Yasmine by Eli Amir

plumes – the few unruly trees and bushes that dared to reach for the sunlight while their roots pushed through the stony soil – and the whole crammed, in suffocating proximity, into less than one square mile.
    I soon became used to the small sounds and rustles, the amazing rural calm, which was broken at dawn and four more times in the course of the day by the summons of the muezzin. I walked around and discovered the eastern flank of the mountain facing the mountains of Edom and the Dead Sea. When I woke up early I watched the peach-coloured glow of the rising sun over the mountains of Edom, and when the air was very clear the water of the Dead Sea was a brilliant turquoise, like a field of gems. I grew deeply attached to the landscape, the slopes and the gullies, the way I had discovered the beauty of the Jezreel Valley and Mount Tabor when I was a boy in the kibbutz.
    Professor Shadmi was a fount of wisdom. More than once I had received a whole lecture in response to a routine comment, such as, “It’s a pity the Old City is in Jordanian hands.”
    “But my dear Nuri, what matters is the essence, not the vessel. Even if we agree that the Temple Mount is the centre, the heart, that everyone wants, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, we still have to consider what is the essence, the core of the place. Do you know the story of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai? No? Well, he was the youngest disciple of Old Hillel, who regarded him when he was still a youth as the greatest of them all, and dubbed him ‘a father of wisdom for the generations’. Before the downfall, during the siege of Jerusalem, Ben Zakkai was one of the leaders of the Sanhedrin, which occupied a hall in the Temple. While the Zealots wanted to fight to the last, come what may, Ben Zakkai realised that they could not possibly defeat the Romans, and he chose survival and the preservation of the spiritual centre. With the help of his disciples he slipped out of the besieged city to go to the Roman commander Vespasian, and said to him, ‘Give me Yavneh and its Sages.’According to tradition, Vespasian agreed because Rabbi Yohanan foretold that he would become emperor, and shortly after this a messenger arrived from Rome to inform him of it. You ask why Yavneh? Well, my friend, you should know that Yavneh was the seat of the Sages and Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai, who wanted to ensure the survival of Judaism, installed the Sanhedrin there and made it the spiritual centre that preserved the future of the People of Israel. That is why I say, what matters is the essence. That is what preserved our people, not the stones, not the holy site; after all, no one knows when or even if it will ever be within our reach. Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai believed that it did not matter who ruled over the stones and the Mount. If he had given in to the Zealots, we wouldn’t be here today.”
     
    When at last I reached the officer responsible for the Mandelbaum Gate he asked to see my identity card, which I didn’t have, but fortunately I had the new document I’d been given that morning by the security officer of the Ministry. “With a document like this you stood in line?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
    I boarded a taxi. The driver, a man about my age with a peaked cap on his head, waited for me to tell him where we were going.
    “To the military government headquarters. But first I want to drive around the city. Slowly, I want to savour the views.”
    “Savour them, friend, savour and enjoy! We’ve got all the time in the world.” His throaty Sephardic voice was music to my ears. Suddenly I envied him and felt annoyed with myself for having flattened my own pronunciation in order to sound like the kibbutz-born kids.
    “You were born in the Old City?” I asked.
    “Can’t you hear it? Right there, within the walls.”
    “You remember much?”
    “How could I forget? The Golden Gate, the Tower of David, Absalom’s Tomb, the Via Dolorosa, the market…”
    The street names were