Yom Yerushalayim: Jerusalem Day and the Reunification of a City

“The Temple Mount Is in Our Hands”

Three words in Hebrew — Har HaBayit b’yadeinu — “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” They were spoken on June 7, 1967, by Colonel Motta Gur, commander of the paratroop brigade that had just fought its way through the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City to reach the Western Wall. For the first time in nineteen years — and, in a deeper sense, for the first time in nearly two millennia — Jews stood at their holiest site as sovereigns, not as pilgrims or prisoners.

Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) commemorates that moment. It falls on the 28th of Iyar — the Hebrew date of the Old City’s capture — and it is, depending on whom you ask, one of the most profound or one of the most contested holidays on the Jewish calendar.

The Divided City

To understand why June 7, 1967, mattered so deeply, you need to understand what came before. When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the new nation fought a war for survival against five Arab armies. Israel survived — but Jerusalem was divided. The western part of the city became Israel’s capital. The eastern part — including the Old City, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives cemetery — fell under Jordanian control.

For nineteen years, from 1948 to 1967, no Jew could visit the Western Wall. The ancient Jewish Quarter was destroyed. Synagogues were demolished or desecrated. Tombstones from the Mount of Olives were used as paving stones. The armistice line — marked by concrete walls, barbed wire, and sniper positions — ran through the heart of the city.

Jerusalem, the city that King David made his capital three thousand years ago, the city that the Jewish people had prayed toward in every exile, was cut in half. And the half that mattered most, spiritually, was off limits.

The Six-Day War

In May 1967, tensions escalated rapidly. Egypt mobilized troops in the Sinai, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (an act of war), and called for Israel’s destruction. Syria massed forces on the Golan Heights. Jordan signed a military pact with Egypt.

Israel launched a preemptive strike on June 5, devastating the Egyptian air force on the ground. The war moved fast. Israel sent a message to Jordan’s King Hussein: stay out of the war, and we will not attack you. Hussein chose to fight, and Jordanian forces began shelling West Jerusalem.

Israel’s response was swift. Paratroopers were sent into East Jerusalem. The fighting was fierce — house to house, street by street, through the narrow lanes of the Old City. On the morning of June 7, Israeli forces broke through the Lions’ Gate and reached the Western Wall.

The radio broadcast of that moment — the paratroopers, many of them secular kibbutzniks, weeping at the Wall — became one of the most iconic moments in Israeli history. The chief military rabbi, Shlomo Goren, blew the shofar. Soldiers who had never prayed in their lives pressed their hands against the ancient stones and cried.

The Holiday

In 1968, the Israeli government declared the 28th of Iyar a national holiday. The Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate designated it a religious observance as well, with the recitation of Hallel (psalms of praise) in synagogue services.

Today, Yom Yerushalayim is marked in Israel with:

• The Jerusalem Day March (Rikud HaDegalim, the Flag Dance) — tens of thousands of people, mostly Religious Zionist youth, march through the streets of Jerusalem carrying Israeli flags, singing, and dancing. The march passes through the Old City, often generating both celebration and controversy.
• Special prayers — Hallel is recited in many synagogues. Some include the blessing before Hallel; others omit it.
• Ceremonies and events — The Israeli government holds official ceremonies. Cultural events, concerts, and lectures take place throughout the city.
• Visits to the Western Wall — Thousands gather at the Kotel for prayer and celebration.

The Hallel Debate

Whether and how to recite Hallel on Yom Yerushalayim has become one of the more spirited halakhic debates of the modern era. The question touches deep issues about religious authority and the theological meaning of the State of Israel:

Those who recite Hallel with a blessing — primarily Religious Zionist rabbis — argue that the reunification of Jerusalem was a miraculous event of biblical proportions, comparable to the events that inspired the original Hallel psalms. If the Maccabees’ victory warranted Hallel on Hanukkah, surely the return to the Western Wall does as well.

Those who recite Hallel without a blessing — a middle position — acknowledge the significance of the day but hesitate to establish a new blessing without broader rabbinic consensus.

Those who do not recite Hallel — many Haredi authorities — argue that only holidays established by the Talmudic sages can carry the obligation of Hallel. They may also have theological reservations about treating political and military events as divine miracles in the formal liturgical sense.

The debate is unresolved and likely to remain so. It reflects a larger question within Judaism: how do you integrate contemporary history into a tradition whose liturgical calendar was essentially set two thousand years ago?

Not Universally Observed

Yom Yerushalayim is one of the most politically charged dates on the Jewish calendar. Its observance — or non-observance — often correlates with one’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the status of Jerusalem, and the relationship between religion and nationalism.

Religious Zionists tend to celebrate it with great fervor, seeing the reunification of Jerusalem as a step in the divine plan for Jewish redemption.

Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities largely do not observe it as a holiday, consistent with their broader ambivalence about Zionism and the religious status of the secular state.

Liberal Jewish movements (Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist) have varied responses. Many affirm the importance of Jerusalem to Jewish life but express discomfort with the political implications of celebrating the occupation of East Jerusalem.

Some Palestinian citizens of Israel and others experience the day — particularly the Flag March through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter — as provocative rather than celebratory.

Jerusalem in Jewish Consciousness

Whatever one’s politics, the centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish identity is beyond dispute. Jews have prayed toward Jerusalem for millennia. The Passover seder ends with “Next year in Jerusalem.” The wedding glass is broken to remember Jerusalem’s destruction. The afternoon prayer pleads: “Return to Your city Jerusalem with mercy.”

For nineteen years, the physical connection was severed. Yom Yerushalayim marks its restoration. The question of what that restoration means — politically, spiritually, ethically — is one that the Jewish people are still working out, with no consensus in sight.

The City of Questions

Jerusalem has always been a city of contradictions — holy and contested, ancient and modern, a place of prayer and a flashpoint of conflict. Yom Yerushalayim embodies all of these tensions. It is a day of genuine joy for many Jews who remember — or whose parents remember — what it meant to be cut off from the Wall. It is a day of discomfort for those who see in it an uncritical celebration of military conquest. It is a day of theological weight for those who read Jewish history as moving toward redemption.

Perhaps the most honest way to observe it is to hold all of these dimensions at once — to celebrate the return to the Wall without ignoring the complexity of what that return entails. Jerusalem, after all, means “city of peace.” The name is an aspiration, not a description. And on Yom Yerushalayim, as on every other day, that aspiration remains unfulfilled — and worth pursuing.