The breakup of the Camp David summit over the issue of Jerusalem came as a surprise to those who believed that a spirit of compromise would prevail over the talks. Why, they wondered, didn’t Yassir Arafat take the small leap that an agreement over Jerusalem would have entailed?

But to those of us who have watched Israel give and give to the Palestinians while obtaining nothing in return, the hiatus in the talks provides a welcome respite to consider how far Prime Minister Ehud Barak was willing to compromise, and whether it is worth it.

Yerushalayim. Jerusalem. What does this little city on a hill mean to the Jewish people? Jerusalem is nothing less than our heart; it embodies the wishes of the Jew for a better future, a peaceful future. When Jewish people pray, we turn toward Jerusalem. Jewish law states that if one cannot physically face the Holy City, he or she is to direct his thoughts and his heart toward her while praying. Every year at the Passover Seder we say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” In our prayers and in the Grace After Meals, the only city that is singled out is Jerusalem. Yerushalayim is part and parcel of our very being.

Contrary to Arab claims, the Muslim tie to Jerusalem is considerably more nebulous. It is a negative rather than a positive claim; the Muslims attach importance to Jerusalem only when it resides in non-Muslim hands. Muslims do not face Jerusalem while praying, and the city is not mentioned in the Koran.

Even if there were a Muslim claim, it was lost with Israel’s triumphant entry into the city in June 1967 and its discovery of the shabby treatment the Jordanians had given the city between 1948 and 1967. We are told that by sharing sovereignty with the Arabs, we will have peace. What did the Israelis find upon arriving? Did they find the Shangri-La that Yassir Arafat promises to create? Far from it. Jews had been denied access to the Kotel (the Western Wall) during those nineteen years. The Jordanians had destroyed the Jewish section of the city. Synagogues and cemeteries had been razed. The Kotel site had been turned into a garbage dump. (Today the Muslim authority that controls the Temple Mount is engaged in the same kind of debauchery, unceremoniously dumping centuries-old treasures into the Kidron Valley.)

Is this any way to treat a holy site? Not if the site is not truly holy to you.

By putting Jerusalem on the table, Israel has now retreated from all of its “red lines.” Gone is the unwillingness to retreat to the 1967 borders. Gone is the unwillingness to surrender the Golan Heights. Gone is the unwillingness to dismantle established settlement cities such as Kiryat Arba. Gone is the unwillingness to give up the Jordan Valley. Now, it seems, gone is the claim to an undivided Jerusalem.

In 1979, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt’l, warned that the concession of land would eventually lead to discussions about giving away parts of Jerusalem. At the time, even the most left-wing Israelis said that Jerusalem was not a subject for discussion. Now Jerusalem is on the table.

(Jerusalem should be non-negotiable regardless of external circumstances. But consider as well the words of Zohir Muhsein, Chief of Operations of the PLO’s Fatah wing to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in 1977: “We are careful to stress our Palestinian identity only for tactical purposes, in order to challenge Zionism. The establishment of an independent Palestinian state is simply a new tactic in the ongoing struggle against Israel.” If these words reflect mainstream Palestinian thinking, then Israel had better think hard before agreeing to further concessions.)

A man can give up one kidney and still live. But he cannot donate part of his heart without dying or severely handicapping himself. Jerusalem is the heart of Israel; who can envision the land surviving without its heart?

Perhaps to the modern secular Israeli, having brought up in a spiritual vacuum, Jerusalem evokes no spirit of entitlement. He has lived in Israel all his life, yet does not understand the privilege of growing up in the Holy Land. How often does he face Jerusalem in prayer? He has probably never understood why people deplaning at Ben-Gurion Airport kiss the ground. It may be that our mission lies in educating our less religious brothers and sisters about the bond between the Jewish people and Jerusalem.

As we converge upon our synagogues this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, let us keep Yerushalayim uppermost in our minds. Let us pray for its welfare and its peace and let us beseech G-d to, in the words of the Grace After Meals, “build Jerusalem, the Holy City, speedily in our days,” with the coming of the Messiah.

Sara Levy