There are voices – loud, passionate, sometimes even well meaning – that tell us this is not the time to celebrate Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim). They argue that as our soldiers fight in Gaza, as hostages remain in captivity, as the international community condemns us, it is insensitive – jingoistic even – to mark a day that commemorates a military victory. They say that celebrating Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967 rubs salt into the wounds of our enemies and antagonizes an already hostile world.
But I ask: if not now, when?
If we cannot celebrate the very heart of our national and spiritual identity in the midst of turmoil, then what is left of us?
Because Jerusalem Day is not a celebration of war. It is not a nationalist parade of arrogance. It is a moment of awe, of historical and spiritual homecoming. It is the reaffirmation of a 3,000-year-old dream come true. And dreams – especially ones written in tears, exile, longing, and prayer – should never be deferred, or worse, dismissed.
Let us remember what we are truly celebrating.
Celebrating our return to Jerusalem
We are not only celebrating the stunning victory of the Six Day War – though it was indeed stunning. We are not merely commemorating a moment when a tiny, beleaguered state, surrounded by enemies, emerged triumphant. We are celebrating the miraculous return to Yerushalayim, our eternal capital. We are celebrating the first time in over 1,800 years that Jews could walk freely in the Old City, pray at the Western Wall without fear, and reclaim access to the Mount of our ancient Temple.
For the first time since the Roman legions burned the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), we were no longer strangers peering through a keyhole at our most sacred site.
This is not about conquest – it is about return.
Jerusalem has always been the Jewish people’s heartbeat. Long before there was a United Nations or a British Mandate. Long before modern states drew their maps, and long before anyone could deny our connection to this city, Jerusalem was ours.
IT WAS King David who established it as our capital 3,000 years ago – not Tel Aviv, not Haifa, not some shifting seat of government, but Jerusalem. It was in Jerusalem that Solomon built the Temple, where prophets walked, where the Shechinah – the Divine Presence – dwelt.
And when we were exiled, it was Jerusalem we never forgot.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion… If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.” These are not words of aggression. They are the poetry of a broken heart – of a people longing for home.
Through every exile, every pogrom, every Holocaust, we never relinquished Jerusalem. We turned toward it in prayer three times a day. We sang of it under the huppah (wedding canopy) at every Jewish wedding. We broke a glass in its memory at our happiest moments. We left a patch of every home unpainted to remember its destruction. We carved its name into our collective soul.
When Jews died in Auschwitz, they died whispering the name of Jerusalem. When Jews crossed the deserts of Yemen and Ethiopia, walked through fire and cloud to come to Israel, they came for Jerusalem. When Jews sat behind the Iron Curtain or wept at closed borders, they dreamed of walking her stones.
Millions dreamed of her. Millions never made it. But we? We did.
And now, in the face of war, with sons and daughters on the frontlines, with global headlines twisted and hostile, some say we should lower our heads, dim the light of this day, and hide our joy?
No. A thousand times no!
We do not dance to shame the world. We dance because we have remembered. We sing because we have come home.
LET ME be clear: we are not blind. We are not deaf to suffering. We know the pain of war – who more than us? We do not celebrate military might; we mourn every innocent life lost. But we also know that Jerusalem was not taken to provoke. It was reclaimed because it is ours. Always was, always will be.
We do not need the world to validate what is written in our DNA. And no amount of international pressure can erase the truth inscribed in our history, our prayers, and our bones.
Thousands have given their lives for Jerusalem. From Bar Kochba’s rebels to the 1948 defenders of the Jewish Quarter, and from paratroopers who wept at the Kotel (Western Wall) in 1967 to soldiers today who guard her gates, generation after generation has sacrificed to keep her safe and whole.
We owe it to them to lift our heads with pride and declare: Yerushalayim shel zahav, shel nehoshet v’shel or – Jerusalem of gold, of bronze and of light – we are yours, and you are ours.
SO THIS Jerusalem Day, yes, we will celebrate.
We will celebrate in humility and in gratitude. We will celebrate with the memories of the fallen and the hopes of the living. We will celebrate for our ancestors who only dreamed, and for our children who will one day walk freely through her gates without fear.
And if the world cannot understand our joy, perhaps it never truly understood our pain.
Because Jerusalem is not a trophy. It is a promise. A promise that we never gave up on. A promise that Am Yisrael Chai – the Nation of Israel lives. A promise that out of destruction, life can bloom again.
To silence our joy now would be to betray everything we endured to get here. It would be to tell the generations who held fast to hope that the world’s disapproval means more than their faith.
Let us not be ashamed of our story. Let us tell it louder, sing it stronger, and walk through the streets of Jerusalem with heads held high and hearts full of ancient, undying love.
We are not celebrating war. We are celebrating homecoming.
We are not ignoring the pain of today – we are giving it meaning by anchoring it to the purpose of our journey.Yom Yerushalayim is not just about what happened in 1967. It is about what happened in 586 BCE, in 70 CE, in every generation since, and – miraculously – what is happening right now.
“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem…” We didn’t. And we won’t.
So yes, we will celebrate. And we will keep celebrating – for as long as Jerusalem lives in our hearts, we know that our story is not over.
The writer is a rabbi and physician who lives in Ramat Poleg, Netanya. He is a co-founder of Techelet-Inspiring Judaism.