A promise that will hold forever

4000 years ago, one man changed the world. He looked around him and saw a world he could not believe in. He saw a world he could not relate to. He saw a world he didn't believe in. And rather than be a part of it, he decided to stand separately. He decided to stand independently. He decided to stand alone. He believed in a single God, rather than the multitude of idols around him.

That man was Abraham and his covenant with God made him the first Jew - our original forefather. And in the same covenant, God promised him a land of milk and honey, a land in which the Jews would be able to call their own. It was a belief so strong that it caused Abraham to leave everything he ever knew and his whole life behind him and journey to a strange new land, a strange new world, and a whole new begining.

He was a simple man with a simple belief - a belief that changed everything we thought we knew.

One man.

And on that journey he began - a journey we still carry on today - he met many people and travelled to many places and had many adventures. But most importantly, he became the father of a people that still exist today. A people who still live in that same land promised 4000 years ago. A people who still believe in that promise, eventhough the world doesn't.

But Abraham was a man of the future, not the past. So he decided to purchase a cave and the surrounding land from a guy called Ephron. He paid him 400 shekels of silver in a deal, complete with witnesses and documentation. And with this purchase, he established that Hebron would belong to the Jewish people forever and ever. It was a place that he and his family would be buried, to rest forever on Jewish land.

Yesterday, UNESCO, who is supposed to safeguard the cultural and historical heritage of people, decided to declare that deal and void. They decided to erase history. They decided, rather than safeguard the cultural integrity of the Jewish people, to destroy it instead.

Or attempt to.

Because a collection of countries, many which don't even give their citizens basic human rights, don't get to decide on this. They have no authority. They have no right. They have no integrity. And they have no shame.

The UNESCO vote is not about culture or history or freedom or democracy or safeguarding anything. It has nothing to do with Hebron or Jerusalem. It has only to do with destroying the Jewish people, their rights, their history, their culture, their link to a land promised to them 4000 years earlier.

But history is an old beast, and it remembers things, long after those who have passed through it have faded away.

The dream of UNESCO, the Arab world and all those others to destroy the Jewish people will fail.

For the covenant made by Abraham is eternal and still very much intact.

Our eternal city of Jerusalem

Once more UNESCO passed an anti-Israel resolution today, rejecting Israeli sovereignty and calling it an occupying power in Jerusalem. But you know what... as angry and annoyed as we might feel, this vote doesn't really make a difference, because Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish world for so so long, so much longer than any of the countries that voted against us today. For over 3000 years since King David first proclaimed it as our capital, it has never left our hearts. It has never left our minds. It has never left our prayers. It is so ingrained in us as a people that no force on earth will be able to change that - least of all an insignificant organisation dominated by Arab dictatorships and human rights violators who contribute nothing to the world, but continued fanaticism. I was there earlier this year, walking the streets of the Old City, feeling its smooth limestone under my fingertips. I walked in small alleyways, where stories from thousands of years ago were still being told. I walked in large plazas, where the din of Jewish spiritual awakening continues to this day. I gazed with wonder as ancient synagogues rose up again, after being destroyed by the Jordanian occupying forces, who still bleat on about being the custodians of the Old City and protecting its religious institutions. I climbed rooftops and walked upon ancient buildings, taking in the kaleidoscope of colours that greeted me in the most unique view on earth. I watched tourists from a thousand places mingle among my fellow Jews, walking in awe, walking in wonder, walking in the footsteps of history in the heart of the Jewish world. How lucky I was to be there in God's own city, and how lucky I was to be in a place that had dominated the dreams and hopes and aspiration of an ancient people - my people. So resolution after resolution may pass, and condemnation after condemnation may pass too. But they are like dust blowing through the winds of time. Long after those who want to rip Jerusalem away from us are gone, she will remain standing, shimmering in the morning sun, glistening in the evening dusk, glowing under the eternal heavens. And we, the Jewish people, will be standing right alongside her.