{"id":172,"date":"2006-11-08T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-08T11:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html"},"modified":"2006-11-08T11:40:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-08T11:40:00","slug":"question-of-ownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html","title":{"rendered":"A Question of Ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who does Jerusalem belong to?<\/p>\n<p>At some level, that\u2019s the question at the heart of the conflict between participants in Friday\u2019s planned gay pride parade and <em>haredi <\/em>(ultra-Orthodox) Jewish protestors.  An ad campaign planned by the Orthodox <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/network\/agudah\/aboutagudah.htm\">Agudath Israel<\/a> group proclaims, \u201cNo one sensitive to the import of holiness, no one who faces the Holy City each day in prayer, can suffer the thought of the planned event in silence.\u201d  This language tries to claim Jerusalem as the exclusive province of religious Jews, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/hasen\/spages\/784883.html\">even to the point of accepting hatred and violence if that\u2019s what it takes to reinforce the claim<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Those who support the parade, on the other hand, see Jerusalem as a city that belongs to all Jews, even those whom the <a href=\"http:\/\/jta.org\/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=5449\">Chief Rabbinate has reportedly labeled \u201can abominated minority\u201d and \u201cthe lowest of people\u201d<\/a>\u2013namely Israel\u2019s GLBTQ community (given some of the inflammatory language that has been directed at Jews throughout history, these are particularly disturbing charges to hear Jews leveling at other Jews). <\/p>\n<p>For the parade\u2019s organizers, it is important to hold the event in that city precisely because their goal is to assert their legitimacy\u2013not a conditional legitimacy that exists in certain cities and certain places, but an unconditional legitimacy that accepts\u2013or at least tolerates\u2013people of their sexual orientation.<\/p>\n<p>For <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/hypocrisy-vs-violence-in-holy-land.html\">Rabbi Stern<\/a>, it appears a given that the parade is an unacceptable intrusion into the life of Jerusalem (even as he rightly denounces threats of violence against the marchers).  His approach makes sense only if Jerusalem belongs to one group of people, only if there is one kosher set of ideas or opinions about what is legitimate.<\/p>\n<p>But Judaism has never been that way, and Jerusalem isn\u2019t that way.  Jerusalem isn\u2019t a symbol frozen in time any more than Judaism is.  It\u2019s a living city, with real issues and real people\u2013people who have to learn to live together without resorting to demonization and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/parades-and-holiness.html\"><em>sinat chinam<\/em><\/a> (baseless hatred). <\/p>\n<p>No one owns Jerusalem, no one owns Judaism.  Those who resort to violence to assert the holiness of their claims only undermine the legitimacy they try to assert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who does Jerusalem belong to? At some level, that\u2019s the question at the heart of the conflict between participants in Friday\u2019s planned gay pride parade and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish protestors. An ad campaign planned by the Orthodox Agudath Israel group proclaims, \u201cNo one sensitive to the import of holiness, no one who faces the Holy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Question of Ownership - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Question of Ownership - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who does Jerusalem belong to? At some level, that\u2019s the question at the heart of the conflict between participants in Friday\u2019s planned gay pride parade and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish protestors. An ad campaign planned by the Orthodox Agudath Israel group proclaims, \u201cNo one sensitive to the import of holiness, no one who faces the Holy&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-11-08T11:40:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Joshua Waxman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Question of Ownership - Virtual Talmud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Question of Ownership - Virtual Talmud","og_description":"Who does Jerusalem belong to? At some level, that\u2019s the question at the heart of the conflict between participants in Friday\u2019s planned gay pride parade and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish protestors. An ad campaign planned by the Orthodox Agudath Israel group proclaims, \u201cNo one sensitive to the import of holiness, no one who faces the Holy&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2006-11-08T11:40:00+00:00","author":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html","name":"A Question of Ownership - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-11-08T11:40:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-11-08T11:40:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2006\/11\/question-of-ownership.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Question of Ownership"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f","name":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/jwaxman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}