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The following was originally published January 13, 2010 at http://projectincite.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-in-jerusalem-authenticity-and.html -Andrew Fretwell-

Jerusalem is a city of a thousand truths. It’s the home of Monotheism, the cradle of western religious thought, the powder keg of the Middle East. There are so many different ways to read Jerusalem’s map, depending on what key and legend you’re using. It’s easy to just become exhausted by walking around the streets; it’s not that you can see stories of conflict, but you can feel the conflict of stories. Each story has its own assertion about who owns Jerusalem, what the nature of God and worship is and even the meaning of life itself. Like a windmill turning (unlike the dormant one in Yemin Moshe) you can feel a constant struggle against the tide of histories, passions, gods and wars. And at the bottom of all of it is one simple question, what is truth? I don’t want to deal with even a fraction of the different answers to that question, which would just be an anthology for a philosophy syllabus. But I do want to look at two different criteria for truth: authenticity and relevance, both of which are debated in Jerusalem. Authenticity is consistently a point of tension in Jerusalem. Whose truths can be augmented by historical research, cold socially scientific facts? Archaeologists comb and dig through every corner of the land looking for shreds of evidence to prop up or debunk the truth of their choice. What manmade tool predates Jewish life? Where can we find evidence that Solomon’s Temple stood here almost 3,000 years ago? Authenticity points us to things like the Kotel, Robinson’s Arch, the Mount of Olives, the Dead See Scrolls and ruins in the Jewish Quarter. On the other side is relevance. No credible archeologist would ascribe the site that has been referred to for over a thousand years as “King David’s Tomb” is actually the resting place of the Jewish monarch. So authenticity, it has not. But Jews have flocked to David’s Tomb for nearly 1500 years and prayed, wept, and hoped for better days at this spot and found solace in the spirit created here by the living visitors as opposed to deceased inhabitants. Regardless of the authenticity, the relevance of King David’s Tomb to generations of the Jewish People is beyond dispute, and this makes it true in its own rite. But this is how things get tricky. On the side of relevance, our emotional and instinctual attraction to and dependence on Jerusalem as a place and a concept propels it to the front of our collective psychosis. We’ve tried to match the history of Jerusalem to our own passion for the city. But facts cannot always be dismissed in light of emotion. It’s one thing to say “it’s not important who is actually buried here, we pray like it is David.” It’s another thing to say, “it’s not important who else lived here, we will treat it like it is our, and only our, spouse.” History does not align entirely with this. Historical fact does prove our roots in Jerusalem. But history, ancient and modern, also shows beyond a shadow of a doubt the gravity it holds to the rest of the world, from Saladin to the Palestinians. Archaeological evidence shows that we are not alone in our cradle. The Dome of the Rock is the most visible piece of evidence that life did exist between Jewish ownerships of Jerusalem. The memory of Deir Yassin, just a few miles south reminds us that we as the Jewish People are not entirely without blood on our hands and have at least once resorted to victimizing others in our quest for the rite of the city. And what does this amount to today to us? Confusion, conflict and passion. There doesn’t seem to be an inch of Jerusalem that does not attest to a truth of the world and contest another. This is what enthralls and inspires some, while repelling and alienating others. How do I fit into this? I am an American Jew who solidly believes in the Zionist narrative, that the historical and spiritual homeland of the Jewish People is the keystone to our existence, prosperity and contribution to the world. Beyond what I’ve just said, I don’t know. Part of me sees Jerusalem as the Jewish Rosetta Stone, making sense of the world to me through its idiosyncratically Jewish prism. But, another side of me understands that Jerusalem is also a gift we gave to the world, even if note entirely intentionally, and this gift we cannot and should not grab back from the rest of humanity.