A few months before the unification of the city of Jerusalem, in the winter of 1966, SY Agnon spoke at the ceremony of receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature and expressed in three beautiful sentences what Jerusalem is to him.
"Out of a historical catastrophe that Titus the Roman king destroyed Jerusalem, and exiled Israel from his land, I was born in one of the cities of the Diaspora, but at all times I was always like myself as one born in Jerusalem. In a dream, in a night vision David, the King of Israel.
Agnon was born in Buczacz in distant Ukraine, but saw Jerusalem as his home, his hometown, the beginning of his creation.
Jerusalem, the navel of the world, is not only a place of birth, but also the source of the creation and creation of words, the place where only spiritual birth is possible.
The description of Agnon's personal and private feelings is also our description as a people.
Were it not for the catastrophes that befell us in exile, we would all be citizens of the city of Jerusalem.
Not as foreigners who came here, not as foreigners we returned to it, to Jerusalem.
Only our connection as a people, as a nation, to the streets of Jerusalem and to the spiritual gospel of Jerusalem as a source of longing for the abstract, allows the continuation of our life as a living, kicking and creative people.
Since the return of the people of Israel to their land, hundreds of thousands of children, myself included, have been born in Jerusalem.
We are the generation that no longer needs Agnon to portray itself as someone who was born in Jerusalem.
We were simply born into a normal life reality in the united city of Jerusalem.
How much beauty there is in the natural, the simple and the obvious.
And some danger.
Danger to the heart that coarsens the Israeli flags that dance in the alleys of the Old City, but accepts with understanding foreign flags defiantly hoisted in the capital of the Negev.
Danger of acceptance "as no choice" riots on the Temple Mount, and indifference in the face of Jews seeking to pray on the mountain and being arrested.
Danger of forgetting the dream and sinking into a routine that ends in degeneration and extinction.
It is not easy to grasp the dream and reality at the same time.
Walk around naturally and freely on the city streets, between clothing stores and cafes and colorful markets, but do not forget for a moment that it is not obvious.
That every step of ours is a prophecy that is fulfilled, that every step is a prayer of generations that is fulfilled.
Just for that it takes one day a year to celebrate the dream.
One Jerusalem day a year, to remind us that an Israeli soldier at the gates of the Old City is not self-evident, that a girl and a boy proudly waving the Israeli flag against the backdrop of the city wall are a heartbreaking miracle.
Were we wrong?
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