Jerusalem became the capital city of the Jewish people in the time of King David who conquered it and made it the seat of his monarchy in approximately 1000 B.C.E. It was conquered twice in antiquity, the second time by the Romans in 70 C.E. The destruction of Jerusalem was a watershed event in Jewish history that began thousands of years of mourning for Jerusalem—including an official day of mourning every year on Tisha B’Av. During the ensuing two millennia of exile, Jerusalem remained the Jews’ spiritual capital. To this day, Jews face in the direction of Jerusalem for prayer and Jewish services are filled with references to Jerusalem. However, there has never been a special day in honor of the city until recent times.

Following the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, the city of Jerusalem was divided, with the older eastern side falling under Jordanian control, and the more recently-developed western side falling under Israeli control. On the third day of the Six-Day War in June 1967, the Israeli army captured the ancient, eastern part of the city. The 1967 victory marked the first time in thousands of years that all of Jerusalem came under Jewish control. It also allowed Jews access to the holiest parts of the city, especially the Western Wall, a remnant of the ancient Temple.

A Young Holiday

Due to the young age of this holiday, there is still not much that makes it unique in terms of customs and traditions. It is gradually becoming a “pilgrimage” day, when thousands of Israelis travel (some hike) to Jerusalem to demonstrate solidarity with the city. This show of solidarity is of special importance to the state of Israel, since the international community has never approved the “reunification” of the city under Israeli sovereignty, and many countries have not recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. (The United Nations “partition plan” of November 1947 assigned a status of “International City” to Jerusalem.)

The Israeli education system devotes the week preceding this day to enhancing the knowledge of the history and geography of the city, with a special emphasis on the unique role that it played in Jewish messianic aspirations since Biblical times.

Reciting Hallel

The status of Yom Yerushalayim in Jewish religious life seems more ambiguous than the religious status of Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day). Following the model of Yom Ha’atzmaut, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel decided that this day should also be marked with the recitation of Hallel (psalms of praise), and with the lengthier version of Psukei d’Zimra (the psalms in the earlier part of the morning service). Israel’s Progressive (Reform) prayerbook notes that Hallel should be recited on Yom Yerushalayim, but not so the Masorti (Conservative) prayerbook, which does suggest a list of supplemental readings for this day. The American Conservative siddur, Sim Shalom, mentions that Hallel is recited “in some congregations” on Yom Yerushalayim.

The ambiguity of the religious status of this holiday is reflected in celebrations — or lack thereof — outside of Israel. While the city of Jerusalem has significant meaning for all Jews, Yom Yerushalayim has yet to attain the popularity of Yom Ha’atzmaut and is not observed extensively outside of Israel.

In addition, unlike Yom Ha’atzmaut — which is a day to celebrate the existence and successes of the modern Jewish state — Yom Yerushalayim can make some Jews outside of Israel uncomfortable, due to the continuing conflicts over the future of the city. Even some Jews who believe that the city should remain undivided and under Israel’s control choose not to emphasize Yom Yerushalayim as a day of joy because of the deep conflicts surrounding the Arab portions of Jerusalem. Others, however, believe that despite the current political conflicts, an undivided Jerusalem is something to be celebrated openly and unhesitatingly, a sign like Yom Ha’atzmaut of Jewish political independence.

A common citation in Yom Yerushalayim celebrations in Israel is a quote from Psalm 122:3: Ir shehubrah lah yahdaiv — “a city uniting all.”

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A City Divided

Israeli and Jordanian solidarity behind the idea of partition would help ensure its maintenance in the face of United Nations pressure to make Jerusalem an international city. In the meantime, Israel took further steps towards annexing West Jerusalem, allowing its residents to participate in the first Israeli general election in January 1949 and instituting civil administration there in February.

In December 1949, disregarding (and in opposition to) U.N. reaffirmation of the principle of internationalization, the Israeli parliament declared Jerusalem an inseparable part of Israel and its eternal capital. No major powers accepted this declaration, but Prime Minister David Ben Gurion was nonetheless confident that it would be allowed to stand, maintaining “Transjordan would permit no one to get them out of Jerusalem; consequently, no one would dare remove us.”  His instincts proved correct — the world powers eventually accepted the status quo, passing no further resolutions on Jerusalem until 1967.

READ: What We Talk About When We Talk About Jerusalem

Between 1949 and 1967 Jerusalem was divided by walls and barbed wire. There were hardly any Arabs in West Jerusalem, and effectively no Jews in East Jerusalem. Movement between the two areas was limited to a single crossing point. Most of the major powers kept one consul but two consular offices, one in West Jerusalem and one in East Jerusalem. While discussions with Transjordan (now Jordan) continued for several years, neither side was ready to make a final deal, and in 1951 the king was assassinated (many suspect that the Grand Mufti was involved), causing talks to gradually break off.  Few Israelis advocated a nationalist policy towards East Jerusalem, and the division would remain in place until the Six Day War in June, 1967.

Reunification of Jerusalem

In May of 1967, following Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran (a casus belli as far as Israel was concerned), King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt — this despite Israel’s assurances that it would not advance towards Jordan if Jordan refrained from participating in the attack on Israel. The Israeli forces quickly defeated the Egyptian attack and then captured East Jerusalem as part of a sweep through the West Bank.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan went to the Western Wall and declared Jerusalem liberated, proclaiming, “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.”  The Israeli public — as well as the Jewish world at large — received the news with great joy. Before long the walls and barbed wire dividing the city had been torn down and the checkpoints removed, and free movement between East and West Jerusalem was restored.

Annexation or Occupation?

Israel was then faced with an important diplomatic and legal decision: Would East Jerusalem be annexed to Israel or would it, like the West Bank, be considered occupied territory, subject to Jordanian laws but under Israeli military administration?  In mid-June the Knesset offered its answer, taking a series of measures that ensured the inclusion of East Jerusalem in Israel.

The Law and Administration Ordinance, passed first, permitted the application of Israeli law and administration to any area formerly part of Mandatory Palestine. Next, the Municipalities Ordinance was changed to allow the expansion of the borders of the municipality in those areas where the Israelis have chosen to apply their jurisdiction. Finally, in accordance with the laws above, the government ordered that Israeli sovereignty be extended to Eastern Jerusalem, with the assurance that, by force of law, “the Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them.”

In July of 1967 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Israel’s actions invalid, and calling on Israeli government to reverse them. Soon after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution critical of these actions as well, by an incredible vote of 13:0. The Israelis also came under U.N. attack for commissioning archaeological excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem. No major power accepted the extension of Israeli law into East Jerusalem, and after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 many nations in Africa and elsewhere, under pressure from the oil-producing countries, broke off relations.

Palestinian Opposition

From 1967 Israel worked, with limited success, to unite Jerusalem politically and administratively. After dismissing the mayor of East Jerusalem from his post, the Israelis approached him and his colleagues to be part of an enlarged municipal government. The Palestinians refused, concerned that accepting nomination to the council would imply recognition of Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem. Similarly, nearly all East Jerusalem Arabs rejected the offer of Israeli citizenship, preferring instead to remain Jordanian citizens.

An amendment to Israeli law allowed the Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote in municipal elections despite their resident alien status, but few took advantage of this opportunity, again choosing to disenfranchise themselves rather than lend legitimacy to Israeli rule. This decision to boycott the Israeli political system would have a significant impact on the quality of life in East Jerusalem as city planning and development pushed forward without the input of the Arab population.

Inequity Grows

During this period the inequity grew, as the municipal and national governments pursued the interests of Jewish Jerusalem, including moves to ensure that Jerusalem would remain the nation’s capital.  On the principle that “[e]very area of the city that is not settled by Jews is in danger of being detached from Israel and transferred to Arab control,” city planners worked to build a ring of Jewish population around the northern, northeastern, and southern periphery of the city.

Construction of Jewish homes was encouraged, financially and bureaucratically, while the Palestinian Arab population was granted very few residential construction permits, forcing them to build illegally or else outside the city. This discrimination was also reflected in the delivery of city services. Despite the stated Israeli desire to maintain a united Jerusalem–embodied best by the 1980 Basic Law declaring that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel,” municipal policy ultimately served to further entrench the city’s East/West divisions, a reality that would assume extreme importance as the Palestinians grew in political strength.

The post Whose Jerusalem? appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

READ: What We Talk About When We Talk About Jerusalem

While we are overjoyed for the couple, at the same time, we remember that this small shattering glass is filled with sad memories mixed with hopeful dreams.

Yehuda Amichai, a well-known Israeli poet, wrote about remembering Jerusalem in a collection called “Songs of Zion the Beautiful“:

Jerusalem’s a place where everyone remembers
he’s forgotten something
But doesn’t remember what it is.

This spiritual process of longing to remember and thereby touch that which is eternal is the essence of Judaism! And this remembering always connects to Jerusalem in one way or another…

Jerusalem in the Bible

While referred to a number of times in early biblical accounts from Abraham to Joshua, Jerusalem has been the central city of Judaism since the year 1000 B.C.E., when King David conquered this small, remote Canaanite town and made it the capital of his kingdom. With the building of the Temple by King Solomon following the death of King David, the city becomes the focus of three pilgrimages each year for thousands of Jews celebrating the festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. These pilgrimages are in keeping with the command in the Torah to visit and worship “…in the place that God will choose, for the Lord God blesses you with produce and blesses the work of your hands and you shall rejoice” (Deuteronomy 16:16).

Jerusalem is a major focus of biblical literature and the likely venue where much of this literature was written and preserved. The kings of Judah lived and died here, as recorded in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Prophets were based in Jerusalem, interpreting the Torah and establishing the great moral and ethical standards of Judaism. The Book of Lamentations, often attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, laments over the destruction of First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. The destruction of the First Temple and the rebuilding of the Second Temple (60 years later) are recorded in the books of Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles.

Following the biblical accounts, the Second Temple period added 500 more years of memories. These memories are recorded in many of the Apocryphal books, such as the books of the Maccabees, relating the events (mostly in the Jerusalem area) leading to and following the revolt against the Greeks in the second century B.C.E. (commemorated during the Hanukkah festival).

With the rise of the Roman Empire, the city of Jerusalem grew and underwent a major facelift by Herod, the Roman appointed Jewish king who conquered Jerusalem with a Roman army in the year 37 B.C.E. Rabbinic literature records hundreds of events, stories, and descriptions of life in Jerusalem from this period.

Jerusalem in Rabbinic Judaism

After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the memory of the city came to embody the hopes and aspirations of the Jewish people within the developing tradition of Rabbinic Judaism. Jerusalem was now an ideal that represented redemption, perfection, and wholeness that Jews would study about, pray for, and try to spiritually experience from afar. While Earthly Jerusalem may be in ruins, controlled by foreigners and unreachable, Heavenly Jerusalem was in every Jew’s heart, waiting in the wings for the Messianic day when the promise of rebuilt Jerusalem would be fulfilled by God.

How were the Jewish people to keep these memories and hopes alive and part of their lives?

Jerusalem in Liturgy and Ritual

A series of “reminders” (rituals, prayers, and special days) developed in Jewish antiquity and were designed to keep the memory of Jerusalem alive from generation to generation, for example:

-Jerusalem is a central theme in Jewish liturgy and religious poetry. For example, one of the 19 blessings of the Amidah (silent prayer central to all Jewish prayer services) reads: “Return to Your city Jerusalem in mercy, and establish Yourself there as you promised…Blessed are you Lord, builder of Jerusalem.” The Amidah prayer is traditionally recited three times a day, while facing Jerusalem.

-Synagogues traditionally face toward Jerusalem.

-At the end of Passover seder and at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, we exclaim “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim—Next Year in Jerusalem.” (In Israel, one concludes, “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim habenuyah” — “Next year in the rebuilt Jerusalem.”)

-On Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av, we mourn for the destruction of both Temples, sitting on the floor of the synagogue to read the Book of Lamentations to a haunting cantillation.

In addition to ritual “reminders of Jerusalem,” many contemporary Jewish practices, customs, and beliefs can be traced to Jerusalem, providing a constant “meta-message” of the primacy of Jerusalem for anyone who scratches the surface. For example, the order of the synagogue service is modeled after the daily Temple service (Avodah) in Jerusalem. The weekly reading of the Torah was established in Jerusalem after the return from the first exile. The seder meal on Passover is based on seders held by generations of Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem. There are many more examples of home rituals, burial practices, and synagogue practices that can be traced to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem as a Focus of Pilgrimage and Worship

During the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the Jewish connection to Jerusalem was mostly one of distant hope, but there was always a core of people waiting to visit and live in the city whenever the opportunity presented itself. According to the Church Father Jerome, the Jews of the fourth century would pay for the special privilege of entering Jerusalem on the Ninth of Av in order to mourn. The desire to stand as close to the area on which the Temple stood established the Western Wall area as a focus of pilgrimage and worship from as early as the seventh century.

In 1099, Jews and Muslims fought the Crusader invasion together, standing side by side on the walls of Jerusalem. The great rabbi Nachmanides arrived in the city from Spain between 1265-67, establishing a synagogue that still exists, the kernel around which the present Jewish Quarter grew. By 1844, the Jewish community was the largest single community in Jerusalem, numbering 7,120 people (almost one half of all inhabitants).

In modernity, the powerful pull of Jerusalem is expressed in the memoirs of Natan Chofshi, one of the early Zionist pioneers who arrived in the Land of Israel 100 years ago from Russia:

I used to pray…for the return to Zion…I particularly recall the prayers during Rosh Hashanah… ‘And on that day the horn will blow proclaiming the return of the lost in Assyria and Egypt and their return to the holy mountain of Jerusalem.’ These were sentences my father repeated at the holiday table. I was deeply affected by both the content and the tune of these words, and the tune resounds within me to this day. Thus I undertook the task of combining my own modest abilities and my best efforts…to hasten salvation.

And now, in our lifetime, we live with the reality of Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jewish State of Israel. This did not just come about on its own, but is the result of the Jewish people’s active remembering of Jerusalem throughout the generations, leading to the deeds of pioneers such as Nachmanides and Natan Chofshi. In this way, the prophet Zechariah’s words have been fulfilled: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The day will come when old men and old women will populate the streets of Jerusalem…And the streets of the city will fill with boys and girls at play” (Zechariah 8:4).

The post The Jewish Connection to Jerusalem appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Today, it is difficult for us to comprehend the impact on the Jewish people and on Jewish life of the conquest and destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. In the minds of the Jewish leaders of that era, the Rabbis, it was the worst tragedy ever in the history of the Jewish people.

Both in national and religious terms, it appeared that Jewish life might come to an end. The Temple, the physical link between God and the Jewish people, and its rituals and rites, abruptly ended. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins and Jews were forbidden to live within its walls. Moreover, the Romans continued their occupation of the land of Israel and their oppression of the Jewish people. Uprisings against Rome were brutally crushed in both the early and the middle of the second century. Following these failed revolts, it was clear to the Rabbis that revolt against Rome was futile.

Therefore, the Temple would not be restored any time soon, nor would Jerusalem return to her former glory. With the earthly Jerusalem in ruins, it is easy to understand why Jews would want to imagine a heavenly Jerusalem existing in all its glory.

The Influence of Greek Philosophy

Another factor contributing to the development of the concept of a heavenly Jerusalem is the philosophy of Plato, as it was understood then. Platonic thought posits that every real object draws its existence from an ideal metaphysical form. Thus, if there is a Temple on earth, there must be a metaphysical Temple; an earthly Jerusalem demands a heavenly Jerusalem. Rabbinic thought is full of metaphors, images, principles and the like that have their origins in Greek philosophy. It is understandable that, eventually, the loss of the earthly Jerusalem would be mitigated by belief in a perfect heavenly Jerusalem. In fact, belief in the heavenly Jerusalem became so entrenched, that the rabbinic mind imagined that Jerusalem had been created by God at the beginning of the universe.

Heavenly Jerusalem in Rabbinic Literature

The midrashic literature from the second century on is filled with descriptions of the rebuilt Jerusalem of the future. Various Midrash texts describe its dimensions, the materials of which it will be built, and the regard in which it will be held in terms that can only be categorized as fantastic. The rabbinic imagination is unbridled as it contemplates the restored and rebuilt Jerusalem of the future. It is only a tiny further step for these fantasies to take the form of a heavenly Jerusalem.

The midrash in which Rabbi Yochanan is cited raises the question as to whether the heavenly Jerusalem is simply a template or mirror image of the earthly Jerusalem or a reality unto itself that one day will materialize on earth. From the context, it can be assumed that one rabbi believed that the heavenly Jerusalem exists intact regardless of the state of the earthly Jerusalem. Rabbi Yochanan seems to argue that only when the earthly Jerusalem is restored fully that the heavenly Jerusalem will be realized fully as well. The rabbinic concept of an ideal Jerusalem existing in the heavens fuels much speculation in later generations in Jewish history.

In Medieval Times

During the middle ages, the most passionate Jewish movements that embraced the idea of the heavenly Jerusalem were often disappointed by the reality. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Jews were able to live in Jerusalem again. And though Jerusalem was no longer a significant commercial or political center, Jews lived in Jerusalem for historical and spiritual reasons. However, for centuries Jews did not migrate from the major centers of Jewish population in the Islamic world to Jerusalem. It was only with the Crusades that Jews from Europe realized that it might be possible to live in the land of Israel, perhaps in Jerusalem itself.

One of the leading rabbinic figures of Spain, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, called Nachmanides, was forced to leave Spain in the middle of the 13th century. Although considered by many scholars to be a Jewish rationalist, his commentary on the Torah reveals a strong mystical orientation. When he eventually reached Jerusalem and found it largely in ruins with a very small, impoverished Jewish community, he wrote of his dismay and disappointment. Clearly, the ideal Jerusalem that he imagined he did not find in the Jerusalem on earth of his day.

From the Mystics to the Hasidim

In the 16th century, a community of mystic Jews migrated from Germany to the land of Israel. Settling in the city of Safed in northern Israel because it was more closely tied to Jewish mystics in the land of Israel, this community developed a practical mystical philosophy that would give new meaning to the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem. The leader of this community, Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught a doctrine that explained how the world could be restored to perfection through human action. He explained that in creating the world, God first created vessels to contain the divine light that give the world life. However, the vessels were not strong enough and the divine light shattered the vessels. Thus, the sparks of divine light and the shards of the broken vessels become intermixed.

The task of human beings is to gather the divine sparks, one by one, until all have been collected. As this teaching began to take hold, it provided a means by which the ordinary Jew could help to build the heavenly Jerusalem. For only when the heavenly Jerusalem was fully built, could it become manifest on earth.

A couple of centuries after Rabbi Luria, a new movement arose in Eastern Europe, Hasidism. The Hasidim embraced the teachings of Rabbi Luria and added some elements of their own. Hasidism, generally speaking, believes that ordinary Jews can bring the messianic age by serving God in joy and by observing various precepts of Jewish tradition more fully. With regard to the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem, various Hasidic teachers believed that Jews could build the heavenly Jerusalem through actions and deeds. The Ropshitzer Rebbe, for example, taught, “By our service to God, we build Jerusalem daily. One of us adds a row, another only a brick. When Jerusalem is completed, redemption will come.” This saying attests to the power and durability of the idea of a heavenly Jerusalem over the centuries. For Jews who never saw the earthly Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem inspired and sustained their faith.

Heavenly Jerusalem Today

The emergence of the State of Israel in our days, and the recapture and reunification of the earthly Jerusalem in the Six Day War in 1967, has for some Jews brought the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem together. However, for Jews who believe in the divine messianic redemption of the world, modern Jerusalem is still just a shadow of the Jerusalem that will exist in the future. Obviously, for them the heavenly Jerusalem is not yet completed, or the era of the messianic redemption would have arrived. For most Jews today, however, the achievements of the State of Israel in unifying and expanding modern Jerusalem is the fulfillment of the dreams and prayers of almost two millennia.

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