Time Magazine’s August 13, 2012 international edition. (Photo: Oded Balilty/AP for Time)
Following Time magazine’s affable portrait of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu published last May, the magazine’s August 13th edition features Jerusalem as a battleground. But not between Israelis and Palestinians–West Jerusalem v. East Jerusalem. Rather, Karl Vick portrays the city as the prize in a game of tug-and-war between Orthodox Jews and secular Israelis:
Since 1967, Jerusalem has become a resolutely Jewish city, so much so that the central question preoccupying residents today is not how it might be divided with Palestinians–for they are widely ignored of late–but rather just how religiously conservative the city can become while remaining a place most Israeli Jews could imagine living.
Vick’s account skips over East Jerusalem’s occupation and skyrocketing home demolitions and evictions, and goes straight to the tensions between the city’s secular and religious. This “grinding war of attrition” is then presented as the municipality’s major preoccupation, with the author’s sympathies leaning towards the vanguard, secular “New Jews” who are portrayed as resistance fighters hurling their right to exist against a movement that seeks their expulsion. The two teams, religious and secular, are respectively represented by two men situation in–
trench lines etched across leafy neighborhoods of a city divided between Jews like Gibli, who wear black fedoras and sit primly away from women on public buses, and Jews like Noam Pinchasi, who keeps a glossy of Marilyn Monroe next to the fridge.
Both men live in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel. But while Gibli is free to live in his gender segregated world amuck with “men in black and women in wigs pushing baby carriages,” also backed by the state’s ruling coalition, Pinchasi is under pressure from his Orthodox neighbors to leave the area. But Pinchasi is a “full on” man, and retaliates against this “secular cleansing.” At night, he dresses in dark clothing and posts sexually provocative images of women on synagogue doors and cuts down religious markers called eruv[im]:
‘Then there’s the eruv thing,’ Pinchasi says. An eruv is a boundary, a wire stretched around a Jewish town. Inside it, observant Jews are permitted to carry things–a purse, a prayer book–that they would otherwise be barred from lifting during the enforced rest of the Sabbath. There’s an eruv around the whole of Jerusalem, but newly arrived residents of Kiryat Yovel wanted their own. Without asking, they stuck poles on private property and strung wire between them. Pinchasi got a saw. The racket drew witnesses, and he spent a night in custody.’”We learned it was illegal to cut down even illegal poles,’ he says. After that he found a more discreet way to cut wood, a kind of lacerating rope–’very quiet,’ Pinchasi says–but the ultra-Orthodox answered his innovation with their own, girdling poles in steel sheaths. So Pinchasi went for the wire. To reach it, as high as a phone line, he first struggled with a Ginsu knife lashed to a stick. Then he discovered the Wolf-Garten professional tree trimmer. Made in Germany. It extends up to 4 m. 250 shekels (about $65). ‘The best of its kind,’ he says, flourishing the contraption like a saber.
The man is full on. Pinchasi parks in the shadows, pulls up the hoodie and runs in a crouch. He snips the wire at one, two, three poles, then leaves behind a sticker: pirate eruv over a skull and crossbones. One night, about 30 ultra-Orthodox youths caught him in the act and roughed up his crew, including a Hebrew University professor. ‘To Prof. Dan and Noam, the secular maniacs,’ reads graffiti on a utility box near their homes. ‘Stop. Get out of the neighborhood. You’re in our sights,’ signed “The commando of the neighborhood.’
Pinchasi drives to Gibli’s neighborhood, parks and reaches for the posters. Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus goes up on a synagogue door, then on a recycling bin directly across the street. ‘My basic assumption,’ Pinchasi says, ‘is if they feel uncomfortable, they won’t come here.’
As Vick’s narration continues, the battle between Pinchasi and Gilbli reveals itself as less of a showdown and more of scrimmage between competitors in the same sport of building unquestioned Jewish sovereignty over the divided city. Clearly Pinchasi, the archetypal secular, faces pressure from his Orthodox neighbors, but that is all it is, pressure; he is not taxed with discriminatory housing laws, his house will never be demolished and he will never have to move into a cave because there is no where else to go. Rather Pinchasi’s efforts are redoubled by other seculars who formed a house-purchasing affinity group called New Spirit. Together they benefit from the privileges bestowed upon all Jewish-Israeli citizens: the right to stay in their homes and expand their communities. Yet these same rights remain elusive for the Palestinian people.
Whenever an eruv is proposed somewhere in the world, there is usually opposition to it. People argue that it will bring down property values and turn a neighborhood in something like Borough Park, Brooklyn.
And if the orthodox community does not get their way, the usual shrieks of anti-semitism can be heard in the distance.
The Eruv scheme was proposed in the Hamptons of Long Island, NY and lost. One resident attended the meeting and said that that it’s a demarcation line for a ghetto.
Eruv Battle
The US media apes the zionist government’s position that the Palestinians are Untermensch. Any surprise here?
That would be generous, Woody.
Being an Untermensch assumes that you exist, even if you are inferior.
The Palestinians don’t even exist anymore. Did you find them in the piece?
No, so why are you complaining?
After all, they have gone from ‘invented’ to non-existent.
Move on folks! Nothing to see here!
And a cover story no less. Who cares. Seriously. Neighbor v. neighbor hijinks (the way the quoted passage read to me) are as common as dog poop.
They should do a story about what Allison noticed and wrote about here. But then Palestinians are either invented, invisible, or intrinsically violent terrorists. The first two don’t warrant a story, and last has been done to death, or to the point of being conventional wisdom.
Overlooking the big story, in this case of ethnic cleansing/Judaization of Jerusalem, in favor of some human interest story that is of interest to very few humans is pretty standard procedure. Dam breaking town quaint (apologies to Whedon). But you’d think someone at Time would question this extraordinary level of narcissism.
Unless of course this cover story was published to raise this very contrast and question without getting head-on “political.” Are deadline-driven reporters and editors capable of that kind of indirect thinking/advocacy? Probably not, but when you see priorities and efforts this misplaced it’s hard not to have the thought.
At any rate, I can’t cancel a subscription I’ve already cancelled and I can’t not go to a web site that I already refuse to visit. Though I sense an email coming on.
Thanks, and thanks to Mondoweiss.
Skyrocketing home demolitions and evictions, Allison? Do you have any data to back up that description, such as the absolute number of each group, and comparisons with the past to prove they’re rising? I very much doubt it, but would be interested in it if you do.
it’s called google you mindless troll, but you should already know (sorry, i had to feed the troll).
A civil and informative response, annonymouscomments.
There is no such data, because it’s not true. Not on google and not elsewhere.
i repeat, it is called GOOGLE
but to help the mindless among us (BTW i did research for ICAHD the last time i went to israel/palestine; but better yet, i know how to google)
link to amnesty.org
link to americamagazine.org
Maybe Fareed is behind the story. I didn’t check to see who wrote it, but with his seemingly love of all things Zionist based on the clowns he interviews I wouldn’t be suprised.
@ YMJ
The story was written by “The Times Of Israel” staff. They specialize in the fictional Palestinian people.
“Maybe Fareed is behind the story.”
Well, in that case, it’s his swan song. Fareed got canned today for plagiarism. Story at Talking Points Memo. Yup, that Fareed.
Good catch. Thanks
great. i used to consider him a voice of reason at times. then i realized he cheered on the iraq war. he should lose all journalistic income after this- cause we could all do without him.
CNN has dropped him. Now comes a serious, computer-search aided perusal of everything he’s written. If I was in his shoes, I’d polish them.
RE: “One night, about 30 ultra-Orthodox youths caught him in the act and roughed up his crew, including a Hebrew University professor. ‘To Prof. Dan and Noam, the secular maniacs,’ reads graffiti on a utility box near their homes. ‘Stop. Get out of the neighborhood. You’re in our sights,’ signed ‘The commando of the neighborhood’.” ~ Vick’s Time article
ALSO SEE: : “The First Word: A day in Jerusalem”, By Yehudah Mirsky, Jerusalem Post, 05/07/09
ENTIRE COMMENTARY- link to jpost.com
Dr. Izz al-Din Abu’l-Aysh spoke yesterday at Univ College Cork, work precluded me making it, just off to see Hanan Zoabi MK speak at the Gresham Metropole in Cork, second city of the vassal state Eire, the German central banks new possession in the eastern Atlantic.
“skips over E Jerusalem’s occupation” at a time where folks think that the MSM is opening up to reporting honestly about the conflict. Not happening. Another example of how these outlets have shut down the facts, the real debate for decades. How they are helping close the door to a two state solution.
ONE PERSON ONE VOTE
Over at Alternet there is a conflict of issue story up about NPR’s Adam Davidson. Interesting read
It only became a Jewish city because of dispossessing the original inhabitants replacing them with jewish immigrants. This slow ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem has been going on for 64 years.
From Village Statistics (Jerusalem: Palestine Government, 1945). It was subsequently published as United Nations map no 94(b) in August 1950. The category of ‘public ownership’ under the British Mandate derived from that known as miri under the Ottoman system of land tenure. Subsumed under the latter category, however, in addition to state domain, were many other subcategories that admitted a whole range of private and communal usufruct and leasehold:
Jerusalem: Palestinian 84 %; Zionist 2 % Public & Other 14 %.
World’s worst ethnic cleansing…
Do you have any statistic that contradicts an increase of the Palestinian population in Jerusalem since 1967? Do you have anything that contradicts a HUGE increase?
Mondonut what is your point? Population’s rise but the Palestinian population is not due to immigration that’s for sure.
Sorry, I thought the point was obvious. Which is that tripling the population of the Palestinian population is the antithesis of ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians lived all over Jerusalem pre Zionist invasion and occupation. They were ethnically cleansed from west Jerusalem and that ethnic cleansing continues in east Jerusalem right now. It doesn’t matter how much their population rises that is hardly the point. Such irrational logic which one has com to expect from defending the indefensible propagandists.
/It doesn’t matter how much their population rises that is hardly the point./
Perhaps we have a different understanding of ethnic cleansing. The common understanding is that a certain population is reduced within a geographic area. So non-irrational logic would tell us that when the population in question is not reduced, but rather greatly increased, then ethnic cleansing has not occurred.
For you to maintain that despite massive increases in population, that ethnic cleansing has nonetheless occurred, would indicate that you have chosen to accept some obscure definition of the term.
it’s kind of irrelevant what the common understanding is m-nut. what matters is the definition: link to britannica.com
like genocide, it is not judged by the presumption of success or failure, but by intent.
IT’S CALLED AL QUDS.
Nah. Only for some people.
A loved child has many names.
Have we forgotten that Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem. Those that keep holding on to the fantasy of partition, i.e. the two state “solution,” are helping Israel achieve exactly what they’ve planned all along.
It’s also never mentioned (anywhere) that west Jerusalem is illegally occupied.
Actually, under international law, the Israeli state has jurisdiction but not sovereignty over West Jerusalem. Their presence isn’t illegal, only their claim to sovereignty.
Woody, under international law ultimately only the Palestinians can consent to Palestine being divided up and giving “Israel” the legitimacy it craves.
And are the Palestinians making a claim to West Jerusalem?
This is akin to discussing the turf wars in the old West between farmers and ranchers while plainly omitting certain other interested parties.
this is a disgrace. the dumbing down of americans, total diversion away from the ethnic cleansing of palestine with the focus on jews jews jews only. disgusting, shame on time magazine.
Annie, you didn’t notice what happened to the media after Civil Rights, Vietnam and Watergate? After they showed what a regulated media (fairness, ownership restrictions, some content regulation) could do, report the truth to the detriment of the government or political parties, there was nothing to do but remove those regulations and set them free. And that was the end of that!
Time Magazine left Palestinians out of the Jerusalem equation? Does that surprise anyone? Several years ago, Time conducted a poll of its readers asking them to rank a list of 100 people as to their historical significance to the 20th century. They left Hitler off the list.