Are We Losing Har Tzion?
| July 25, 2012People who know me well know that I possess an invaluable attribute as a traveler: an almost uncanny ability to get lost. Of course there are times when it really does help to be able to read a map such as when you’re trying to catch a train. But as many seasoned travelers will affirm it’s sometimes the wrong turn the unintended visit to the place not on the itinerary that turns out to be the highlight of the trip the memorable encounter the image that is vividly remembered after almost all else has been forgotten.
Such was my first encounter with Har Tzion.
The year was 1979 and I was a tourist visiting Israel for the first time. I don’t recall where I was trying to go but I do recall looking around and realizing that where I was standing was definitely not it. Then I saw an elderly Jew dressed in black and with a long white beard (I had no idea back then that there was such a thing as chareidim and that this was the way they dressed) who seemed to be signaling frantically to me. Thinking he or a member of his family might be ill and need help I approached him.
He motioned for me to go inside a stone-fronted building. When I did so my heart froze. The room was damp and dark illuminated only by what seemed to be dozens of small candles. Not knowing that it was a Jewish tradition to light tea candles at the kvarim of tzaddikim and other memorial sites (we didn’t do that in Kansas) I was seized with fear that I had mistakenly entered some Christian missionary’s shrine. But by this time my elderly guide had raced ahead and was once again frantically motioning for me to enter a more brightly illuminated room.
Then I saw them: the tattered striped prisoner’s uniform; the jacket fashioned from a yellowed Torah scroll; the jugs containing ashes. And I didn’t need a map to know where I was. Time and space had crumpled into that ethereal world known as Holocaust Remembrance. I had stumbled upon Martef HaShoah the Chamber of the Holocaust a memorial built by Torah-observant Jews who had survived the horror and felt compelled to make sure future generations would see understand and remember.
And I did remember. Indeed I could still vividly recall that encounter when I was invited to revisit Martef HaShoah a few months ago. Some young people had a plan to renovate the space which was in need of some major repairs; the hope was to significantly enhance the Martef’s presence in Jerusalem’s tourism landscape and spread its message of spiritual heroism. To be honest I was cynical. Much had changed since 1979. Hundreds of books have been written about the Holocaust since then dozens of Holocaust museums and memorials have been built and Holocaust-themed trips to Poland take place every year. Did anyone really care about a humble memorial that had been low-tech even back in 1979?
But then I recalled that elderly Jew and his solitary steadfast battle against ignorance forgetfulness and apathy. For his sake I returned to Har Tzion and once again I wasn’t disappointed. Because as I discovered this wasn’t a story just about renovating a memorial; instead it was also about changing our attitude toward a vital piece of Jerusalem real estate and history.
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