Rabbi Kalisher spoke of the redemption of the Jewish people to the land of Israel as a process
Rabbi Kalisher spoke of the redemption of the Jewish people to the land of Israel as a process. Rabbi Kalisher encouraged his fellow Jews to engage in agriculture. At that time Moses Hess from Germany wrote “Rome and Jerusalem,” which spoke of Jewish Statehood in the face of the rising tide of assimilation and anti-Semitism in Germany. While each author produced a following, and Rabbi Kalisher along with other prominent Rabbis formed a society to resettle Jews in the Land of Israel, the years following these publications were sluggish for the early Zionists. Jews in Eastern Europe were not ready to organize a mass takeover of the Holy Land. Furthermore, the land was under Ottoman-Turkish control which did not bode well for the Zionists. The Jews of ‘enlightened’ Western Europe were not particularly interested at all in the whole notion of Jewish Statehood. Those secular Jews in Eastern Europe, the Maskilim, were dreaming and striving to create a new Russia granting equality to all its inhabitants including the Jews. Those dreams did not include Jewish statehood in the Land of Israel.
On March 13, 1881, the assassinated of Czar Alexander II would change the status quo. One month later, the first of many pogroms broke out in the Ukrainian city of Elizabethgrad. The government then enacted oppressive laws against the Jewish community known as the May Laws. The dreams of Maskilim were shattered as Russia had disappointed those who dreamed of equality within the Czarist Empire. Some sought refuge in the Western nations and emigrated. Others became more radical and joined up with revolutionary movements.
A minority came to a different conclusion. They surmised that they that as Jews, they would never truly be accepted in their host nations and they turned their energies toward a national Jewish return to Zion. BILU, Beit Yaakov Lechu V’Nelchah, ‘House of Jacob Arise and Go” initiated the first wave of Aliyah in 1881. Authors like Max Nordau, and Leo Pinsker spread the message of Zionism.
Fourteen years later, journalist Theodore Herzl after he attended the Dreyfus trial in Paris drew a similar conclusion. He jumped aboard the Zionist enterprise helping to organize the first Zionist congress held in Basle Switzerland in 1897. The brutal pogroms of Kishinev in 1904, the horrors of World War I, all bolstered the Zionist movement. Between 1930 and 1939, over 200,000 Jews arrived in the Land of Israel most of whom were refugees from Nazi Germany. By 1939, there were a several hundred thousand in the Land of Israel. Alongside the Zionist enterprise was the Mizrachi religious Zionists who were also an integral part of the movement.
By 1948, there were 600,000 Jews in the newly declared state of Israel. The newly formed Knesset soon established the Law of Return granting sanctuary to any Jew, thus fulfilling the dreams of those who clung to the Zionist dream. But an essential component was missing During the War of Independence; valiant efforts by the Haganah to hold on to the Old City of Jerusalem did not succeed. For the next nineteen years, in one of the rare occurrences in Jewish history- Jews were barred from Old Jerusalem, which fell to the Jordanians.
While Jews naturally dreamed of returning to Jerusalem, the first concern of the newly established state was to survive.
In 1967, events of history would once again force the Jews into action.
Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser expelled UN peacekeeping troops from the Sinai. Once again, as he had done in 1956, Nasser blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. Every day the blockade continued worked in Nasser’s favor. The UN had failed to act.
At that time, Arab leaders were clamoring for the destruction of Israel. In the newspapers, on the radio, calls for Israel’s demise were constant. One PLO leader Achmed Shukiary on the first of June from Amman, Jordan, reportedly predicted that after the coming war, there would not be any Jewish survivors. In Israel, the events were viewed with utmost severity. Jews prepared for the worst and for war.
As hostilities broke out with Egypt on June 5, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol pleaded with Jordan to refrain from joining the fighting. Jordan’s King Hussein rejected those pleas, and was emboldened by false reports that returning planes shown on radar from Egypt were Egyptian attacking Israel, when in fact they were Israeli jets returning from a successful mission. Hussein joined the Arab war effort and soon opened artillery fire upon Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, inflicting severe damage upon Jerusalem. Just forty-eight hours later, Jerusalem was liberated by Jewish forces. Just days earlier, the Jews faced destruction and now were emerging victorious. It was a moment of great euphoria. One in which the hands of the Jews were again forced by the events around them.
On June 27, 1967, the Knesset annexed all of Jerusalem. The world rushed to express its’ disapproval. In the UN,
It is “in our hands,” within our grasp, to ensure that Jerusalem remain the capital of Israel and the Jewish people. 
nation after nation condemned the Jewish state. Where were they a month earlier when Israel faced a mortal threat? No matter, the Jews survived and emerged victorious.
Over the last forty-three years since Israel’s victory, there has been an uneasy relationship with the world community. Over the past year, that uneasy relationship has shown signs of deterioration, as some European nations become further Islamic, and the American President shows a shift in the administration’s attitude towards Israel. The pressure on Jerusalem to relinquish its capital is mounting. The resolve of the Jewish people is being tested. Now, in our time, history is calling! How will the Jews respond? Will the Jews stand up and tell the world that Jerusalem is their eternal capital. Once again, events of history are forcing the hands of Jewry.
The historic words of General Motta Gur declaring that the “Temple Mount is in our hands,” is more than a declaration of IDF victory over the Old City of Jerusalem, it also means that it is “in our hands,” within our grasp, to ensure that Jerusalem remain the capital of Israel and the Jewish people.
This year’s Yom Yerushalayim like the others before it is about celebrating what was gained in 1967, but also mindful of protecting the future of Jerusalem.