pauses and has these words to say:  “O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing…..O Jerusalem, would that even today you knew the things that make for peace.  But, now they are hidden from your eyes.”  

    As Israel and Hamas fight it out again, I am also reminded of how much a conundrum Palestine and Israel are.  The Israelis still smell the ovens of Europe, and the Palestinians were driven off their land in order to make the modern nation of Israel.  The Palestinians have no homeland, and Israel seems to have accepted the idea that apartheid is necessary in order to maintain itself.  And, of course, in Jerusalem itself, the third holiest site in Islam, the mosque al-Aqsa where Mohammed took flight to Allah, sits on top of the holiest site in Judaism, the Western wall or the Wailing Wall.  It is all that is left of the Temple destroyed by the Romans 20 centuries ago.  Jerusalem does not seem to know the things that make for peace, but we’ll explore this difficult landscape over the next two blogs.