That radio recording from 1967

BY now, it has become a ritual. Every year, on Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), I download and listen to the radio broadcast of the recapture of the Old City of Jerusalem by Col. Motta Gur and his forces.

I close my eyes and picture myself squished like a sardine, in the dark, in the bomb shelter of 108/17 with all of our neighbors, imagining listening to this radio broadcast for the first time, amidst war, as an adult.

Of course, I wasn’t yet born in 1967, and didn’t actually live through this experience, but every time I hear it I seem to retroactively graft the life in Jerusalem I grew up with just a few years later, onto the experience of hearing this breakthrough radio broadcast.

I was just a tiny toddler at the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when in fact I was squished like a sardine with all of our neighbors in the dank, dark, cobwebbed bombshelter of building 108, and so the 1967 scene sounds like a familiar memory to me.

I challenge anyone who listens to this famous radio recording of the recapture of Jerusalem not to cry! It is so very moving . . . hearing Yossi Ronen, the tough, secular, Israeli male radio announcer reporting, step-by-step, blow by blow, each and every inch that he, together with the soldiers, traversed as they slowly advanced toward the Old City. Slowly, but just as surely, his strong masculine voice betrayed more and more emotion.

It is like being with the soldiers on this historic walk for the first time, as you hear Yossi Ronen note each and every passing geographic milestone that brings them/us closer to the Old City.

It’s hard to catch everything he is saying. There are a lot of sounds of gunfire and shelling and sniper shooting still in the background, and sounds of soldiers’ footsteps, but the main markers all come through clear as a bell . . . “we are passing the Mount of Olives . . . we are about to enter the Old City itself . . . we are about to enter the Old City itself — (said again with rising emotion) . . . we are walking through Lion Gate . . . Lion Gate is about to crash down . . . probably from all the shelling . . . soldiers are taking cover under palm trees . . . I myself am as well . . . we are now getting deeper into the Old City . . . !”

EVEN though you know what happens next, your heart is going pitter patter and your goosebumps are increasing by the second, when suddenly, over the wireless army radio comes Motta Gur’s now famous: “Har Habayit b’yadenu! Ani chozer: Har Habayit b’yadenu! The Temple Mount is in our hands! I repeat, the Temple Mount is in our hands!”

It is a dramatic paradigm shift. Something just happens every time you hear him say those words. Because the meaning and power of those words are, and were, a paradigm shift for Israel and the Jewish people.

Uzi Narkiss comes over wireless radio now . . . “tell me . . . where is the Western Wall . . . how do we get to the Western Wall . . . ”

A strong, yet tear filled spontaneously recited shehechiyanu blessing comes through from all the young-strong-vulnerable-emotional soldiers. Then Rav Goren, then chief rabbi of the IDF, holding a small Torah Scroll pressed against his breast, says an emotional blessing over the comforting and the building of Jerusalem.

The whole thing feels surreal.

Yossi Ronen comes back on . . . “I am walking down the steps . . . (with rising emotion) my fingers are now grazing the ancient stones of the Kotel Hama’aravi — the Western Wall.”

Now it is back to Rav Goren, “We are now going to recite the prayer for the fallen soldiers of this war.” You hear these young soldiers’ audible weeping as Rav Goren continues with “E-l Maleh Rachamim.”

It is such a powerful moment in Jewish history, recorded forever. You really must hear this radio broadcast for yourselves. Without fail, it gets me every time.

SO as Yom Yerushalayim commenced, I was surfing the Internet trying to find the full radio recording, but for some reason it just was not turning up. I found an edited version, but not the original, full broadcast that I normally listen to.

Already, something about Yom Yerushalayim this year felt different. I see on people’s status updates defensive comments about how Jerusalem must remain undivided, about how Jerusalem is the historic and eternal capital of the Jewish people, etc.

It is so hard to see such comments, because they are a difficult reality check against the fact that people talk about negotiating the city of Jerusalem.

It pains me deeply to even think that Jerusalem should ever be divided again, as it was for the 19 years, preventing Jews from approaching their holy places of prayer as the Jordanians controlled the city (1949-1967).

Then, as I was searching for the original clip of the recapture of Jerusalem, I came across “Six Day War Document.” Since I was clicking on many different videos in an effort to find the famous recapture of Old Jerusalem, I clicked on this one, too.

Next thing I know a silent black- and-white video comes on showing lines of Arabs (they were not called Palestinians then), blindfolded, giving the vibe of prisoners or POWs. Then, and on full volume, came the Israelis, also in black and white, loud and noisy and dominating and with pointed guns and Israeli flags being draped over Arab places.

This video oscillated between the silent Arab prisoners and the now all powerful Israeli occupiers.

There is no doubt about it. This is what it said loud and clear. The images were basically of silent, idyllic, farmer type people working the land, and a modern, gruff, aggressive army coming and stealing their life and their land. IDF tanks vs. poor Arab tractors. The silenced versus the silencers.

Now, I am not one to say that Israel is infallible and has never made any mistakes. I am not one to say that no Arabs or Palestinians should reside in Jerusalem or make it home. As someone who was raised in Jerusalem, to me it will always be a place with the Arab market, the Jewish market, a Muslim quarter and a Jewish quarter. Just as it always has been since 1967, and still is til this day.

But such a misleading and creepy distortion of the Six Day War, in which Israel fought defensively against five, powerful. surrounding Arab countries who attacked her, and miraculously recaptured Jerusalem — such a skewed, dishonest, perverted sense of history is deeply disturbing.

EVEN if this year, Yom Yerushalayim was a little harder, I am proud that Jerusalem is still united and undivided, as she was for over 3,000 years, except 1948-1967.

I don’t know what the future will hold. I don’t know whether, perhaps, I was simply fortunate to be one of the Jews who fell into the march of history, when we were privileged to see Jerusalem ours. Heaven forbid, a fleeting, golden era.

What I do know is that, spiritually and historically, we, as a people since time immemorial, are tied to Jerusalem by our collective umbilical cord. We have always prayed for her. And we will fight for her again, if we have to.

I hope we won’t need to, and that the radio recording from 1967 will always remain the only one I will be searching for.

For now I feel fortunate to be able to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim and be living the dream of generations before me.