55 Years since the Reunification of Jerusalem

In 1967, Israelis rejoiced in the capture of the Old City, which brought a return to places central to Jewish history and heritage. The Eshkol government’s decision to extend Israeli jurisdiction over Jerusalem receiving almost wall-to-wall public support. In July 1980, the Knesset formally codified united Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s sovereign capital.

Reprinted from Daily Alert, May 30, 2022

• Why Jerusalem Day Is an Israeli National Holiday – Mark Regev
  It was the national unity government of Labor Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in May 1968 that first proclaimed the celebration of Jerusalem Day as an Israeli national holiday to mark the anniversary of Jerusalem’s unification. Israel’s War of Independence ended with Jordan’s Arab Legion occupying the Old City and eastern Jerusalem, leaving the city divided down the middle by barbed wire and concrete barriers. In violation of the signed armistice agreement, Jordan did not allow Jews to visit the Western Wall and the other Jewish holy sites in the areas it controlled, some of which were also desecrated.
  In 1967, Israelis rejoiced in the capture of the Old City, which brought a return to places central to Jewish history and heritage. The Eshkol government’s decision to extend Israeli jurisdiction over Jerusalem receiving almost wall-to-wall public support. In July 1980, the Knesset formally codified united Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s sovereign capital.
  The writer, formerly an adviser to the prime minister, is the incoming chair of the Abba Eban Institute for International Diplomacy. (Jerusalem Post)
• Jerusalem Is the Embodiment of Jewish Justice – Nadav Shragai
  Jerusalem Day is a kind of Independence Day on which we were reborn. When Jerusalem was liberated, we felt a wrong had been corrected and that two parts of a whole had finally been reconnected. Having arguments to present to the world about our right to Jerusalem as well as our existential and security needs is important, but it is not enough. The focus of our story is our right and connection to Jerusalem and our commitment to the city as a result.
  On this holiday, we must speak of the 240,000 Jews residing in Jerusalem beyond the old checkpoints who do not represent an obstacle to peace but rather an obstacle to dangerous partition.
  If we do not go as far back as King David who purchased Mount Moriah from Araunah the Jebusite, and his son King Solomon, who built the temple there, we will not truly be able to explain our story here to ourselves.
  The sanctity of the city and the memory of its glory were woven into almost every holiday and religious ceremony held by Jews in the diaspora: In daily prayers, at circumcision ceremonies, at bar mitzvahs, in blessings over food, and even at weddings, Jerusalem was never forgotten. Israel’s national anthem mentions Jerusalem eight times.
  Islam, which now demands exclusivity and ownership of Jerusalem and its holy sites, only showed up 2,000 years after Israel became a nation, while the Palestinians began to define themselves as a people just 100 years ago. By contrast, since the 12th century BCE, the Jews controlled the Land of Israel for a thousand years and lived continuously in it for the last 3,300 years. In that time, Jerusalem was the Hebrew capital, but it was never the capital of any Arab or Islamic state. Even the Jordanians did not make Jerusalem their capital when they ruled the city.
  This is no foreign land that we have conquered. We have returned home, to Zion and Jerusalem, and those who return home are not occupiers. We liberated the city from a series of occupiers who abused us and our rights for generations.
  The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a veteran Israeli journalist. (Israel Hayom)
• Jerusalem Flag Parade Is Rooted in History
  The roots of the Jerusalem Day parade run quite deep in Jewish history, according to Jeffrey Woolf, a professor of Talmud from Bar-Ilan University. “There is a very long-standing tradition for hundreds of years, possibly for millennia, of walking around and encountering the various gates of Jerusalem and expressing one’s love for Jerusalem. People would come from all over the world on pilgrimage, walk and say prayers at every single gate, and then they would walk around the gates of the Temple Mount.”  (Media Line-Ynet News)
• As Israelis, We Should Parade Proudly in Our Capital – Ariel Kahana
  Just like every other capital around the world, Jerusalem hosts parades. The Jerusalem Day parade is one of the oldest and most beautiful. Tens of thousands of youths, usually dressed in white, walk the streets of the eternal city with Israeli flags. There is nothing wrong with that.
  The only ones angered by the parade are remnants of the Arab nation who continue to dream of wiping out the Jewish state. That is why they depict a beautiful parade that represents the love of a people for their land as a provocation.
  Does it sound reasonable for a country to ask its neighbors for permission to hold a parade in its capital? Do Jordan, Egypt, or Qatar update Israel on parades in their territories? Does London, Paris, or Madrid receive authorization in advance from Washington for their parades and celebrations?
  No foreign entity has a right to intervene in what goes on in Israel’s capital. Threats of violence cannot determine where we go in our country. Fifty years after the unification of the city and the return of the Jewish people to its holy sites, now is the perfect time to remind everyone that we are still here. (Israel Hayom)

Jerusalem Day: Correcting a Historical Injustice – Ambassador Dore Gold (Israel Hayom)

• During Israel’s War of Independence, Jerusalem was surrounded by a coalition of Arab armies and bombarded by their artillery. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was ethnically cleansed. Its great synagogues, some dating back to the 13th century, were leveled. What the war had proven was that if Jerusalem would not be under Israel’s sovereignty and protection, the consequences would be catastrophic.
• On Dec. 5, 1949, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, explained to the Knesset his decision to move Israel’s capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:
  • “Had we not been able to withstand the aggressors who rebelled against the UN, Jewish Jerusalem would have been wiped off the face of the earth, the Jewish population would have been eradicated and the State of Israel would not have arisen.”
  • “A nation which, for 2,500 years, has faithfully adhered to the vow made by the first exiles by the waters of Babylon not to forget Jerusalem, will never agree to be separated from Jerusalem.”
• In the last decade, religious sites have been under assault across the Middle East. Only a free and democratic Israel will protect Jerusalem for all the great faiths.
• From 1948 to 1967, the Jewish people were denied access to their historical capital city. Jerusalem Day is a day in which that wrong was corrected and Jerusalem was made whole once more.

  The writer, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a former Israeli Ambassador to the UN and former director-general of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.