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Jerusalem Tag

Tomorrow (June 5) is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). The newest addition to the Jewish calendar, it’s held on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar—six weeks after the Passover seder and one week before the eve of the holiday of Shavuot. In June 1967, 28 Iyar was the third day of the Six Day War. As I discussed in a post for last year’s Yom Yerushalayim, the day celebrates the reunification of Israel’s capital city, when Jewish forces brought Jerusalem “back to Jewish sovereignty”. There’s a huge amount of information and research on the two-day (June 6-7, 1967) Battle for Jerusalem, when the 55th Paratroopers Brigade retook the Old City and liberated Jewish holy places from an illegal Jordanian occupation.

This past week, during the intermediate days of Passover (Chol Hamoed), nearly 900 Israeli Jews, roughly 100 to 300 per day, ascended Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Thousands of tourists also visited the sacred place over the course of the week. The site is the place of the two Jewish Temples in antiquity. It’s considered Judaism’s “holiest of holies” and is treasured by Jews across the planet. [caption id="attachment_136001" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Jewish Temple, replica The Jewish Temple, replica[/caption]

The Republican candidates made a lot of pledges to the record-breaking pro-Israel crowd at last week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, D.C. Among them was the promise that they’ll move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So, if he becomes President, will Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich move the American Embassy to Israel’s capital city? Don’t count on it.

Promises, promises

Moving the embassy would break with over two decades of bipartisan White House policy to circumvent the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, a law which mandates its relocation. [caption id="attachment_128948" align="alignnone" width="600"]U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv Beach Satellite [U.S. Embassy location on Tel Aviv Beach][/caption]

Today, American Yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz was murdered in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank in Jerusalem. He was one of three killed when a Palestinian terrorist open fired into a traffic jam. The Jerusalem Post reports:
Seven others were lightly wounded in the attack, two Israeli women and five American yeshiva students. They were all evacuated to the Sha’are Tzedek Medical Center. The Americans are due to be released. while the two Israeli women will be hospitalized overnight. ... Initial reports suggest that the terrorist fired at the cars as he drove by them and was even able to reload this gun. He then sped in the direction of the Alon Shvut settlement, but slammed into a car.

When Professor Jacobson asked if I wanted to write a post describing how we Israelis are feeling under the current onslaught of terror and vicious incitement, I thought to myself "How do I expand "furious, angry, frightened and frustrated" into a few hundred words? It is rather hard to put these harsh emotions into words and explain how they affect our lives, but I shall try. Having taken not one single survey, so my apologies for generalizing and extrapolating from my own emotions, I think the dominant feeling amongst the Israeli populace is not fear or terror (though there is that too) but anger, accompanied by a good deal of frustration.

Frustration with Our Leadership

We are angry at the government, particularly at Binyamin Netanyahu who urges us not to let the terror affect our lives. Mr. Netanyahu, it IS affecting our lives! How could it not? And yet, we are also frustrated because we know that Bibi is right. We were more frustrated a few days ago because we felt the government wasn't being forceful enough in confronting the wave of terror, and concentrating on defensive rather than offensive steps. But they seem to be on the right path now, with the new open-fire legislation and easing the rules of engagement for the police and IDF.