Six Day War – Israeli victory – Documentary – War of Redemption |
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 the Jewish Virtual Library. logo https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org Jewish Holidays: Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Dayhttps://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yom-yerushalayim-jerusalem-day
Yom Yerushalayim (
The observance of Yom Yerushalayim outside of the city cannot compare to its celebration in reunited Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, thousands of people march around the city and walk through the liberated Old City, where Jews were denied access from 1948 to 1967 while it was under Jordanian control. The march ends at the Kotel (Western Wall), one of the ancient retaining walls surrounding the Temple Mount, Judaism‘s holiest site. Once everyone gets to the Kotel, there are speeches and concerts and celebratory dancing.
Rare in the Jewish liturgy, a festive Hallel is recited during the evening prayers. This practice is only done on the first night (and, outside of Israel, on the second night) of Passover and Yom Ha’atzmaut. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared that the holiday version of Pseuki d’Zimra and Hallel should be recited. According to the major religious Zionist halakhists (decisors of Jewish law), even those who do not recite the blessing over Hallel (psalms of praise) on Yom Ha’atzmaut should recite it on Yom Yerushalayim because the liberation and reunification over the entire city of Jerusalem is said to be of an even greater miracle than Jewish political sovereignty over part of the land of Israel.
Many religious leaders also hold that the mourning restrictions of 33 days of the omer are lifted on Yom Yerushalayim for those who observe them after Lag B’omer. …
… The Israeli government decreed in 2004 that each year on Jerusalem day a national memorial ceremony would be held to commemorate and acknowledge the desires and contributions of the Ethiopian Jewish community.
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From Mandelbaum Gate to Chut Shel ChessedAfter the miraculous events of the Six Day War (26-Iyar to 2-Sivan), Jews were allowed to return to their city. The Mandelbaum Gate, formerly the physical gate to Jerusalem, became Chut shel Chessed, the spiritual gate to Jerusalem.Rabbi Jacob Rupp | Posted on 25May2025 | https://breslev.com/259784/  From Mandelbaum Gate to Chut Shel Chessed
For years, we watched in desperate envy and frustration as foreigners passed into the holy city unmolested while we could only stand at Mandelbaum Gate and watch.
Our nation is pursuing a dream. To some, our dream may seem trivial; to others, impossible to attain. Millions have worked towards it and thousands of years have passed, but we remain unabashed in our efforts to merit its fulfillment.
For two thousand years we have waited to come home. We have longed to gather in Eretz Yisroel, to rebuild our Third Temple, and to renew the close relationship with God that we once had.
The path to this goal has been paved with hardships. The monuments of our struggles and misery lie scattered throughout the world. They are found in nearly every country, from the remains of the Death Camps in Poland to Masada in Eretz Yisrael. Yet, despite our struggles, we persevere. From the story of Yosef and his brothers, we learn that before God gives us a test, He gives us the tools to overcome it. Like the night is the darkest right before dawn, oftentimes, the very article of our despair becomes a key to our salvation.
Today, we are plagued by an almost ironic taste of our redemption. We get so close to complete destruction and then, overnight, we can almost sense the beginning of our salvation. We can all but see the hand of our Creator guiding us. Who could have ever imagined the broken, bloodied souls limping out of Auschwitz, all the way to the holy city of Jerusalem?
Today, we are blessed to live in and visit the old city of Jerusalem. Nearly forty years ago, however, that was impossible. Today, the streets of Meah Shearim are full of commerce, shouting children, young families, and vibrant Yiddishkeit. Four decades ago, the area was a virtual war zone, located on the border between Israel and her hostile Arab neighbor. Where today schools and homes stand, one journalist described the area from 1948-1967 as “a ramshackle affair of corrugated tin checkpoints separated on each side by a wide, cobblestone expanse of street.” The bullet holes in the buildings testify to the violence that was an almost daily affair. For close to two decades, we suffered everything from kidnapping and beatings to sniper fire. But even more painful than the violence we endured was the knowledge that the Kotel, the last remnant of our Holy Temple, remained just beyond our reach.
Following the war of Independence, the entire Old City, including the Kotel, was under Jordanian control. The Arabs destroyed our synagogues, desecrated hundreds of our graves, and reduced the Old City into a crumbling, desolate village. Sewage ran down the main streets, and farm animals defecated on the stones upon which our holy sages had once walked.
Jerusalem was divided between East and West; old and new. Mandelbaum Gate was the only point of connection between the no man’s land that split the city. It was through this passage that people – Christian pilgrims, Western journalists, and Arabs, but no Jews – could cross into the Old City.
For years, we watched in desperate envy and frustration as foreigners passed into the holy city unmolested while we could only stand at Mandelbaum Gate and watch. We were so close to our enemy that we could see and speak to those Jordanian soldiers who refused to allow us entry. Every day we would see them stand on our holy ground while we remained powerless to remove them. At times the area was calm, at other times the soldiers would fire at us and our children.
Yet we never lost hope. People would climb onto the roofs of the highest buildings to watch the sun set over our holy city held hostage. All this came to an end, when, during the miraculous events of the Six Day War (26-Iyar to 2-Sivan), Mandelbaum Gate was torn down. We were allowed to return to our city.
Now, fast forward to today; the Old City has been rebuilt and is a popular place to visit, spend time, and pray. Meah Shearim has developed into a gem of traditional Judaism. But where Mandelbaum Gate once stood as a dreary symbol of Jerusalem divided, something amazing is going on.
On the site of so much frustration and despair, a new flame is being kindled! Jewish men are discovering their roots. The sound of Torah learning emanates from a building which had once, on a very physical level, separated us from our roots.
In what can only be described as a miracle, Chut Shel Chessed Institutions was given the privilege of changing Mandelbaum Gate from a source of spiritual frustration to a fountain of spiritual growth.
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“It always has been Arab Muslim Orthodoxy that “Palestine” actually is the entire country of Israel, not merely Judea and Samaria. All PLO terror aimed is to drive the Jews out of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ra’anana, and other cities, towns, and villages in pre-1967 Israel and “into the [Mediterranean] sea.”This is what it means to be ‘Pushed into the Sea’
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Kyle Orton’s BlogArab Statements of Exterminationist Intent Before the 1967 WarBy Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 June 2024 https://kyleorton.co.uk/2024/06/19/arab-statements-of-exterminationist-intent-before-the-1967-war/  Jersalem Temple Mount Liberation-7June1967 Soldiers watching the Temple Mount | Photo: GPO
Israel pre-emptively struck against the Arab armies massing on her borders on 5 June 1967 and routed them by 10 June. The intention of the Arab States in 1967 had been plainly expressed over nearly twenty years. After the pan-Arab invasion had failed to destroy the Jewish State in 1948, Arab leaders—speaking directly and through their State-run media—made clear that they intended to wage another war that would succeed in eliminating Israel. As the Arab armies moved into position in May 1967, the Arab governments openly proclaimed that this was that long-awaited war.
Below is a far-from-exhaustive compilation of Arab statements in the lead-up to the Six-Day War:
In September 1953, after a false report that Adolf Hitler was still alive and living in Brazil, one of the Egypt’s State-owned newspapers, Al-Musawar, asked various public figures what they would want to say to the Führer. A number of the responses were negative. One was very notably positive: “I congratulate you with all my heart, because, though you appear to have been defeated, you were the real victor. … There will be no peace until Germany is restored to what it was … As for the past, I think you made some mistakes, such as opening too many fronts or Ribbentrop’s short-sightedness in the face of Britain’s old man diplomacy. But you are forgiven on account of your faith in your country and people. That you have become immortal in Germany is reason enough for pride. And we should not be surprised to see you again in Germany, or a new Hitler in your place.” The author of this statement was Anwar al-Sadat,[1] the man who a year earlier had read out the proclamation of the “Free Officers’ revolution” that toppled the Egyptian monarchy.
July 1959, Nasser: “We want a decisive battle in order to annihilate that germ, Israel. All the Arabs want a decisive battle.”[3]
2 February 1960, Radio Cairo: “We are getting ready for the decisive battle, and, at the right moment, we will strike with power and with speed. All our coming battles with Israel will be battles of life or death.”
10 March 1960, Radio Damascus: “The Arabs are determined that Israel shall be uprooted from their midst at any price.”
30 March 1960, “The Voice of the Arabs” transnational show on Radio Cairo: “The guarantee for peace in the Middle East lies in our weapons, in the strength of our own army, and we shall impose the peace, O Israel. We shall impose the peace on the day we will drive you into the expanse of the sea.”
15 September 1960, Jordan’s broadsheet Falastin: “In all frankness, we want to eliminate Israel … and care not when Israel protests that we contemplate war and jeopardise her security … because this is exactly our aim.”
29 April 1961, Egypt’s Al-Gomhuria, declared: “Today, it is in our power to defeat Israel. … The day will yet come when we shall … purge our country [i.e., the ‘Arab nation’] of the very existence of Israel.”
15 May 1961, Radio Amman: “There is no doubt that our war with Israel is imminent. … We will strengthen our forces and liquidate Israel completely so that she will disappear from the face of the earth.”
16 June 1961, Radio Amman: “We see in Israel a plague that should be utterly rooted out.”
12 July 1961, Radio Amman: “The establishment of peace in the area will be made possible only through the liquidation of the enemy State.”
17 August 1961, Nasser: “We will act to realise Arab solidarity and the closing of the ranks that will eventually put an end to Israel. …We will liquidate her.”
23 December 1962, Nasser: “We feel that the soil of Palestine is the soil of Egypt and of the whole Arab world. Why do we mobilise? Because we feel that the land is part of our land, and are ready to sacrifice ourselves for it.”
3 March 1963, Jordan’s Falastin: “It would appear, on the face of it, that the concentration of the Jews in the Occupied Region [i.e., Israel], militates in favour of Zionism. In our view, however, in the long run it will favour the Arab nation. … Why? Because this will turn Israel into one huge, worldwide grave for this whole Jewish concentration. And the day draws near for those who await it.”
21 March 1963, Egypt’s Al-Gomhuria carried an official government statement: “The noose around Israel’s neck is tightening gradually.” On the same day, Hassan Ibrahim, a member of the Egyptian Presidential Council, said: “Egypt has rocket bases capable of destroying Israel within a short time, and panic reigns in that country.”
2 April 1963, Nasser: “Israel emerged because the Arab world was weak and divided … but unity will mean triumph and the liquidation of Israel.”
4 April 1963, Egyptian State newspaper, Al-Akhbar: “The liquidation of Israel will not be realised through a declaration of war against Israel by Arab States, but Arab unity and inter-Arab understanding will serve as a hangman’s rope for Israel.”
19 August 1963, Syria’s Defence Minister General Abdullah Ziadeh: “The Syrian Army stands as a mountain to crush Israel and demolish her. This army knows how to crush its enemies.”
22 February 1964, Nasser: “The possibilities of the future will be war with Israel. It is we who will dictate the time; it is we who will dictate the place.”
12 April 1964, Jordan’s King Husayn: “Jordan, with its Left and Right Bank, is the ideal jumping ground to liberate the usurped homeland.”
27 July 1964, president of Ba’thist-led Iraq, Abd al-Salam Arif: “A war with Israel is inevitable. There is no escaping that war.”
30 October 1964, Chief of Staff in Ba’thist Syria, Salah Jadid: “Our army will be satisfied with nothing less than the disappearance of Israel.”<
16 September 1965, Nasser: “The war with Israel is an inevitable thing. … The Arabs waited seventy-five years until they succeeded in chasing out the Crusaders.” It has always been a common theme in Arab perceptions that Israel will perish as the Crusader States did.
13 March 1966, Syria’s daily Al-Ba’th newspaper: “The revolutionary forces in the Arab homeland, and the Ba’th at their head, preach a genuine Arab Palestine liberation … Our problem will only be solved by an armed struggle to … put an end to the Zionist presence. The Arab people demands armed struggle, and day-by-day incessant confrontation, through a total war of liberation”.
22 May 1966, Syria’s president Nureddin al-Atassi told troops during an inspection: “We want a full-scale popular war of liberation … to destroy the Zionist enemy.”
24 May 1966, Syria’s Defence Minister Hafez al-Asad: “We shall never call for, nor accept peace [with Israel]. We shall only accept war. … We have resolved to drench this land with our blood, to oust you, aggressors, and throw you into the sea for good.”
18 August 1966, Radio Damascus: “Syria has resolved to pursue its way, and continue preparing itself to bring about the liberation by way of popular revolutionary war. Our last punitive operations were … [a] warning the bandit State that the hour of liberation is drawing nigh, and the Arab masses are tired of waiting. … [Syria] is convinced of victory, because all the Arab masses are behind her, tensed for action. Behind Syria, too, stand her friends in the socialist camp.”
17 May 1967, “The Voice of the Arabs” on Radio Cairo: “Egypt with all her resources—human, economic, and scientific—is prepared to plunge into a total war that will be the end of Israel.”[6]
25 May 1967, Radio Cairo: “The firm resolve of the Arab people is to wipe Israel off the map.” On the same day, Nasser himself added: “If we have succeeded in restoring the situation to what it was before 1956 [by reoccupying the Sinai], then there is no doubt that God will help us and enable us to restore the situation to what it was before 1948 [when there was no Israel].”
30 May 1967, Radio Cairo: “In the light of the blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, two possibilities are open to Israel, each one of them soaked in blood. Either she will die from strangulation of the Arab military and economic blockade, or she will die in the hail of bullets of the Arab forces surrounding her in the south, the north, and the east.”
1 June 1967, Iraq’s president Arif: “My sons, this day is the day of the battle and of revenge for your brothers who fell in 1948. … With the help of God we will meet together in Tel Aviv and Haifa.”
2 June 1967, founder of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Ahmad al-Shuqayri: “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors—if there are any—the boats are ready to deport them!”[7]
5 June 1967, “The Voice of the Arabs” on Radio Cairo: “Destroy them and lay them waste and liberate Palestine. Your hour has come. Woe to you Israel. The Arab nation has come to wipe out your people and to settle the account. This is your end, Israel. All the Arabs must take revenge for 1948. This is a moment of historic importance to our Arab people and to the holy war. Conquer the land.” NOTES
[1] Bernard Lewis (1986), Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice, p. 161.
[2] Semites and Anti-Semites, pp. 204-05.
[3] In 1959, Nasser was technically president of the “United Arab Republic” that combined Egypt and Syria.
[4] Ronen Bergman (2018), Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, pp. 108-19.
[5] Syria had been a very unstable polity since March 1949, when a military coup felled the government that had presided over the failure to destroy Israel at birth. There were two more military coups that year, in August and December, the latter resulting in a restoration of civilian governance, but it soon devolved into autocracy under Adib al-Shishakli. Another military coup in February 1954 removed Al-Shishakli and another brief period of constitutional rule followed, led by the elderly Hashim al-Atassi, who was soon shunted aside. Shukri al-Quwatli, a Nasserite, became president in September 1955, took Syria decisively into the Soviet camp, and in February 1958 took Syria into the so-called “United Arab Republic” (UAR), theoretically a union of Egypt and Syria that was in reality more an occupation of the former by the latter. The UAR was dissolved in September 1961 by yet another military coup in Syria. Nazim al-Qudsi’s new Western-oriented government did not last long. The March 1963 coup brought the Ba’th Party to power and returned Syria to the Soviet camp, where it would remain for the rest of the Cold War. The February 1966 coup directed by Chief of Staff Salah Jadid saw the Alawi faction of Ba’thists seize control. Al-Atassi was of Sunni origins and it was precisely for that reason he was made the formal president during Jadid’s de facto reign. Al-Atassi was the face of the regime to a Sunni-majority population that regarded Alawis as infidels. Hafez al-Asad prevailed in the November 1970 “corrective coup”, which settled the intra-Alawi contest within the Ba’th Party and established the dynasty that still rules Syria.
[6] George Mikes (1969), The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow, pp. 79.
[7] Ephraim Kam (1974), Husayn Poteah Be’milhama (Husayn Opens War), pp. 284-8, quoted in: Michael Oren (2002), Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, p. 132.
[8] Oren, Six Days of War, pp. 130-32.
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