Layers of Changing Space in Jerusalem: View From a Hilltop

LAYERS OF CHANGING SPACE IN JERUSALEM: VIEW FROM A HILLTOP* Michal Govrin The space around me is Jerusalem—my city for over twenty years, since I moved here from my hometown, Tel Aviv, after returning from my studies in Paris. All these years, still a pilgrim in Jerusalem, I have been exploring its unique space. Breathtakingly beautiful, always surprising, uncontainable , and constantly changing: the changing light of the four winds of its slopes between desert and lush vegetation, the changing seasons, the changing years of rain or drought, and the changing history—imprinted on its landscape. During the last ten years, Jerusalem’s space has become the focus of my writing Snapshots,1 a novel—whose narrator, the woman architect Ilana Tzuriel, is planning a Monument, or rather an “Anti-Monument” for Peace in Jerusalem. Ilana’s fictional project is located in a real place: on the highest hilltop of Jerusalem, The Mount of the Evil Counsel. It is seven minutes drive from my apartment, just outside downtown; yet, it stays as a foreign “enclave,” belonging to another space and time. A bare hilltop, covered with rocks, thistles, wild herbs, broken glass. From time to time a herd of sheep, led by an Arab shepherd, crosses it. On its slope, next to the remains of a Jordanian outpost, stands the ritual bath of the nearby Jewish neighborhood , and on the very top of the hill erupts the communication antenna of the U.N. forces, stationed at the “Governor’s House,” a relic from the British Mandate. A desolate hilltop that dominates an incomparable panoramic view of three hundred and sixty degrees. A space intensely layered— topographically, ethnically, politically and textually.2 The hilltop’s name, The Mount of Evil Counsel, is a quote from the New Testament, and looking northwards it faces the Holy Sepulcher with Jesus’ grave. To this hilltop Abraham and Isaac, with the young men and the donkey who accompanied them, arrived after three days walk, and watched “from afar” Mount * Published in Temps Moderns (Paris, 2004); Pataphysics (Australia, 2005). Translated from the Hebrew by M. Govrin and J. G. Miller. 1 M. Govrin, Snapshots (Myqzbh; Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2002; translated from the Hebrew by B. Harshav; [New York: Riverhead Books of Penguin-Putnam, forthcoming]). Myqzbh won the 2003 “Best Book of the Year” Akum Award in Israel. 2 For a historical-political analysis see: M. Govrin, “Martyrs or Survivors: the Mythical Dimension of the Story War,” Partisan Review 3 (2002). Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 386 Govrin: Layers of Changing Space Moriah. And from here Celestial Jerusalem was shown to Ezekiel by the Angel. Beyond the Old City walls, constructed by Suleiman the Magnificent, stands the golden dome of The Mosque of Omar, where Mohammed leaped on horseback to heaven. The famous view to the north crosses the deep valley of Hinnom, also known as Gehennom or “Hell.” At its bottom, springs the Gihon spring, the only natural source of water for the city—next to the three thousand year old site of David’s City. A few steps farther are Gethsemane and the old Jewish cemetery on The Mount of Olives, by the Arab village of Silwan. To the south, the hilltop faces Bethlehem and the truncated Mount of Herodion, with the remains of Herod’s winter palace. From the fountains near Hebron, the first century C.E. aqueduct carried water to the Temple. Today Arab villages and Jewish settlements cover the hilltops, up to the Arab village of Zur Bah’r and the Jewish neighborhood of Talpiot. To the west, lay the dense rooftops and greenery of the new city. And to the east gapes the abyss of the Dead Sea, an enduring deep tone. The deepest place on earth, at the bottom of the Afro-Syrian rift, shows like a long crack less then twenty miles away; and beyond it, on the other side of the River Jordan and the Jordanian border, the Moab Mountains hover. A hallucinating décor that gives a sort of supernatural—if not divine—dimension to the place.3 For years I have been attracted to this hilltop—climbing to observe from its heights how the city’s...