Lovers of Jerusalem around the world are celebrating the 41st anniversary of the reunification of the holy city during the Six Day War.
The central event in the capital will be the traditional Rikudgalim - Flag Dance March - towards the Old City. Girls begin at Independence Park, between Ben Yehuda and Agron Streets, and boys will set out from Sacher Park, a bit further to the west. Thousands of youths are expected to take part, marching and singing with flags of Israel.
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A Jerusalem Day ceremony was also held at Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where eight young students were slain by an Arab murderer in March of 2008. IsraelNationalNews takes you there in the above video.
Jerusalem Day commemorates the miraculous liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem, just days after several Arab armies threatened to wipe the State of Israel off the map. Weeks of trepidation and tension suddenly gave way to celebration and thanksgiving.
When the borders of the State of Israel were drawn by the UN Partition Plan of 1947, and were later revamped in 1949 following the War of Independence, the joy of Jews around the world at the establishment of the first Jewish state in the Land of Israel in nearly 1,900 years was dampened by the fact that the holy sites of Jerusalem - particularly the Temple Mount - were left out.
The continued longing for Jerusalem was expressed, for instance, by Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, the head of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav. Speaking to his students on Independence Day of 1967, just weeks before the Six Day War, he seemed to be gripped by prophecy when he cried out, "Where is our Hevron? Have we forgotten it? And where is our Shechem (Nablus)? Have we forgotten it? And where is our Jericho? Have we forgotten it?! ... And where is all the rest of the Land of Israel? Where are all the pieces of G-d's Land? Do we have the right to give up even one millimeter? Heaven forbid!"
Students such as Rabbi Chanan Porat, who was later to be a leader in the movement to settle all of the Land of Israel, said that the rabbi's emotion was so extreme that it left an impression on him forever: "He roared and cried out from the depths of his heart; we saw that he was truly like one crying over someone who had just died, as if he was torn in pieces. We felt as if he was speaking in the name of the Land of Israel, and that its tearing-asunder was tearing his own flesh as well."
Just days later, Egypt placed a blockade around the Straits of Tiran leading into Israel, and preparations for war began. Three weeks and two days after the rabbi's emotional cry, Hevron, Jericho, Shechem and Jerusalem were once again in Jewish hands.
The continued longing for Jerusalem before 1967 was expressed on another level by Naomi Shemer, in her famous song "Jerusalem of Gold." The original lyrics read,
"The city that sits solitary, and in its midst - a wall... How the cisterns have dried, the market-place is empty, and no one frequents the Temple Mount, in the Old City... Jerusalem of gold, and of bronze, and of light, Behold I am a violin for all your songs..."
Just a few months later, she was able to add these lyrics as the final stanza:
"We have returned to the cisterns, To the market and to the market-place, A ram's horn (shofar) calls out (i.e. is being heard) on the Temple Mount, In the Old City."
The song Jerusalem of Gold became Israel's unofficial national anthem, sung in joy at every opportunity.