JERUSALEM — In one of several highly symbolic measures of solidarity with the American people and the people of New York following last week’s terror attacks, Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road has been temporarily renamed New York Street.
“Of all the people of the world, the people of Jerusalem can perhaps feel deeper than any other people of the world what New Yorkers are going through now,” said Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who initiated the move. “We who have been through these terrible pains know from our own experience what is crossing the minds of the people of the U.S. in general and the people of New York in particular.
“No country has manifested its support and friendship for the state of Israel more than the U.S., and none more than the city of New York. No mayor in the world has shown greater support for Israel and Jerusalem than Mayor [Rudolph] Giuliani.”
Olmert spoke at the ceremony, which included a live telephone conference call with Giuliani that was beamed through the square for the benefit of the crowd of dignitaries.
The guest list included U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer and his wife, Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy, and leading religious leaders from the city’s Christian and Muslim communities.
Olmert told Giuliani that the ceremony was an “expression of our love, sympathy and admiration for the people of U.S. and New York,” while the New York mayor recalled how he visited Jerusalem at the very time it was undergoing a mass wave of terror. In a show of solidarity, Giuliani said he had rode the city’s No. 18 bus that had been hit by a double terror attack in the winter of 1996.
“I remember being amazed at the time at the spirit of the people of Israel and their determination and courage to go on, and I’m sensing that very same feeling right now here in New York,” Giuliani said.
“The past five days we have been living through a nightmare that we could never have imagined,” said Kurtzer. “We pledge to you that just as you stand by us at our time of need, we will stand by you and remain allies in the fight against evil.”
Kurtzer said the common enemy of Christians, Jews and Muslims both in the United States and Israel is “this evil which seeks to undercut everything our two countries stand for.”
The ambassador noted that Sunday’s ceremony was just one in a series of similar symbolic events, including the temporary renaming of Rehov Kaplan in Tel Aviv to Pentagon Street.
The ambassador and Olmert unveiled the plaque of the dark blue street sign in Hebrew, English and Arabic that read “New York Street,” one of 20 that have already gone up across the downtown streets.