Mar. 21, 2004 22:48 The security-fence paradox By FRANK SHAPIRO
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Israel is erecting a defensive barrier to prevent terrorists from entering the country.
Yet, paradoxically, walls, fences, and barriers have generally been anathema to Jews. The government ordered the immediate dismantlement of the monstrous concrete wall separating east and west Jerusalem in the wake of the Six Day War.
As the walls came down, Jews and Arabs who had been separated for 20 years mingled in a dazed amazement: normality had been restored.
Throughout its thousands of years of history, the only wall Jews have cherished is the ruin of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which is allegedly the sole remnant of the destroyed Temple.
Christians, on the other hand, have become endeared to walls. In mortar and stone they raised their medieval walled cities, elevated gigantic walled castles, encircled their abbeys and monasteries with massive walls, built colossal walled Romanesque churches and reached their zenith with the monumental Gothic buttressed-walled cathedrals.
Beyond the purpose of protection, church and monastery walls had a deeper significance. The walls were raised to keep out the uninitiated; by distancing the holy from the profane, men from women, Christians from Jews, serfs from the free, clerics from laymen and the noble from the commoner.
While Christians were intent on severing and separating themselves with blocks of cement and mortar from their surroundings, Jews preferred the uninterrupted extensive views of landscape stretching to the horizon. But the Church decided otherwise.
In 1179, the pope at the Third Lateran Council officially established the medieval ghetto throughout Western Europe.
And in this manner the Jews were sealed off from Christians by walled quarters within the walled cities of Europe. But the ghetto was far more than a sealed-off quarter behind sun-blocked walls. The ghetto developed into an outlook and mind-set to be inherited by each new generation.
The ghetto weltanschauung encapsulated a talent for turning inwards and relying on one's own skills for survival.
ACCORDING TO Zionist terminology, Israel was founded on the axiom of creating the new Jew and a new Jewish society. This has been distilled to mean annulling the Jewish exile mentality and particularly its main component – the ghetto gene. In a conscious struggle to counter ghetto powerlessness, Israel has buttressed itself with a mighty state-of–the-art army.
Furthermore, in preparation for a potentially apocalyptic Masada finale, Israel has reportedly armed itself with the ultimate weapon – a nuclear arsenal. Israel, in an anti-ghetto democratic gesture, acknowledges that those who do not want to be here are naturally free to leave.
