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36th ANNIVERSARY OF LIBERATION OF JERUSALEM "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning," said the Psalmist (Psalms 137: 5-6), and this has been the mantra of Jews in all their exiles throughout the ages. This Friday marks the 36th anniversary of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in June 1967. The Six Day War The war broke out following increasing anti-Israel fomentation throughout the Middle East during the spring of 1967. On May 15 Egypt's Gamel Abdul Nasser ordered the UN Emergency peacekeeping force out of Sinai and shortly thereafter, closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping, in defiance of international law. By May 31, Egypt had moved 100,000 troops, 1,000 tanks, and 500 heavy guns into the Sinai. Egypt and Jordan signed up a military defense pact, and Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, called up their armies. Kuwait Saudia Arabia, Sudan and Algeria sent troops and arms. Israel was ringed by approximately 250,000 troops more than 2000 tanks and 700 aircraft ringed Israel. President Aref of Iraq, declared: " Our goal is clear-to wipe Israel off the map." By June 4, Israel was facing war on three fronts. With America's declaration of neutrality and the imposition of an arms embargo on the region, together with France - while the FSU was sending massive arms to the Arabs -- and Israeli's increasing isolation in the international arena, the call for the annihilation of Israel was no idle threat. On the morning of June 5, the Israeli Air Force, taking pre-emptive action, destroyed almost the entire Egyptian Air Force. Led by Ariel Sharon, Israeli tanks rolled through Sinai to the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. On June 5, Jordan attacked Israel. On June 7 Israeli soldiers smashed through the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Soldiers ran blindly toward the Western Wall, crying like babies as they embraced its ancient stones. After scaling the wall came the electrifying words of Commander Motta Gur: "The Temple Mount is in our hands! The Temple Mount is in our hands!" Under Jordanian Occupation Jerusalem's Old City was illegally annex ed to Jordan in 1950, after being occupied by the Jordanian Legion on May 28, 1948 - an annexation recognized only by Great Britian and Pakistan. The two sections of the city were divided by barbed wire and mine fields, and Jordanian soldiers took pot shots at Israeli citizens from the ancient walls. All Israelis - Jews, Moslems and Christians -- were barred from entering the Old City, in flagrant violation of the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement signed in March 1949. Foreign tourists to Jerusalem were generally required to present a certificate of baptism. During these years, any reminder of Jewish presence in the city were systematically erased. A road was built through the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, tombstones were used to pave floors in military camps and latrines. Fifty-eight synagogues, including the 700 year old Hurva Synagogue in the Old City, were for the most part, destroyed and desecrated. Free access for Jews to their holy places, particularly, the Western Wall, was denied. Israeli Moslems were also precluded from gaining access to the mosques in the Old City of Jerusalem. When Israel liberated Jerusalem, the Government enacted the Law for the Protection of Holy Places, guaranteeing freedom of access and worship to the holy sites for all faiths and denominations and internal autonomy for various religious groups in administering their respective properties and holy places. The Knesset extended Israeli jurisdiction to eastern Jerusalem, thus unifying the city under Israeli rule and putting an end to the discriminatory regulations. The Israelis acted quickly to normalize Moslem rights to pray on the Temple Mount, despite the fact that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Today, the Wakf, which administers the Temple Mount, bars Jews from praying on the site. Jerusalem in Jewish History Jerusalem is inextricably linked with the Jewish people. Its special status in Jewish tradition dates back some 4,000 years to God's call to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah - later site of the Temple. In 1,004 BCE David made the city the capital of his kingdom, and his son, Solomon built the holy Temple. The city remained the capital of the Davidic dynasty for 400 years, until it was conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. With the blessing of Persia, which conquered Babylonia, Jews were permitted to return to the land of Israel, and 70 years later, rebuilt their holy city and the Temple. Jerusalem remained the focal point of Jewish culture and religion for the next five and a half centuries. When the Seleucid-Hellenistic Empire violated the Temple, the Macabbean revolt broke out (167 BCE) and Jewish independence, centered in Jerusalem, was restored. In 63 BCE, the Roman Empire conquered Jerusalem. Following religious oppression, the Jews revolted against Rome in 70 CE. Jerusalem was destroyed and its inhabitants exiled throughout the Roman empire and enslaved In 136 CE, following the Bar Kochba revolt the Temple Mount was plowed under by the Romans. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a pagan city - renamed Aelia Capitolina - to which entry was forbidden to Jews. Throughout all the subsequent periods of foreign occupation of Jerusalem - Roman (until 324 CE), Byzantine (324-614), Persia (614-638), Moslem Arabs (638-1099), European Crusaders (1099-1291), Mamluk (1291-1516), Ottoman Turk (1516-1917) and British (1917-1948), Jewish presence and attachment to Jerusalem remained constant and enduring. Since 1844 (the first official public census) Jews have constituted the largest ethnic group in the city. Jerusalem is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible; it has 70 names in post biblical literature. The destruction of the Jerusalem is commemorated in countless rituals, prayers, in fast days (the most somber of which, Tisha B'Av, culminates a three-week period of mourning). Jews the world face Jerusalem in their prayers. A glass is broken at weddings because no joy can be complete while the Jerusalem remains unbuilt. Pious Jews leave a square of plaster unfinished in new houses "in memory of the destruction." The Pesach seder and Yom Kippur prayers culminate with the fervent wish "Next year in Jerusalem!" It is told that Napoleon chanced to enter a synagogue on Tisha B'Av. He saw the Jews sitting in darkness on the floor, weeping inconsolably. He asked the cause of their grief and was told that they were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. "When did this happen?" he asked. "Two thousand years ago," he was told. "A people that remembers its land for two thousand years, will certainly return," the emperor responded.
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