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Okumene in Jerusalem
Rudolp Ppisterer

Summarized by Marie-Noelle De Baillehache

The article of which the following is a resumé was published in Theologie der Gegenwart, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1982). Dr. Pfisterer is a theologian residing at Schwdbisch Hall, West Germany, who writes on themes concerning Jewish-Christian relations. In the article in question the author has examined the present situation of Jerusalem and its possibilities for becoming the "city of peace" which its name implies.

For Zion's Sake...
Two quotations from the Prophet Isaiah inspire the reflection that we should speak not only about Jerusalem, but to Jerusalem:
"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem's sake I will not test,
until her vindication goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch."
Isaiah 62:1

And

"speak tenderly to Jerusalem"
Isaiah 40:2

The author introduces his subject with a brief survey of the divisions that tear the city, beginning with the terrible memories left in the minds of both Jews and Moslems by the atrocities of the Crusades. The first step to be taken is to build up confidence, not only among Jews, Christians and Moslems, but also among Christians of the different confessions whose animosities have been so much in evidence at the Holy Sepulchre, for example, for centuries.

Uniqueness of Jerusalem
That being said, Dr. Pfisterer notes that the Living God entered into the history of humanity through the Jewish people, hence the center of the Jewish people, the country of Israel and its centre in Jerusalem — Zion, is no small matter as all the members of the people of God reflect together.
Turning then to what Jerusalem means for the Jews of the whose world, Dr. Pfisterer develops what he calls the "irreplaceability of Jerusalem".
"Oikumene' at Jerusalem should take account of the fact that this city is, for the Jewish people and Judaism, non-interchangeable. Unless we understand what this means and study the question at depth, we risk making a premature and superficial judgment on declarations emanating from the centre of Jerusalem."

Next Year in Jerusalem!
The author recalls the age-old wish, showing the place Jerusalem holds in Jewish Passover liturgy: Next Year in Jerusalem!, indicating thus what the holy city has meant all through centuries of exile and which, by dint of repetition of the wish, has kept the hope of return alive.
What is involved here is God's dealings with the Test of humankind. The tie which binds God to this city does not happen anywhere else. The Jewish people clings unshakably to this choice of God, seeing in it a teaching of faith and themselves as a destined community.
This conviction and hope have sustained them all through the long years of their exile and diaspora right down to our own days when they have been able to create their sovereign state whose central point and heart is Zion. There are thus two aspects to be considered which make this city non-interchangeable: the religious and the national. They are so intimately linked that one cannot be separated from the other.

Special Character of the Holy City
In the opinion of André Neher, the city is from now on more than a symbol of irreplaceability; it is rather a crystal whose thousand multitudinous facets help to express what cannot be replaced once it has existed. Prof. Werblowsky of the Hebrew University does not hesitate to affirm that Jerusalem and Zion, while being geographical terms, are much more, since they are the dwelling place of the Name, of Him who presides over a historical existence and its continuity. Such an existence has a religious dimension for a religious Jew, a dimension which, for a secular Jew, fails to fit into a secular pattern. Thus the Jewish national movement does not take its name from a country or a people, but from a city — the city of Zion. The national anthem of this movement which became the State of Israel — the Ha-Tikvah — sings of this turning towards Zion and of the millenial hope of "a return to the land, Zion and Jerusalem", illustrating thus that faith and community are one and that it is impossible for Israel, with Jerusalem as its center, to become simply a nation like any other.

This link between belief and people is not a creation of a people but a quality which belongs to it, because the Living God Himself chose this people and Jerusalem as the place of His dwelling, confiding to Israel the mission to be among the nations as the witness and the bearer of his concern for all peoples. In 1975 when Yitzhak Rabin, as Prime Minister, addressed the delegates of the Wold Jewish Congress, he said:
"Everything that we are, everything that Judaism has undertaken, flows from one single Name which is both a material reality and a moral belief: Jerusalem, Zion. Here we find the spiritual heart of our existence as Jews."

Holy City vs Holy Places
Dr. Pfisterer then west on to study the distinction between Holy City and Holy Places.
The love which the Jewish people bear to the city of Jerusalem is first and foremost to the living sign of the unity of the people and as the symbol of the ingathering of the exiles. The messianic accent which is revealed explicitly includes the notion that this holy city is both the dwelling place for men and their meeting place. In contrast, Christianity and Islam are interested primarily in holy places, with Christians placing different emphases according to their different denominations. By going on pilgrimage to holy places, we go back into the past, inning the risk of turning these places into sacred museums. The holy city, with Zion as its center, looks forward rather to the future, proclaiming thus a teaching which refers to all peoples as we read in Isaiah 2:2-4.
To this should be added the fact that Jerusalem as a whole has never been chosen as the seat of government, neither in antiquity nor in the period of Arab domination; these have been rather Antioch, Damascus, Ramleh. In 1948, when Jordan was in possession of the old city of Jerusalem, Amman was in fact the capital of the kingdom.
How then can we finish with the discord and the secular hatred which prevent Jerusalem becoming a city of peace? Should we not try to distinguish clearly the ties which bind the three communities of Abrahamic faith to the holy city?
As has been stated already, the whole city is, for Jews, at the very heart of their existence, a situation which goes back to long before the birth of Christianity and Islam. At the time of the Babylonian captivity, five hundred years before our era, did not the psalmist proclaim:
"If I forget you, O Jerusalem,...
let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Psalm 137:5,6

Challenge to Christianity
Christian concern is much more centered on holy places. 12 should be noted, however, that an increasing number, and not only Protestants, are raising their voices to ask that their importance be relativized. An exaggerated insistence on them risks making us lese sight of the heavenly Jerusalem as the Book of Revelations presents it to us. The late Dr. Douglas Young, who founded the American Institute of Holyland Studies, used to say:
"In our tradition, we do not look on the holy places as sacred in themselves, but rather at the holiness of the events which took place there. Thus, according to our way of thinking, Jerusalem is not a holy city."
Fr. Bernard Dupuy, Secretary of the French Episcopal Commission for Relations with Judaism, speaks in the same vein when he criticizes the importance given to holy places:
"Jerusalem is an encounter with a city and not only with holy places. The Christian holy places were the creation of the Empress Helena and their individual sites are nothing more than a calling to mind...
He makes it clear that Christian devotion should be above holy places because he fears more and more that they act only as a screen, linked as they are with the history of a long Christian presence in the holy land which is more apt to obscure the beginnings of Christianity than to throw light on them.

Jerusalem and Islam
As to what concerns Islam's claims on Jerusalem, they seem to be of a more recent date; Moslems who pray on the esplanade of the Temple turn towards Mecca. The Koran makes no mention of Jerusalem and, according to tradition, Islam's only link with the city is Mahomet's ascension into heaven from the Temple esplanade. Under the rule of the Hashemite Kingdom, the whole Jewish
Quarter of the Old City was systematically demolished, its centuries? old synagogues reduced to ashes.
Arab hostility against Jews goes back a long way. Under Islamic domination the "people of the book" (Jews and Christians), benefiting as they did from the statute of "dhimmis" or protection, were not able, in fast, to have any equality with the adherents of Islam.

Signs of Hope
Despite all these handicaps, Dr. Pfisterer wishes to see the .possibility of taking some steps towards mutual understanding, and places his hopes in those groups that are active in this field in Jerusalem, such as the Rainbow Group, the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity, in centers such as Isaiah House of the Dominican Fathers, in the houses of the Sisters of Sion and others.
These attempts at mutual understanding on the level of daily life are, in the author's opinion, capable of being imitated by others. To quote Fr. Marcel Dubois, 02.:
"The status of Jerusalem is visibly, both symbolically and in reality, the key to the equilibrium of the Near East and perhaps of the whole world."