HOLY LAND ROCK
A dart to Robert Hilburn, one of my favorite writers, for his failure to mention Islam, the Moslem Quarter and the Dome of the Rock in his colorful description of Bob Dylan’s Israel tour (“Dylan Rocks the Holy Land,” Sept. 20).
Hilburn’s line, “. . . the Old City, an area of 200 acres that includes some of both Judaism and Christianity’s most sacred land . . . ,” should have mentioned the third of the great monotheistic faiths and the Muslim world’s third most holy site, the Haram esh-Sharif, or Dome of the Rock.
It is in the Old City, a part of East or Arab Jerusalem, a few steps from the Wailing Wall that the Petty band members visited.
Not to mention the Arabs and their holy shrine when describing a tour of Jerusalem is to skip over the Beatles and Dylan when highlighting the music of the 1960s.
Arabs have been stereotyped in movies, books and television news reports--which brings them great unhappiness--and we don’t have to add to the insults by making their historic presence in Jerusalem invisible.
MICHAEL EMERY
Santa Monica
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