Published: 27 October 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
NO FIRE IN JERUSALEM is ever just a fire. Given the generational memories of the people who live here, every time we smell smoke or see the charred ruins of a structure destroyed by flames, our minds instinctively travel back to darker periods of history.
This was certainly the case on Saturday morning when I was jogging on Jerusalem’s popular Park Hamesila near my home. For a city without a sea, this l 4km bike and walking path is as close as one comes to experiencing the wonderful feeling of exercising by a beach in Jerusalem. It’s a hugely popular path shared by all the demographics of the city.
An innovative addition to the path has been the many book exchange stations, located every few kilometres. Built out of recycled Egged bus stations by students of the Bezalel College of Arts and Design, the book exchange spots allow the community to donate - and enjoy- a wide variety of literature, from children’s books to biographies, sacred texts and popular works of fiction, in several languages.
Especially now that all the libraries are closed due to Covid, one can find people browsing the shelves for a great find at all hours of the day and night.
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When I saw that the book exchange had been burnt, I was horrified. I could see the frame was wet, and some of the books were still warm, meaning the fire had recently been put out. Who would do such a thing? Why ruin such a special place that is beloved?
After I posted six photos of the books on The Jewish Independent’s Facebook page, they quickly went viral, being shared thousands of times by journalists and residents of the neighbourhood.
One was even shared by the Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, who promised that the city will renovate the station and add books to it in coming days. "But the disappointment from the incident will not be forgotten so quickly," he added.
Many of the comments on the The Jewish Independent post made reference to darker times in Jewish history, especially in response to one of the pictures showing a burnt page with Hebrew writing.
“In a place where they burn books….” was one of the most frequent comments in Hebrew.
It’s an excerpt from the famous quote by German poet Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.”
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Even though no one knows if this was caused by a misplaced cigarette, technical malfunction from an overhead light, or intentional arson, the assumption by so many that this was no accident tells us much about the fears of Jewish Jerusalemites.
In two weeks, November 9, marks 72 years since Kristallnacht - the Night of the Broken Glass in 1938, when hundreds of synagogues, Jewish homes, businesses and schools were destroyed in Nazi Germany, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way - including holy books and Torah scrolls.
This incident serves as a reminder that even though the Jewish nation lives with a sense of safety and security unparalleled throughout Jewish history, especially in the US and Israel, the memories of our past can still easily trigger emotions that take us back to the times when Jews were most vulnerable and powerless to the whims of foreign nations.
I was gratified to see so many comments of people offering to gather volunteers to rebuild the station and collect books. I even received direct messages from strangers wanting to donate books once the exchange is rebuilt. This is the true spirit of Jerusalem, a city I am proud to call home.
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Beloved Jerusalem book exchange set on fire, books destroyed (Jerusalem Post)
Photo: The burnt out book exchange at Jerusalem's Park Hamesila in Baka, Jerusalem, October 24 (Ittay Flescher)
