Worried About Current Events at Jerusalem Day?

Can you imagine if your country’s population was all army trained?   If every single perpetrator was found and caught because of the state of alert of your army and the majority of its citizens?  if you took out your enemy’s missiles before they had a chance to even think about being deployed?  Every country is ready to fight for its own freedom, but to what extent are they actually trained and prepared to do that?

Israel is a country whose population has a high rate of military-trained men and women.
So, political decisions and minor skirmishes that would terrify other nations who are not so militarily prepared don’t faze Israelis.  They realize that news editors who write the news headlines are not coming from the same mindset.

The original Jerusalem Day in 1967  happened in the Six Day War in which Israel was attacked and had to defend itself, and in doing so, ended up seizing the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank  (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights.

On that same day that Jerusalem was liberated (Bethlehem and Shechem/ Nablus also), Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared:

“This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem.  We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel.  We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour—and with added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace.  And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights.  We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.” 

Today Jerusalem Day is an Israeli national holiday (begins Saturday evening May 12).  Only by looking at history can one understand the conditions that were happening in Israel in those days.  Jerusalem at that time was divided between Israel and Jordan. The Old City and East Jerusalem were occupied by Jordan, and the Jewish residents were forced out. Under Jordanian rule, half of the Old City's fifty-eight synagogues were demolished and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was plundered for its tombstones, which were used as paving stones and building materials.

Today Israelis are not worried.  We’re used to having to defend our homeland, and Jerusalem Day will always remind us of that.

By Jo Kaplan, CEO Israel Relief Aid