Continuing its policy of denying Jerusalem's Jewish heritage the Palestinian Authority publicized the claims of an Arab researcher that the well-known ancient Hebrew psalm, "If I forget three, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill," is not Jewish at all, the Israeli research institute Palestininian Media Watch reports.
Instead, Dr. Hayel Sanduqa insists the words were uttered by a Christian Crusader, and have only recently been "borrowed" by Jews and "falsified in the name of Zionism."
The verse in question, from Psalm 137 of the Hebrew Bible, opens with the words: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." The researcher did not inform listeners of that fact.
Psalm 137, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 586 BCE, is part of Jewish tradition and liturgy since then and has appeared in Jewish sources for thousands of years.
The oldest surviving manuscript of the Ketuvim, or 'Writings,' which includes the Hebrew Psalms, is dated between 175–164 BCE. It contains Psalm 137...
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