Dr. Steven Fine, my Classical Jewish History prof at YU, wrote in this year's Tisha Bav To-Go (published by YU's CJF) the following:
For centuries, Jews avoided the Arch of Titus, refusing to walk under
it and thus to give honor to Titus. The Arch symbolized the debasement
of Judaism and the beginning of our woes. This situation was
reinforced by the Church, for which the Arch came to symbolize the
transfer of Divine authority from Jerusalem to the Church of Rome, and
with it, the Divine punishment imposed upon the Jews for rejecting
Jesus. Things began to change in the modern world. From the nineteenth
century on, Jews came to see the Arch’s Menorah in a much more
positive light, as a symbol for Judaism. For Jewish traditionalists
and Zionists, its unique form symbolized a hope for national
restoration in the Land of Israel. The only “archaeologically
accurate” representation of the Temple vessels then known, the Arch
was reimagined as a Jewish treasure and a link to a glorious past.
Jews reproduced the Arch of Titus Menorah within synagogues and many
other communal contexts. After long deliberation, in 1949, the Arch of
Titus Menorah was chosen as the symbol for the new State of Israel.
Bringing the Menorah “home,” at least figuratively, Israeli authors
and artists saw the Menorah as a metaphor for the entire Jewish
people, and its reappropriation as Israel’s national symbol as part of
the “ingathering of exiles” that the new State saw as its mission.51
51 This history is masterfully related by team member Alec Mishory in
his Lo and Behold: Zionist Icons and Visual Symbols in Israeli Culture
(Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2000), 138-96, in Hebrew. An abbreviated
translation appears at:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/emblem.html.
I first accessed this article yesterday (10 Av 5772).
