Famous Quotations
“Never before have Arabs made a capital in a kind
of holy city. Take Saudi Arabia. They have Mecca, Medina, to build
their capital there. They took a village called Riyadh and turned it
into a capital. The Jordanians had Jerusalem, but they built a capital
in Amman and not Jerusalem. I think the Arabs have — the Muslims
have great rights in Jerusalem and they must be safeguarded to the
tiniest little bit, as the rights of other Christians ... We were there a little earlier. In another four or
five years, we celebrate 3,000 years since David the King came and
made his capital of the Jewish Kingdom in Jerusalem. When we came back
to a unified city after the Six-Day War, we were attacked, we drove
them away, the city became one. We didn't touch any of the holy
places. We gave freedom of access and freedom of prayer, of course,
and freedom of education to every one of the many groups in the
city.”
— Teddy Kollek; Mayor of Jerusalem (1967-1993)
“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has
been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played
such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and
consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and
Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in
the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history,
the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal.
This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if
you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word
would be ‘Jerusalem.’”
— Teddy Kollek; Mayor of Jerusalem (1967-1993)
Jerusalem,
(DC: Washington Institute For Near East Policy, 1990), pp. 19-20.
“You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it was they who made
it famous.”
— Winston Churchill to diplomat Evelyn Shuckburgh,
1955
Descent to Suez; Diaries 1951-1956 (London: 1986).
“Through a historical catastrophe — the destruction of
Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome — I was born in one of the cities
in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one
who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.”
— S.J.
Agnon; Nobel Literautre Prize Laureate
Nobel Prize Ceremony (1966)
“Without Jerusalem, the land of Israel is as a body without a
soul.”
— Elhanan Leib Lewinsky; Hebrew writer &
Zionist leader (1857-1910)
“No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, ever played as
great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem
has done in the life of the Jewish people.”
— David
Ben-Gurion; Israeli Prime Minister (1947)
“We regard it as our duty to declare that Jewish Jerusalem is an
organic and inseparable part of the State of Israel, as it is an
inseparable part of the history of Israel, of the faith of Israel.”
— David Ben-Gurion; Israeli Prime Minister
Knesset speech (December 1949)
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
— Psalms
122:6
“In the din and tumult of the age, the still small voice of
Jerusalem remains our only music.”
— Israel
Zangwill, 1921
“Eternity means Jerusalem.”
— Talmud, Tractate Berachot
“For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem.”
— Isaiah 2:3
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