The following is the full text of Caroline Glick's speech after accepting the 'Guardian of Zion' award.
Glick receives ‘Guardian of Zion’ award Sunday evening from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. Glick is flanked (left to right) by Bar-Ilan President Prof. Moshe Kaveh, Prof. Joshua Schwartz, head of Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem, and Ingeborg Rennert.
Photo: Yoni Reif
For nearly as long as I can remember, the image of the watchman on the gates of Jerusalem has been the singular image of Jewish strength for me. It is has always been to the Jewish watchmen, ever vigilant, to whom we have owed our lives, and our survival as a people.
Today these watchmen preserve our freedom in our land. For 50 generations in exile, it was the memory of those Jewish Centurions, manning the barricades, that inspired us to keep faith with our traditions, our God, our law and our land.
It is an honor beyond measure that Bar Ilan University and the Rennert Center would deem it proper to cast me among the ranks of our greatest defenders and champions. I know I do not deserve the distinction. I certainly do not believe that I have earned it. But I do know that since childhood I have strived to emulate the image of the watchman - or watch-woman - on the walls of Zion. And I pledge that I will continue throughout my life to strive to earn the distinction you bestow on me tonight. THE WATCHMAN at the gates is a powerful image. But of course the defense of Jerusalem cannot begin at the gates. And guarding Jerusalem is not simply a matter of physical strength. It requires spiritual commitment and wisdom as well. Indeed, defenders of Zion require a greater mix of physical and spiritual strength than any defenders of any spot on earth.
Both our recent and ancient history as a people is one continuous testament to this truth.
And it is this aspect of Jerusalem - the eternal and temporal front line of the Jewish people - that I wish to discuss with you.
If you drove to Jerusalem this evening from Tel Aviv, as the coastal plain suddenly ended 25 kilometers from the city at Sha'ar Hagai or Bab el Wahd, you reached the starting point of the siege of Jerusalem from 1947. It was from this gauntlet that the British-commanded Jordan Legion sought - with the help of the Arabs of Jerusalem and surrounding villages - to cut the Jews of the city off from the rest of the country and so to conquer the nascent Jewish state.
As you began ascending through the hills to Jerusalem you could see the remnants of some of the most fearsome and bloody battles of the war. They came in the form of the reverentially preserved hulks of armored personnel carriers used by Haganah and Palmach units sent in front of the Jordanian snipers in a continuous attempt to bring reinforcements and food to the besieged Jews of Jerusalem.
As the hills - covered on both sides by JNF forests - rose to meet you, you passed the Latrun fortress on your right. It was the British decision to transfer control over Latrun - with its command over the road below - to the Jordan Legion, that all but guaranteed the fall of Jerusalem by preventing reinforcements from aiding its undermanned defenders.
Wave after wave of Jewish soldiers threw themselves against the guns of the Jordan Legion in a desperate attempt to break its chokehold on Jerusalem.
If you came to this hotel from the center of town, you may have gone by Davidka Square. There you would have passed by one of the primitive mortars used by the Harel Brigade in the battle for Jerusalem.
The Davidka was grossly ineffective as a killing machine. But between its thunderous noise and the rumor mill, it proved an effective tool of psychological warfare against the enemy. Even more than in traditional conflicts, the psychological aspect of the War of Independence played a pivotal role in determining its outcome.
The Jews, who just three years before had been incinerated in European crematoria, were an object of wonder no less than hatred for our enemies. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, for many Arabs there was a sense that supernatural powers were at work as the new Jewish state rose from the ruins of Jerusalem.
If you came this way from the Old City, you most likely walked through the Jewish Quarter. It was to the 1,700 Jews who lived there in 1948 and their 150 defenders that the eyes of the citizens of nascent Jewish state were turned. The future security of the country was dependent on their ability to withstand the Arab siege. They had to be assisted and they had to hold their ground if the war was to end in a resounding victory for the Jews.
Tragically, the spiritual strength that sustained us 61 years ago was not matched by sufficient physical strength to hold the city.
As Jerusalem commander Dov Yosef instructed the starving and desperate Jews within the walls about the nutritional benefits of various leaves that they could eat in the absence of food, and as wave after wave of Jewish fighters fell to their deaths on the roads ringing the city - at Latrun, the Castel, Har Adar and Gush Etzion - in their bid to relieve the Jerusalemites - the British-commanded Jordanians delighted in our suffering. Arab snipers picked off any Jew within range.
In the end, the Jews of the Old City held out for six months. Last week marked the 61st anniversary of the fall of Jerusalem on May 27, 1948. Of the Jewish Quarter's 150 defenders, only 43 survived until the Hurva synagogue was destroyed by the Jordan Legion. It was the destruction of the venerable old synagogue that finally forced the hands of the rabbis within the walls. After the Hurva was destroyed, the rabbis began negotiating the surrender of the Old City to the Arabs.
If you walked to the King David Hotel today from the Old City, and exited through the Jaffa Gate, you certainly took note of the gentrified neighborhood of Mamilla. Today, as you walk through the new upscale shopping plaza, it is hard to believe that from May 27, 1948 through June 7, 1967 Mamilla was Israel's frontline. It was the Sderot and Kiryat Shmona of its time.
The Jews of the neighborhood lived in constant fear of Jordanian snipers who took pot shots from the walls of the conquered city at the Jews down below. The buildings you passed were once surrounded by sandbags. The Jews who lived inside them would run, not walk across the street. Any hesitation could spell their death.
