Skewed Myths

Thomas Friedman, in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem, says, quoting Ludwig Wittgenstein that "if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you five, that is a mistake. But if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you ninety seven, that is no longer a mistake. The man you are talking to is operating with a wholly different logic...."

As we walked up the creaking entrance to the temple mount this morning and looked over as the charedim and tourists huddled close to the Western wall, and then as we exited the ramp into a plaza full of women in hijabs or burqas and families whispering greetings to one another in Arabic, I thought that no other thought could better describe the split reality of the Old City.

We began our day praying underneath Robinson's Arch at the southern corner of the Western Wall. We then walked through the narrow streets of the Arab meat market between freshly slaughtered goat carcasses, careful to avoid the blood running towards the sewers, and as we emerged from the dark streets we found ourselves overlooking the entire city bathed in mid-morning light. Our walking tour took us through the cavernous Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we watched like tourists while the members of six different Churches knelt at the burial place of Jesus. After lunch many of us visited the temple mount and gazed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. As we left the plateau, both in awe of the Muslim prayer space and somewhat resentful of our position as "mere visitors" to what was once our center, a friend of mine said, "It's as if we're in a different country."

We encountered the most obvious example of dual-reality in the City of David, when we met with a Jewish man who had traveled beyond the Green Line to settle in a formerly Arab neighborhood. While we saw just as much passion and desire in his eyes as we saw in those of the Palestinian refugee with whom we talked yesterday, we heard an entirely different story. We heard a story in which the same facts and the same events had been flipped, and had led not only to a different outlook but a different "logic." Two plus two was no longer anything definite.

In Jerusalem, facts are fluid and myths are all that is real. The myth of IDF aggression against Palestinian civilians comes to blows with the myth of a Jewish right to the land based on archaeological excavations, and the same facts flow from one side to the other in an argument which will never end because neither side can step outside of its reality and see the other.

Our day ended at home in the Fuchsberg Center, where we heard from representatives of the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA). The IEA provides a meeting place for myths; events that bring Jews, Christians and Muslims together in an apolitical setting allow these two groups to acknowledge, if not accept, the validity of each other's myths. I see two potential ends to the conflict we have been studying: either one myth will win and drive the other out by force, or the two will intertwine to create a new future in which both are recognized.

Posted by Benji Fleischacker