Politics of Archaeology

After what felt like much more than 3 weeks since we last met, the Dorot gang once again convened early Thursday morning for our first seminar since before Budapest. This time, for the Politics of Archaeology seminar that I, and my partner Rebecca, planned.

We met at the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center, a small building very close to the Old City, for breakfast (provided by yours truly) and lots of catching up. We sat down at 9 to talk about the readings Rebecca and I had sent out, which covered the complexity of archaeology in Israel which is tied with politics and the never ending fight to establish the legitimacy of the Jewish State.

At 9:30, we were joined by Danny Seidman, a well-known lawyer who specializes in property rights, especially with Palestinian clients. For someone who claimed to know very little about archaeology, he was very knowledgeable and provided the perfect introduction to the day. He got especially riled up when talking about the Museum of Tolerance, a controversy with which I was already familiar, but now feel compelled to share.

The Los Angeles Weisenthal Center is in the process of constructing a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, to promote the unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths. The museum, however, is currently being constructed on top of a very prominent Muslim graveyard. Many friends of the prophet Mohamed are said to be buried there as well as family members of Muslims currently living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The Israeli Antiquities Authority has said that it is impossible to avoid building over graveyard in the State of Israel, as there are more ancient artifacts per capita than almost any part of the world. But, as far as I can tell, there is a real difference here. This is not a piece of land that happens to have an ancient civilization's remains underneath. This is a clearly marked, recently used, burial site. I wish I could urge people to do something to stop this injustice, but as the upheaval of the graves and the construction of the Tolerance Museum is already underway, all I can ask is to think twice before paying their entrance fee.

We left the JICC for the afternoon, and headed toward "Ir David." Ir David (the City of David) is believed to be the place of biblical Jerusalem, where King David established the unified capital of the tribes of Israel. Ir David has been a tourist attraction since the early 1990s, and has gained increasing success in the last 5 years. The tours, however, are being given by Elad, a right-wing settler organization that was sub-contracted by the State Parks Authority.

Our very lovely tour guide showed up a 3-D movie about the City of David, which told the story of the capturing of the Old City from the Jebusites by King David's army. The movie's special effects were impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the not-so-subtle propaganda the movie puts forth. Most horrifically, the movie boasted that now that Jews have resettled the City of David, there are children playing in the place where it all began. Somehow they forgot to mention that the famed City of David is where the Palestinian village of Silwan sits today.

The tour took us around many of the sites of the archaeological sites. Many of the archaeological finds were very impressive. Recently, for example, coins were uncovered which have the names of characters from the Bible, during the First Temple period. We saw the tunnels that were dug to provide the Old City with impenetrable access to water, in the case of a siege. But I couldn't shake the feeling that we missing a big part of the story: the other layers of archaeological evidence from the eras prior to and after those of interest to Jewish history, the Palestinian town surrounding Ir David on all sides, the increasing Jewish population in the village of Silwan.

After a quick falafel lunch, we hurried back to Ir David to meet Yoni Mizrahi, an archaeologist who leads "alternative" tours of Ancient Jerusalem. He believes firmly that archaeology has no place trying to prove the Bible, and that archaeology should not be used as a political tool. He advocates strongly for the residents of Silwan, many of whom have been uprooted from their homes by Elad, the very organization that runs the tours of the City of David. His tour was in no ways unbiased, but he provided us with a much greater scope of the story of ancient Jerusalem and the current political situation surrounding the area. We even got to speak briefly with Jawad, a resident of Silwan, who confidently epoused his belief that the best, if not only, way to truly support Israel as a Jew is to be critical of it when the situation warrants.

We headed back to the JICC for our final speaker, Jon Seligman from the Israel Antiquities Authority. He was intelligent and could hold his own, but only confused me further about the bureaucracy underlying this situation and to to hold responsible.

After Jon Seligman left, we brought out the cookies to keep everyone awake during the debriefing. The conversation turned quickly from archaeology to the importance of hearing multiple narratives and about the need to change Israeli education in North America.

Something to think about ...