The tale of two cities
We Jews go back a long way. Our history is intertwined with the Holy Land, with times of greater closeness and times of greater distance.
The movement to unite us with the land has, as Zvi Werblowsky said, a name that features a city.
Zionism is the vision of Zion. Zion is Jerusalem, two names for the one city.
Isaiah said, “Out of Zion will come Torah, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”. Yehudah HaLevi said, “Zion, will you not ask about the well-being of your exiles?” The Siddur says: “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion”.
This is not just nationalism. Nations who try to eliminate us face bigger odds than they imagined: not field-marshals or fire power, not armies but the Lord of Hosts, not weapons but the Divine Word.
Tell that to the United Nations and they say they have no time for dreamers, but it was dreams that created the UN itself.
As the poet says, breathes there a man with soul so dead that he can’t see that Zion is not just bricks and mortar but mystique and poetry?
Cut our city in two and you cut our heart.