Jerusalem. Courtesy of Konevi on Pixabay.

By STEPHEN M. FLATOW

Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, begins this year at sundown on Thursday, May 14, and continues through Friday, May 15. It is marked on the 28th of Iyar, commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the restoration of Jewish access to the Old City during the Six-Day War in 1967.

For Israelis, Yom Yerushalayim is a national day of thanksgiving, memory and celebration. For American Jews, it should be no less meaningful. It is not merely an Israeli holiday observed “over there.” It is a day that asks Jews everywhere, including those of us living comfortably in the United States, whether Jerusalem still stands at the center of our Jewish identity.

We Return

For two thousand years, Jews did not treat Jerusalem as a metaphor. We prayed toward it. We mourned its destruction. We invoked it at weddings, at the Passover seder and in daily prayer. “Next year in Jerusalem” was not a slogan. It was a declaration that exile had not erased memory, and that Jewish history had not ended with dispersion.

That is why 1967 was not just a military victory. It was the moment when Jewish memory became Jewish sovereignty. After 19 years in which Jews were barred from the Western Wall and the holy places of the Old City, Israeli soldiers stood again in the heart of ancient Jerusalem. The Jewish people did not discover Jerusalem in 1967. We returned to it.

Our Heritage

That distinction matters, because much of today’s debate about Jerusalem is built on historical amnesia. Too often, the Jewish connection to the city is described as if it were recent, political or negotiable. But Jerusalem is not an Israeli talking point. It is the city of King David, the site of the Temples, the direction of Jewish prayer and the spiritual capital of the Jewish people.

American Jews should be able to say that without apology.

We can debate Israeli policies. Jews have always debated. We can disagree about governments, coalitions and political decisions. But Jerusalem itself should not be reduced to a partisan issue. It belongs not to one party, one denomination or one political camp. It belongs to the entire Jewish people.

The Risks Of Comfort

 That is especially important in America, where Jewish life has been blessed with extraordinary freedom and opportunity. We have built synagogues, schools, charities, community centers and institutions of influence. We participate fully in American civic life. We are rightly grateful for the liberties this country has afforded us.

But comfort has its risks. A Judaism that becomes only cultural memory, only social justice language, only holiday foods, only nostalgia, or only a private religious preference becomes detached from the full scope of Jewish peoplehood. Yom Yerushalayim reminds us that Judaism is not only a set of beliefs. It is a covenantal civilization rooted in Torah, land, language, people and memory.

Jerusalem is where all those meet.

Teaching The Children

That does not mean every American Jew must think the same way about Israel. It does mean that Jewish education in America must do a better job teaching why Jerusalem matters. Our children should know more than the headlines. They should know why Jews fast on Tisha B’Av, why we break a glass under the chuppah, why the words “Yerushalayim” and “Zion” appear so often in our prayers, and why generations of Jews who never saw the city still carried it in their hearts.

They should know that there was a time, not long ago, when Jews could not freely approach the Kotel. They should know that Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem is not an abstraction but the practical guarantee that Jewish holy places remain open to Jews.

They should also know that Jerusalem is not perfect. No living city is. It is complicated, crowded, holy, tense, beautiful, argued over and loved. But that too is part of its meaning. Jerusalem is not a museum exhibit preserved behind glass. It is a living Jewish city, the capital of the State of Israel and the beating heart of Jewish history.

For American Jews, Yom Yerushalayim should be a day of recommitment. Synagogues should mark it. Schools should teach it. Jewish organizations should speak about it. Families should discuss it. Not as a political exercise, but as an act of Jewish continuity.

Zachor

The question is not whether American Jews may care about Jerusalem. The question is whether we can remain fully Jewish without caring about it.

Our enemies understand the power of Jerusalem. That is why they attack the Jewish claim to it, deny Jewish history and seek to turn the city into a wedge between Israel and Diaspora Jews. We should not help them by growing indifferent.

A people that remembers Jerusalem remembers who it is. A people that forgets Jerusalem risks forgetting itself.

Yom Yerushalayim is the day we answer that risk with clarity. Jerusalem is not an optional attachment to Jewish identity. It is at the center of our prayers, our past and our future.

And it should remain at the center of American Jewish life as well.

Stephen M. Flatow is president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi. He is the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism.