Farewell to Jerusalem

It’s the end of July, and my seven-month odyssey in Israel has nearly come to a close. The semester is rapidly winding down, the class I am teaching is wrapping up, and pressing matters require us to return to the States at the end of the month. But there are still a few things left to do in Jerusalem: an excursion to Mount Herzl, Israel’s military cemetery and the burial site of many of the country’s greatest leaders; a meeting with Professor E., the doyen of Israeli sociology; a trip to the hotel where Mark Twain stayed when he was in Jerusalem; and a final visit to the Western Wall.

I went to Mount Herzl, above all, to visit Theodor Herzl’s tomb and to pay my respects to the great visionary who, by his own admission, laid the foundations for the Jewish state in 1897. “If you will it,” he taught Jews around the world, “it is no dream.” By chance, our visit coincided with the yahrzeit (anniversary) of Herzl’s death, and we found his tomb temporarily closed to visitors in preparation for some official state ceremonies.

But I was not entirely disappointed; I was at least able to pay my respects to former Israeli prime minister and fellow Wisconsinite Golda Meir. (Golda was born in the Russian Empire in 1898 but lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1906 to 1921, when she emigrated to British Mandate Palestine.)

During my time in Israel, I met many brilliant and interesting colleagues from universities all over the country; I even met a visiting German colleague whose mother’s maiden name, it turned out, was the same as my last name, making her perhaps a distant relative; but I was most excited about meeting Professor E. He is an extraordinary scholar, so prominent that I can’t bring myself to call him by his first name despite our formally equal status as colleagues. He was born in Warsaw in 1923, came to Palestine at a young age (eleven or twelve, I think he said), earned his doctoral degree in sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1947, began teaching there in 1959, and became professor emeritus in 1990. He has held guest professorships in Europe and in America and has received numerous and distinguished prizes. He is a comparative-historical sociologist who has written scores of books on topics as varied as immigration, empires, patrimonialism, modernity, revolutions, the public sphere, and democracy. At age 85, he remains as sharp as ever, and the breadth and depth of his erudition is readily apparent within the first five minutes of our conversation.

As if this wasn’t impressive enough – dayenu! – he turned out to be a real mensch. Without ever having met him or even spoken to him before, I sent him a brief e-mail message explaining who I was and asking to meet him on campus for coffee or lunch. I was expecting a polite no or, worse yet, the kind of terse response I received from another prominent Israeli social scientist whom I contacted: “I AM CURRENTLY ABROAD AND WILL RESPOND WHEN I RETURN LATER THIS WEEK.” Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a prompt and courteous reply from Professor E. explaining that a campus meeting was not possible but that I was welcome to meet him at his home in Jerusalem for coffee. I eagerly took him up on this offer, and A. and I ended up spending two fascinating and very enjoyable hours with the professor and his wife. We peppered him with one question after another about his work, about Israeli society, about his and his wife’s biographies. Others of his stature (or even a lesser stature) might have been content to talk only about themselves – it wouldn’t have been the first time I had a meeting with a colleague like that – but he and his wife were curious about us, too; they were interested in a genuine dialogue; and they, in turn, asked us about ourselves and our work. Since Professor E. expressed some interest, I even left him with a copy of my book (so far my only book) before leaving. I thought perhaps that he only asked about it to be polite, but less than a week later he surprised me again with a telephone call to say that he had read it and liked it! Coming from him, I felt this was quite an honor.

We learned one other thing about Professor E.: he has a wonderful sense of humor. During our meeting, the conversation turned briefly to a colleague who recently wrote a new book about the seventeenth-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Another book about Spinoza? That reminds me of a joke, the professor said. An unemployed Jew learns about a watchman job in a neighboring shtetl. He travels to the shtetl and inquires about the job. The job, he is told, is to climb everyday to the top of a tall tower at the edge of the shtetl and, if he sees the Messiah coming, to alert the shtetl’s residents. He asks, does the job pay well? No, they reply, but it’s a permanent job. Just like writing about Spinoza.

My third bit of unfinished business took me from Professor E.’s home in Kiryat Shmuel, a neighborhood in West Jerusalem that is also the location of the Israeli president’s residence, to the Old City in East Jerusalem. It was an article in Haaretz that brought me there again. “A group of researchers and archaeologists,” it explained, “has recently located the Jerusalem building that housed the famed Mediterranean Hotel, which served in the late 19th century as the intelligentsia’s cultural, social and tourist hub in the Holy Land.”

Based on photos, blueprints, maps and observations, the research team was able to pinpoint the institution to the Wittenberg House in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Today, the building houses the religious seminary of the Ateret Cohanim non-profit organization.

In 1867, however, the structure saw a very different guest: The American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by the pen name Mark Twain. Twain, who stayed in the Mediterranean during a trip to the Land of Israel and Europe, wrote in the hotel at least one of the 50 letters that served as the basis for a book on his travels, entitled “The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims’ Progress.” To this day, the book is considered the most widely-read travel guide in the history of American literature.

The article, humorously entitled “Mark Twain and Ariel Sharon shared the same roof in Jerusalem,” went on to explain that “former prime minister Ariel Sharon also has a connection to the building – he purchased one of the apartments in it 20 years ago. Sharon eventually sold the apartment to the religious seminary.”

(By a strange coincidence, around the same time that Haaretz reported the discovery of Mark Twain’s hotel in Jerusalem, The New York Times reported that the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, “may be forced to close because it is running out of money.”)

If I was going to retrace Mark Twain’s footsteps in the Holy Land, then a visit to his old hotel was clearly in order. Given how poorly it was marked, A. and I had a difficult time finding the building, but we think this is it.

The last thing I did on my last night in Jerusalem, after having dinner with some friends, was to pray at the Western Wall.

I took one last look at the moon rising over the Mount of Olives, seen here from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City ...

... and a final gaze at the Temple Mount in the Old City, seen here from Mount Scopus,

... and I was on my way.

I did not leave Jerusalem with the sense of finality that Mark Twain expressed upon his departure. He knew that he would in all likelihood never see it again, that his visit was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Even that was more than most people in his time – Jews especially – could hope for. Generations of my ancestors read, dreamed, and prayed about this place, but few could ever make the journey and see it with their own eyes. In contrast, I have not only seen it, but I know that I will return. And that is an extraordinary privilege for which I am deeply grateful.