“Our Holy City”

During the first months of 1948, as the Jewish Yishuv and the Palestinians fought the first part of the war which Israelis call their War of Independence and the Palestinians call the Naqba, and as the British were winding down their Mandate, Henry Kendall, an architect and city planner working for the British administration, wrote a book titled Jerusalem, The City Plan; Preservation and Development During the British Mandate 1918-1948. It was published later that year in London, by His Majesty’s Stationary Office, and was 123 pages long, including many photographs, maps and diagrams.

General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham, K.C.B., D.S.O., M.C. (who was the last High Commissioner for Palestine) wrote a short Forward to the book:

I write these lines under the shadow of the British withdrawal from Palestine and therefore welcome the opportunity given me to remark on one feature of the administration here which has been persistently pursued, without regard to politics or schism, by the selfless devotion of individuals of all races and creeds.

The City of Jerusalem, precious as an emblem of several faiths, a site of spiritual beauty lovingly preserved over the ages by many men’s hands, has been in our care as a sacred trust for 30 years. In these pages will be found an important part of the story of the discharge of that trust, of the efforts made to conserve the old while adding the new in keeping with it, of the process of marrying modern progress with treasured antiquity.

Let old Jerusalem stand firm, and new Jerusalem grow in Grace! To this fervent prayer I add the hope that the accomplishments and labours of the years covered in this book may be considered worthy to act s an inspiration and an example to the future generations in whose care our Holy City must rest.

The copy of the book which resides in the Yad Ben Zvi library in Rehavia has a handwritten Hebrew dedication:

לרחל בן צבי, מאת דב יוסף, בידידות. תשרי תש”ט

To Rachel Ben Zvi [a legendary figure of early Zionism and the wife of Yitzchak Ben Zvi who would be Israel’s 2nd president] from Dov Yosef [one of the powerful leaders of Mapai, the ruling party in Israel at the time] in friendship, September 1948.

I have no idea how Dov Yosef came to posses the book; he clearly didn’t see any need to keep it himself, since he presented it to Ben Zvi within months of its coming off the printing press.

One could write an entire article about Cunningham’s forward, but not today. For the time being, it’s enough to savor the multi-layered statement in its own words.