Israel Matzav

Forty years ago tonight

Forty years ago tonight (on the Gregorian calendar), I remember watching the evening news in my parents' bedroom in Newton, Massachusetts and seeing the footage below:



I remember my father - he should be well and strong - saying to me that "you will say Hallel [the Jewish prayer of Thanksgiving. CiJ] on this day for the rest of your life."

Indeed, for many of us, leaving aside the issue of access to the Temple Mount, the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem is more meaningful than the very independence of the State of Israel itself from a religious perspective. The fact that on any given day I can walk(!) to the Western Wall and pray there - so close to and yet so far from the Temple Mount - is a joyous and yet melancholy experience. Melancholy because of what is missing.

A lot of bloggers missed the fact that June 7, the third day of the Six Day War, was the day on which Israel liberated the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. To her credit, Debbie Schlussel did not. She was up very early this morning to make sure that her thoughts on this day would be available for all to see. Her post is deeply emotional. And while I have a couple of technical bones to pick with it (for example, the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and particularly the place on which the Holy of Holies stood - not the Western Wall, which is the closest we can get to it today, and al-Aqsa is the silver dome, whereas it is the golden Dome of the Rock that is widely believed to be atop the place where the Holy of Holies stood), I recommend that you all read it.

Finally, I don't know where this video came from because even the Jews I know who will go on the Temple Mount will not go into the Dome of the Rock (see above), but someone obviously Jewish posted this video of the Temple Mount:

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:12 PM