Happy Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim)!
This year the holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem –during the Six Day War in 1967– began at sundown on May 15th, due to the lunar Hebrew calendar date which is the 28th day of the month of Iyar. For more info about Jerusalem click here. *L* KGS
“When Israel reunited Jerusalem after the 1967 Six-Day War, one of its first acts was to grant unprecedented freedom to all religions. Israel reunited Jerusalem as one city in 1967, after Jordan joined the Egyptian and Syrian war offensive and shelled the Jewish part of Jerusalem. Israeli leaders vowed the city would never again be divided.
Despite the disgraceful treatment of the Jewish Quarter and the Mount of Olives under the Jordanians and despite the Arabs’ violation of their pledges to make all holy sites accessible to Jews and Christians, one of the first acts Israel undertook after reuniting the city was to guarantee and safeguard the rights of all citizens of Jerusalem.
This included not only free access to holy sites for all faiths but also represented an unprecedented act of religious tolerance. Israel granted Muslim and Christian religious authorities responsibility for managing their respective holy sites18 – including Muslim administration of Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount. Eventually, however, the Waqf, which holds administrative responsibility over the Temple Mount, violated the trust with which it was invested to respect and protect the holiness of the Temple Mount for both Muslims and Jews.”
