During the three-week waiting period that preceded the Six Day War, the most popular song in Israel was “Jerusalem of Gold,” written by Naomi Shemer for the Israel Song Festival, and sung by a young soldier, Shuli Natan. The song, somber and sentimental, evoked the yearning of the Jewish people for their eternal capital. Israeli paratroopers sang the song as they rode to Jerusalem to take part in the liberation of the city.
The battles for the environs of Jerusalem were bloody. The three-hour battle for Ammunition Hill where the Jordanians had an entrenched position was especially hard fought. A company of about 120 Israeli paratroopers engaged the Jordanians in the trenches, fighting with rifles and grenades in close combat. All told, 186 Israelis died in the battle for Jerusalem, including the Old City.
Israelis were euphoric at the reunification of Jerusalem, but the soldiers who fought the battles were wounded, physically and emotionally. Those who survived mourned comrades who did not. Meir Ariel was a 25 year old reserve paratrooper who participated in the battle for Jerusalem. He narrowly escaped serious injury or death himself when his canteen took a bullet that would have otherwise hit him in the belly.1
Traumatized by what he had seen and experienced, and troubled by the contrast between his own grief and the rejoicing civilians who poured into the Old City to see the Western Wall for the first time in 19 years (for some, the first time ever), Ariel expressed his feelings by penning new lyrics to Shemer’s melody. His Hebrew, like Shemer’s, was elegant and sometimes Biblical.
Ariel first performed the song at the farewell ceremony for the 55th Paratroop Brigade on Mount Scopus, two days after the war’s end. He sang it again for the master of ceremonies to record, and by the following day “Jerusalem of Iron” was heard throughout the country.
In your darkness, Jerusalem
We found a loving heart
We came to broaden your borders
And defeat the enemy
Filled with the sound of mortars
Suddenly the dawn rose, barely
Not yet white—
And already the world was red.
Jerusalem of iron
Of lead and of black
Did we not call freedom to your walls?
Ariel later dismissed the song as a “product of combat shock and whisky,” but Israelis understood the cost of war. In such a small country, everyone knew someone who lost a friend or relative. It was not admissible in those days to show fear, and the song channeled the sense of loss in an unobjectionable manner. Even Shemer, angered by the unauthorized use, conceded she was “moved” by “Jerusalem of Iron.”2 Although never as popular as “Jerusalem of Gold,” the song became a hit in its own right and propelled Meir Ariel, “the singing paratrooper,” to a long and successful career in music.
In the years that followed, the song was increasingly interpreted as one of protest and defiance, but this is anachronistic. The overwhelming majority of Israelis would not have approved an anti-war song at a time they were rejoicing in their unprecedented victory (and their deliverance from catastrophe, as many feared in the weeks before the war). The broadcast media, firmly under the control of the Israeli government and subject to censorship, would not have permitted an anti-war song to be repeated on the radio.
Ariel himself claimed he wrote the song as a parody.3 He was provoked by the naïvete and sentimentality of “Jerusalem of Gold,” and believed people should be aware of the heavy price soldiers and bereaved parents paid for the victory and reunification of the city. “One minute, gentlemen. Today we have the Western Wall, but not before we had so many bereaved mothers. Israel, you can now enter Old Jerusalem, but before that, lead shot entered the bodies of my friends.”4
A Maariv article before the war compared Jerusalem of “gold, copper and light” to “Jerusalem of iron, sand and concrete,” reflecting the defensive preparations that accelerated after Jordan signed an agreement with Egypt on May 30.5 This material contrast is transcended by the contrast between the ideal of Jerusalem, the dream of peace, and the reality of war, but the two songs are complementary. In an interview, Shuli Natan described “Jerusalem of Gold” as “a prayer of longing,” while “Jerusalem of Iron” is a “description of the historic change.” The Haaretz headline of 6/25/67 read: “Shuli offered a prayer—The paratrooper Ariel fulfilled it.”6
The song establishes contrast and ambiguity, not only with “Jerusalem of Gold,” but with itself. The title conveys strength, resolution, and determination. At first glance, “Jerusalem of Iron” suggests the undaunted courage of the fighters who liberated the Jewish capital on that morning in June, 1967. The song itself, however, conveys the trauma and pain of war in bitter contrast to a naïve ideal. In the words of another song inspired by that battle, “Maybe we were lions, but whoever wanted to go on living shouldn’t have been on Ammunition Hill.”
The State of Israel marks Memorial Day one day prior to Independence Day in recognition that the two are inextricably linked. With the same seriousness, this song stands as a reminder that when we celebrate victory, we must remember those who paid for it with their lives and blood.
I have chosen this as the title of my blog because I am inspired by the bravery and resolution of those men, and I honor the sacrifices they made. I hope the novel I am writing will one day accurately reflect that.
“Jerusalem of Iron” begins in cynicism, but ends in hope:
Now we can return to the Temple Mount
And the Western Wall
At rest here in the twilight
You are almost gold
Jerusalem of Gold
Of lead and of dreams
Peace will dwell forever within your walls.
That is the prayer of a soldier.
Additional Sources and References:
Meir Ariel recording with English translation.
1. Like Dreamers, Yossi Klein Halevi, Harper Collins 2013, p 85.
2. Ibid, p. 133.
3. Ibid, p. 135.
4. Maariv, August 11, 1967, reported in http://ny.haifa.ac.il/what-s-new/104-2012-03-22-08-52-46.
5. Maariv June 2,1967, reported in http://ny.haifa.ac.il/what-s-new/104-2012-03-22-08-52-46.
6. Reported in http://ny.haifa.ac.il/what-s-new/104-2012-03-22-08-52-46.