I have the great privelege to guide in the new archaeological excavations in the part of Jerusalem known as the City of David.
I have no doubt that Jerusalem is cradle of Jewish civilization and I'm proud to be a member of that group. I'm not objecting to Jerusalem being the capital of the Jewish People. I believe that this our rightful capital. I'm objecting to the use which is being made of archaeological discoveries to prove our right to call Jerusalem Jewish.
Archaeological discoveries are always very interesting in many ways and for many reasons but they actually become uninteresting when we use them to prove the history of a certain nation, like the Jews. Yet this is what is often done.
I remember reading that Dame Kathleen Kenyon was considered anti-semitic because she refused to define the period of her discoveries in Jerusalem as the Israelite period, instead she called them by the universally accepted title Middle Iron.
For Dame Kathleen Kenyon archaeology was a universal science. For example the lintel in the video is called Ionic and not Israelite because "Ionic" puts it in a universal category. This tells us that the ancient Israelites had strong connections with the world around them. They were part of the culture of that time and they were influenced (in art, literature, religion, commerce etc) by the cultures around them. That is exciting, in my opinion.
Using that universal artistic design as a proof of Jewish origins in the city of Jerusalem to strengthen our claim to possession of Jerusalem only serves to arouse starry eyed fanatics to greater fanaticism.
Apparantly Jews are financially supporting the digs only because they're proving Jewish ownership of a place. This is a very bad idea because its turning people into narrow minded bigots. We must not do digs to find Jewish things. We must do digs to find universal things. The latter is science the former is bigotry and destroys science.
I have no doubt that Jerusalem is cradle of Jewish civilization and I'm proud to be a member of that group. I'm not objecting to Jerusalem being the capital of the Jewish People. I believe that this our rightful capital. I'm objecting to the use which is being made of archaeological discoveries to prove our right to call Jerusalem Jewish.
Archaeological discoveries are always very interesting in many ways and for many reasons but they actually become uninteresting when we use them to prove the history of a certain nation, like the Jews. Yet this is what is often done.
I remember reading that Dame Kathleen Kenyon was considered anti-semitic because she refused to define the period of her discoveries in Jerusalem as the Israelite period, instead she called them by the universally accepted title Middle Iron.
For Dame Kathleen Kenyon archaeology was a universal science. For example the lintel in the video is called Ionic and not Israelite because "Ionic" puts it in a universal category. This tells us that the ancient Israelites had strong connections with the world around them. They were part of the culture of that time and they were influenced (in art, literature, religion, commerce etc) by the cultures around them. That is exciting, in my opinion.
Using that universal artistic design as a proof of Jewish origins in the city of Jerusalem to strengthen our claim to possession of Jerusalem only serves to arouse starry eyed fanatics to greater fanaticism.
Apparantly Jews are financially supporting the digs only because they're proving Jewish ownership of a place. This is a very bad idea because its turning people into narrow minded bigots. We must not do digs to find Jewish things. We must do digs to find universal things. The latter is science the former is bigotry and destroys science.
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