Imagine if Muslims worldwide could not come to Mecca. Imagine if Catholics worldwide could not come to the Vatican. Imagine if Bahai’i worldwide could not come to Haifa.
These are not metaphors. But shift to metaphors: Imagine if no American citizen could come to the US Capitol. Imagine if no British citizen could come to Buckingham Palace.
No Jew could come to the Western Wall from 1949 to 1967 because the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan closed it to Jews with wire fences and military guards. How brutal the policy. How disrespectful of religous freedom. In contradistinction, how glorious the day in June, 1967 — the 28th of Iyar on the Hebrew calender — when Israel captured East Jerusalem in its defensive Six Day War and reopened the Western Wall to all comers, Jew and gentile alike.
Israel also repaired the synagogues that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan had desecrated in East Jerusalem, and repaired gravestones taken from the Mount of Olives for use in urinals
Flash forward 54 years. United Jerusalem has become the largest — and the youngest — city in Israel. In Jerusalem today, high-tech thrives. New neighborhoods thrive. Yeshivot thrive. Medical centers thrive. Universities thrive. Green-energy public transportation thrives. New highways, above ground and under ground, creatively dodge the city’s neighborhood mosaics. Uncountable interactions between Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem proceed without incident every day.
If Jordan had had its way, none of this would have happened. Rejoice in Jerusalem’s reunification. Only Israel, not the UN, can sustain the city’s growth, beauty and freedom.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
