Jews all over the world on Thursday celebrated the 39th anniversary of the liberation and reunification of the holy city of Jerusalem from Arab control in the 1967 Six Day War.
Flags waved and thousands of people danced their way through the nation’s capital to the Western Wall, where live music, prayers and speeches awaited the celebrants at the annual Rikud’galim (literally, dance of the flags) event.
Festivities continued later in the evening at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva and Binyanei Ha’uma, with speeches by prominent rabbis and national leaders and more dancing.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the nation at an official ceremony at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill. “There never was and there never will be another home for the Jewish people,” proclaimed Olmert just four hours after his return from the United States where he met with President George W. Bush, legislators and administration officials.
President Moshe Katsav underscored the centrality of Jerusalem to the existence of the Jewish people in a speech delivered earlier in the day. “Jerusalem is the Jewish people’s ‘genetic code’,” he said, “and continues to be an inspiration for all Jews in Israel and the Diaspora”.
He urged world Jewry to preserve the capital’s Jewish majority by making aliyah and coming to live in the holy city. A report by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies published this week said the percentage of Jews living in Jerusalem dropped from 74 percent in 1967 to 66 percent in 2006. The percentage of Arabs has correspondingly increased from 28 percent in 1967 to 34 percent today. Almost 60 percent of Jerusalem residents – some 413,300 Jews and Arabs – live in areas of the city liberated from Jordanian rule in the 1967 war. Overall, the city’s population has grown by 170 percent since that time.
Despite the festivities, there is a great deal of dissent about the future of the city, with some people gloomy about the prospects and others finding cause for further celebration.
A Ynet news report said that statistics from the report confirm that “secular youngsters who grew up in Jerusalem are leaving the city in droves”, which it said presents “a dismal future for the capital of Israel”.
Another piece on the same website lamented the rise in the number of hareidi-religious Jews who come to live in the holy city. Ynet quoted architect David Kroyanker, who said that hareidi-religious Jews are increasingly choosing to live in the northern sections of the city, “but the problem is that the border continues to move south.” “There is no solution to this problem,” he complained.
Hareidi-religious reporter Yisrael Gliss was also quoted in the report, as was Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the founder and chairman of ZAKA, the organization of first responders to terrorist bombings and natural disasters who also complete the unenviable, though sacred, task of collecting the remains of those whose bodies are left in pieces after such tragedies.
Gliss was blunt in his response to the complaints. “Jerusalem is special and should be a hareidi city,” he said.
Meshi-Zahav was equally straightforward. “Hareidim are not taking control of the city because a few rabbis planned it. They are taking control because ultra-Orthodox couples have many children – that’s just how it is,” he explained.
As to the unity of the reunified capital: Olmert said prior to his election as prime minister that he would be willing to relinquish Arab neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem in a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinian Authority.
Flags waved and thousands of people danced their way through the nation’s capital to the Western Wall, where live music, prayers and speeches awaited the celebrants at the annual Rikud’galim (literally, dance of the flags) event.
Festivities continued later in the evening at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva and Binyanei Ha’uma, with speeches by prominent rabbis and national leaders and more dancing.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the nation at an official ceremony at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill. “There never was and there never will be another home for the Jewish people,” proclaimed Olmert just four hours after his return from the United States where he met with President George W. Bush, legislators and administration officials.
President Moshe Katsav underscored the centrality of Jerusalem to the existence of the Jewish people in a speech delivered earlier in the day. “Jerusalem is the Jewish people’s ‘genetic code’,” he said, “and continues to be an inspiration for all Jews in Israel and the Diaspora”.
He urged world Jewry to preserve the capital’s Jewish majority by making aliyah and coming to live in the holy city. A report by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies published this week said the percentage of Jews living in Jerusalem dropped from 74 percent in 1967 to 66 percent in 2006. The percentage of Arabs has correspondingly increased from 28 percent in 1967 to 34 percent today. Almost 60 percent of Jerusalem residents – some 413,300 Jews and Arabs – live in areas of the city liberated from Jordanian rule in the 1967 war. Overall, the city’s population has grown by 170 percent since that time.
Despite the festivities, there is a great deal of dissent about the future of the city, with some people gloomy about the prospects and others finding cause for further celebration.
A Ynet news report said that statistics from the report confirm that “secular youngsters who grew up in Jerusalem are leaving the city in droves”, which it said presents “a dismal future for the capital of Israel”.
Another piece on the same website lamented the rise in the number of hareidi-religious Jews who come to live in the holy city. Ynet quoted architect David Kroyanker, who said that hareidi-religious Jews are increasingly choosing to live in the northern sections of the city, “but the problem is that the border continues to move south.” “There is no solution to this problem,” he complained.
Hareidi-religious reporter Yisrael Gliss was also quoted in the report, as was Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the founder and chairman of ZAKA, the organization of first responders to terrorist bombings and natural disasters who also complete the unenviable, though sacred, task of collecting the remains of those whose bodies are left in pieces after such tragedies.
Gliss was blunt in his response to the complaints. “Jerusalem is special and should be a hareidi city,” he said.
Meshi-Zahav was equally straightforward. “Hareidim are not taking control of the city because a few rabbis planned it. They are taking control because ultra-Orthodox couples have many children – that’s just how it is,” he explained.
As to the unity of the reunified capital: Olmert said prior to his election as prime minister that he would be willing to relinquish Arab neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem in a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinian Authority.