Jerusalem Day
Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushaláyim) is an Israeli national holiday commemorating
the "reunification" of East Jerusalem (including the Old City) with West Jerusalem following the Six-Day War of 1967. An official Israeli holiday, it is commemorated with state ceremonies and memorial services.
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared
Jerusalem Day to be a minor religious holiday, as it marks the regaining
for Jewish people of access to the Western Wall (last standing remnant of the Second Temple).
Historical background
Chief of Staff Lt.
Gen. Yitzhak Rabin in the
entrance to the old city of Jerusalem during
the Six Day War, 1967, with Moshe Dayan and Uzi Narkiss
Under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which proposed the establishment of two states in British Mandatory Palestine – a Jewish state and an Arab state – Jerusalem was to be an international city, neither exclusively Arab nor Jewish for a period of ten years, at which point a referendum would be held by Jerusalem residents to determine which country to join. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, including the internationalization of Jerusalem; the Arabs rejected the proposal.
In 1967, in
the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied
East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank from Jordan on 7
June 1967. Later that day, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared what is often quoted during
Jerusalem Day.
The war ended with a
ceasefire on 11 June 1967 with Israel in control of the entirety of territory
of Mandatory Palestine,
including all of Jerusalem. On 27 June 1967, Israel expanded the municipal
boundaries of West Jerusalem so as
to include approximately 27.0 sq mi of territory it had captured in
the war, including the entirety of the formerly Jordanian held municipality of
East Jerusalem 2.3 sq mi and an additional 28 villages and areas of
the Bethlehem and Beit Jala municipalities (25 sq mi).
On 30 July 1980,
the Knesset officially approved the Jerusalem Law, which
called the city the complete and united capital.
Ethiopian Jews'
Memorial Day
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the
ceremony in Jerusalem alongside the Priests of Beta Israel, 1998
A ceremony is held on Yom Yerushalayim to commemorate the Beta Israel who perished on their way to Israel. In 2004, the Israeli government decided to turn this ceremony into a state ceremony held at the memorial site for Ethiopian Jews who perished on their way to Israel on Mount Herzl.
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