Elie Wiesel: Question of Jerusalem should be above politics
19 April 2010
The Holocaust survivor and Novel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel has published a full page advertisement in the ‘Washington Post’ and the ‘Wall Street Journal’ in which he says that Jerusalem should serve as a symbol of faith and hope, and not of sorrow and bitterness. Wiesel wrote: "Jerusalem is the heart of our heart and the soul of our soul."
"For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics," he added. "It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture – and not a single time in the Koran...The first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem."
In the ad, entitled "For Jerusalem", Wiesel wrote that Jews, Christians and Muslims were able to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in the city.
"The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate, but about memory," the renowned writer argued, adding that Old City of Jerusalem would still be Arab if Jordan had not joined Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Earlier last week, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder also published an open letter in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and the ‘Washington Post’, addressed to US President Barack Obama, in which he calls on him to reverse the "dramatic deterioration" in American’s relations with Israel.
» What do you think about the current state of US-Israel relations? 
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World Jewish Congress Secretary General Dan Diker speaks on the upcoming debate at the United Nations about the unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians.
Rob Mudphud, over 2 years ago
A century ago, the world was of course quite a different place. Minorities, women, the poor, subjugated colonial peoples-all accepted the short end of various sticks, and life went on. Today, try referring to women as the weaker sex, see how far separate racially designated water fountains fly, attempt to talk openly in social Darwinian terms about the financially less fortunate, and see if something like the Raj will go down in the Subcontinent, or anywhere else. So it is with Jerusalem. Jews, covet the World's Holy City at your peril. It's for all.