Last night we drove to Jerusalem to hear the book of Lamentations on Safra Square, just outside the Jerusalem city hall. Women in Green had organized this reading this year as in previous years, and as in previous years, the reading was the first part of the evening, a prelude to the walk around the walls of the old city of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
We had walked around Jerusalem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s walls three or four years ago when the intifada was still at its height. That night, terrorists forgetting it was Tisha b\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Av, had killed several foreign workers, the only people present at the targeted location. Last night we felt moved to attend once again because of the terrible war that is going on at present and our need to both give and receive support. Obviously the other tens of thousands who joined us felt similarly and as we walked, old and young, some with flags recalling the expulsion from Gush Katif and some with Israeli flags, there was once again a sense of comforting Jerusalem. Her children have not abandoned her.<\/p>\n
When we stopped outside of Lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gate, the one our soldiers entered when they recaptured the old city, there were three speeches. All of them referred to this war as having come as a result of last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expulsion or ten thousand Jews from Gush Katif. It emboldened our enemies. They saw that we wanted peace and quiet more than our land. And the people of the country allowed it. Soldiers followed orders and with tears in their eyes they carried women and children from their homes\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfamilies that a year later are still living in trailers and tents. <\/p>\n
And now our terrorist enemies have forced our people in the North into shelters for over three weeks. In many towns, more than half of the population has moved south to friends, relatives, and strangers. Today eight innocent Israeli civilians were killed\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthree of them Arabs\u00e2\u20ac\u201dby terrorists who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t value anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.<\/p>\n
But last night, in the clear Jerusalem air, we walked with our people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c arriving at midnight at the Kotel, the Western Wall. As we came through the gate, hundreds of people were leaving. When we passed through security and arrived inside, the plaza was so filled with people that it was difficult to find a place to stand. Radio reports put the number of people there at 100,000. As we left, hundreds more were arriving, and on our fifteen minute walk to the car, we saw a constant stream of groups of people walking toward the Kotel.<\/p>\n
Our pain is profound, but our faith and our will are strong and we will prevail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night we drove to Jerusalem to hear the book of Lamentations on Safra Square, just outside the Jerusalem city hall. Women in Green had organized this reading this year as in previous years, and as in previous years, the reading was the first part of the evening, a prelude to the walk around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsavta.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}