By Moshe Phillips, JNS
The term is not in the Torah because it is a modern political invention.
Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day, is observed this year from Sunday evening, May 25, through Monday night, May 26. It celebrates the 68th anniversary of the reunification of Judaism’s holiest city.
Today, Israel's control of the parts of Jerusalem that the Israeli Defense Forces liberated in 1967 is consistently and vehemently contested by Arabs, who claim those areas rightfully belong to them. This claim is a cornerstone of the daily anti-Israel propaganda disseminated by Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority associates.
Here’s the thing, though: the area Abbas refers to isn’t “East Jerusalem” at all. It’s just Jerusalem. What’s more, there is no political entity known as “East Jerusalem”—not now and not at any point in history.
The latest of these claims came on May 17 in Baghdad, where Abbas addressed fellow strongmen and despots at their 34th Arab Summit.
Abbas said: “We highly commend the role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which chairs the Arab-Islamic Committee. We thank all its members for their efforts in garnering international support for the realization of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and for securing global recognition of this state.”
Immediately after the Old City was liberated, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, told news reporters:
“We announce to all of Israel, and to all of the world, that by Divine command, we have returned to our home, to our holy city. From this day forth, we shall never budge from here! We have come home!”
What was Rabbi Kook referring to, if not what is now labeled “East Jerusalem”?
“East Jerusalem” is simply Jerusalem. Every biblical mention of a specific location in Jerusalem refers to an area that Abbas wants Israel to surrender. The term does not appear in the Torah because it is a modern political invention. When Israel’s enemies created this false name for Jerusalem’s Old City and surrounding neighborhood, including the Western Wall, it was meant to sever the connection between Israel and Judaism’s holiest sites.
The truth is that Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the end of the Arab world’s first successful attempt to separate Jerusalem from the Jewish people.
Immediately after Israel declared its independence, the Arab Legion from what is now Jordan attacked Jerusalem. After intense fighting and a brutal siege, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was lost to the Arab Legion on May 27, 1948. The surviving Jewish residents sought refuge in Jerusalem’s New City. When the IDF liberated the Old City in June 1967, it found 34 of its 35 synagogues either completely or partially destroyed. So, too, were the yeshivahs. Hundreds of Torah scrolls and thousands of Jewish religious books had been desecrated and burned.
In another blatant violation of international law, the Jordanians forbade Jews from visiting the Old City during the years they illegally occupied Jerusalem. Numerous requests were made. Historical records show that in 1954, Gen. Vagn Bennike, then the chief of staff of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), relayed to the Jordanians a request by a small number of Jews “to cross into the Old City to offer prayers at the Western Wall.”
Similar appeals were made to U.S. government officials. In response to one such petition, Assistant Secretary of State Henry Byroade responded that because of “unfortunate tension” between the Jordanians and the Israelis, a “practical arrangement cannot be worked out.”
That Jews were not just able to visit the Western Wall but live again in the Old City is what is being celebrated on Yom Yerushalayim.
Tragically, there are elements within the American Jewish community who would have U.S. Jews believe that what they call “East Jerusalem” should not be part of Israel.
In a March 30, 2022, article on its website, J Street declared: “East Jerusalem” has been under Israeli control since 1967, and was annexed in 1980, which was internationally condemned as an illegal occupation. Ever since then, the right-wing settlement movement, which seeks a ‘unified Israeli capital,’ has been pushing to move Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and Israelis in.”
How can any American Jewish organization that advocates for parts of Jerusalem to be Judenrein be welcomed in our synagogues?
J Street is not alone in its repeated use of the term “East Jerusalem," even though no such place exists. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) used it in a May 14 press release promoting her nakba anti-Israel legislation.
Hopefully, one day soon, the dangerous fiction of “East Jerusalem” will be a term uttered only by non-Jewish extremists.
