The Law & the Right of Return

Ps. 87:5

Do we belong to the place where we were born and/or does belonging exceed geo-politics?  Poets like Darwish and authors like Agnon echo the ancient poet of the psalms today to reimagine what it means to come home.

Way before it became a complicated and dirty word in the west, associated with some of the worst ways to be a human in our messy world, Zionist was a concept that echoed the deepest sense of yearning for safety and wishing to belong to the sacred, to be at home in the world. 

For generations of Jewish exiles, our ancestors, Zion was code for a dream of return to the original homeland. In recent and current generations that dream has once again become a reality - and for many others -- a nightmare. 

Zion was once the name of a small hill in the city known by many names including ‘Jerusalem’, before it became the name of that capital city, associated with the nation that surrounds it, the land, and the legend of the holy land as homeland. 

Modern politics created Zionism in response to persecution and nationalistic ideals and nowadays many are wondering how to balance the ancient yearning with the contemporary complexities, what will help all the people who call those hills home live in dignity and peace, regardless of their histories or religious narratives. 

One of the core elements of discord in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the notion of return to the land: Who is invited back? Who is forbidden? 

The Palestinian Right of Return butts heads with Israel’s Law of Return in a tragic battle that is taking a terrible toll on the lives and hopes of too many people.  

But it does not have to be this way. 

How did we get here? 

One of the stepping stones towards the path that paved the Zionist agenda is in todays’ psalm - a poetic sentiment about belonging and the centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish identity that over time became a core tenet of aspiration and belief. At the heart of this chapter is the drastic notion that all Jews and even all people - call Zion their birthplace, their original home:

וּ֥לְצִיּ֨וֹן ׀ יֵאָמַ֗ר אִ֣ישׁ וְ֭אִישׁ יֻלַּד־בָּ֑הּ וְה֖וּא יְכוֹנְנֶ֣הָ עֶלְיֽוֹן׃

Indeed, it shall be said of Zion,

“They were all born there.”

It is the Most High who will preserve it.

Ps. 87:5

For countless Jews born in the diaspora these words were prooftext and confirmation that even if they never set foot there - the land of Israel was their home. In recent years, some rabbis have called this psalm "the moral basis for the Law of Return." 

Psalm 87 was quoted by one of Israel’s most revered authors, Shai Agnon, during his acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966: 

"As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But I always regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem. In a dream, in a vision of the night, I saw myself standing with my brother-Levites in the Holy Temple, singing with them the songs of David, King of Israel, melodies such as no ear has heard since the day our city was destroyed and its people went into exile.

I suspect that the angels in charge of the Shrine of Music, fearful lest I sing in wakefulness what I had sung in dream, made me forget by day what I had sung at night; for if my brethren, the sons of my people, were to hear, they would be unable to bear their grief over the happiness they have lost. To console me for having prevented me from singing with my mouth, they enable me to compose songs in writing."

Agnon’s words resonate today, transcending time and space to hold the hollow echoes of the eternal story that is Jerusalem. 

His words meet those of another national bard, dreaming in the same city. 

Mahmoud Darwish's poem "In Jerusalem" gives this to the Palestinian roots of the same holy hill and sacred city: 

“In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing the history of the holy ... ascending to heaven and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love and peace are holy and are coming to town.”

Whatever the poet of the Psalms meant 2,500 or so years ago, the yearning for homeland, safety and belonging lingers on through the words of other poets and dreamers, authors and simple people who just want to feel at home. There are solutions for the sharing of our homeland and the visions that will get beyond the violent either/or to embrace the return and rebuilding of all who call this land their dream of home and hope.

When will our poets step in instead of failed politicians to help the prophets plan the policies of return and repair of our shared home upon this sacred earth? 

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