Medinat Yisrael Is Born
255
around and vaulted to safety. This sniper, I discovered later,
was an Arab firing from the Old City wall.
With enough adventure to last me for one day, I walked to
the center of the New City. Foreign flags—including the yellow
and white colors of the Vatican state—were displayed over
church buildings, schools, hospitals, consulates, and even private homes as signs of neutrality. Israel flags were everywhere.
A few of the shops were decorated with blue-and-white bunting draped over rough Stars of David. Photographs of Zionist
leaders were wreathed in the Jewish colors. But there were no
parades; no demonstrations; no firing of guns except on the
battlefronts. The streets were almost deserted, except for
armed Haganah vehicles and civilians scurrying about. There
were no children in downtown Jerusalem. There was positively no jubilance as one might have expected after the long
wait for liberation—since A.D. 70. Jerusalem was solemn and,
except for the fighting fronts, in a state akin to stupor, refusing
to believe that the British had left, and that Israel was about
to become independent and free for the first time in 1,900
years!
The Jewish Agency Building was like a beehive. Middleaged men with armbands and Sten guns clumsily though carefully interrogated each incoming and departing visitor. On a
shop window in Ben Yehuda Street in the heart of the Jewish
business section, posters warned against wasting water, s &VF