By DOVID BEN-MEIR
Once upon a time, there was a small town that sat off the beaten track. It wasn't near a major road or trade route. It wasn't near the sea or a river. It was a rather sleepy town, not remarkable for any particular landmark or special feature. It had a few fresh-water springs nearby, but being on the edge of the desert and dependant on the winter rains, it seemed unable to grow much. It wasn't known for any special product or export. It's inhabitants mainly farmed and tended livestock. Quite a sleepy town, the kind of which there are thousands all over the world, of which nobody ever hears or really cares.Suddenly –all that changed, the sleepy town was wakened by a new people who turned it into a capital city. Not only did it become the king's city, it became the home of the new temple, built about 50 years after the old capital and temple these people had were destroyed by invaders. This newly invigorated town grew to be a powerful and beautiful city, full of spiritual music, home to kings, prophets, scholars, justice and mercy, righteousness in the present as well as vision to the future.This city survived sieges, but ultimately a foreign, imperial power destroyed it and exiled the people who had made the city an enchanted City of God. Although living comfortably in their exile, the people never did forsake their home and their city. The people stopped their music, waiting for the day they would return home to play again.And that day came, and although their kingdom never returned to its former spiritual heights, the temple was rebuilt, and once again, justice, wisdom and righteousness reigned in the City of God. The city was desecrated by foreigners from a faraway continent – but the people rebelled against a foreign yoke and even more, against a foreign spirit that was materialistic, selfish, immoral and frivolous, while the people of the city were striving to be full of reality and spirit in harmony, morally good, seeking to bless the whole world and full of a deep, real joy,Later, yet another foreign invader from a faraway continent conquered and then destroyed this beautiful, holy and special City of God. The people were again dispersed, but lived the city in their hearts and minds, remembering the city every day in their laws, rituals and customs, and in their yearning and praying for the day they would return and rebuild their capital city.And wave after wave of invaders came, crashing like waves of the sea into the sands, until they broke, receded and disappeared; each leaving some fragments along the land that took on the look of a deserted beach or desert.Throughout the ages, the exiled people also came back, in waves that were much smaller but quite deeper, leaving their mark as a river carves out a valley from a desolate plain. Each wave added something towards the new building that was slowly but surely being rebuilt.And the day came, after a long time, and the people who had turned the sleepy town into a glorious city of kings and prophets, once again became the majority in the city of their dreams, the city that once again became a real city full of life, as well as full of visions for a more perfect future.And at long last the day came and the people once again became independent in their homeland – but the heart of their homeland and the heart of their Holy City were once again occupied by the descendants of another foreign invader. However, after a short period of just nineteen years, the heart and body were rejoined and the City of God was again re-united.The sleepy-town-turned-capital-city is Yerushalyim, known to foreigners as Jerusalem, the city that King David turned into the capital and where his son, King Solomon, built the first Holy Temple. Ever since, three thousand years ago, it has been the capital of the people – the Jews – in practice or in religious thought, in practice and in dreams. It is the capital of the reincarnated Jewish State of Israel.Hasn't the time finally come for the world to live by basic justice and recognize Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, as our capital?As Winston Churchill said in one of his last pronouncements before retiring from being prime minister, "You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it is they who made it famous".