Today, the leadership of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America called upon Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to publicly clarify the current status of any negotiations over the fate of the city of Jerusalem between Israeli government and Palestinian Authority representatives.
The “OU” issued this call in the wake of statements reported in the press over the weekend indicating that there may be “secret negotiations” planning the re-division of Jerusalem as part of a Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. These reports are at odds with recent statements made by Prime Minister Olmert indicating that Jerusalem would be the last of the core issues brought to the negotiating table.
As OU president Steve Savitsky, executive vice president Rabbi T.H. Weinreb and public policy director Nathan Diament prepare to travel to Israel for meetings with senior Israeli officials later this week, they issued the following statement:
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and of the Jewish People. As anyone can appreciate, this is too critical a matter to be left to secret talks and backroom deals.
For the sake of Israel’s democracy and for the sake of Jewish unity with Israel, we urge Mr. Olmert to clarify the status of any talks over Jerusalem immediately.
We appreciate Prime Minister Olmert’s openness to dialogue with us in the Diaspora about the fate of Jerusalem – in which we all have a share – and look forward to his response to our call and to all those who are devoted to Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish People.
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6 Responses
What do these naive people of the O-U think? That Olmert cares what they think or what they say?
He has already sold Jerusalem and is just trying to bide to time while negotiating what ellse to give away before Shas leaves the government and presenting a done deal.
As the Haftora of this week’s Parshas Tetzaveh is about the Bais HaMikdash HaShlishi TVBB”A and Rav Yitzchak Abarbanel and the Tosafos Yom Tov say that viewing models of the Mikdash is a higher Kiyum of the Mitzvah “VeAsu Li Mikdash…” (rather than only learning the Psukim), the Olam may wish to see:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050320071757/www.jct.ac.il/judaica/mikdash/nm1.html
We hope that the Ribono Shel Olam will accept our Tfilos and grant us the Geulah Shleimah with Bias Mashiach Tzidkeinu and the Bais HaMikdash HaShlishi BB”A.
You really don’t get how it works.
Olmert will say wahtever you want, and as many times as you ask him, but there is no connection to reality or truth.
Israel is a democracy? Since when? Israel treats its Arabs far better than it does religious Jews, from what I hear. That’s not very democratic.
In any event, Jerusalem is, of course, the eternal capital of the Jewish People, but that is true regardless of what the Zionists do or don’t do with it.
It’s interesting that the OU says Jerusalem “is too critical a matter to be left to back-room deals”. I thought that, unlike the Zionists, the true priority is Jewish lives, and I would expect the OU to be far more concerned with the daily rocketing attacks on Sderot and other areas where Israeli Jews are, G-d forbid, in danger than the political status of Jerusalem.
Shouldn’t the OU be telling the Israeli government, “Either you, the government of Israel, swear by all you hold unholy (like the Torah) that Sderot will not be hit by even a single future rocket, or you pay to move the entire town out somewhere else where they will be safe”.
As my mother, A’H, would say ‘is velt henfil vee a toit in bankes”. (You really can’t transliterate these expressions). Olmert has his own agenda and only Hashem will prevent him from carrying it out.
hakatan “thought that, unlike the Zionists, the true priority is Jewish lives, and I would expect the OU to be far more concerned with the daily rocketing attacks on Sderot and other areas where Israeli Jews are, G-d forbid, in danger than the political status of Jerusalem”.
The OU sounds similiar to the GEdolim who are concerned with the pikuach nefesh of the residents of Yerushayalim, and have appealed to all Yidden to stand up for Yerushayalim and its security.