Forty years later: Jerusalem of Gold

Forty years ago today, according to the calendar that much of the world goes by, Israeli airplanes launched a pre-emptive attack on the Egyptian air force, totally destroying the planes on the ground, as well as the airbases from which they might have been launched.

In six days, Israel defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, supplied with arms and troops from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria. The Arab armies combined came to a total of 900 combat aircraft, over 5,000 tanks, and 500,000 men. The Israeli forces consisted of 275,000 men, 1,100 tanks, and about 200 planes. (All numbers taken from Michael Oren’s Six Days of War.) Watching the PBS special, “Six Days in June,” I was struck by the events that unfolded in those six days, and in the months leading up to the war.

As I watched the documentary, hearing the tale of the Egyptian army surrounded and attacked in the Sinai, and watching the films of Egyptian bodies lying on the sand, I thought of another Egyptian army defeat, several millennia ago. And I thought of the series of coincidences, accidents, and good and bad luck that occurred on both sides: Yitzhak Rabin’s breakdown before the war, from which he recovered in time to lead the IAF to its stunning victory. The Egyptian commander in Sinai, Abdel Amer, panicking and causing a rout rather than an orderly retreat, which Ariel Sharon used to encircle and destroy the Egyptian army in Sinai. The agreement between Egypt and Jordan that forced Jordan into the war against Hussein’s better judgment, and that put his forces under the (inept) Egyptian command—and lost him the Old City and allowed Israel to unite Jerusalem. Nasser’s overall hubris, certain that he would be the Arab leader who would rid the Muslim world of the Jewish State once and for all.

But more than anything else, I thought of the timing of a song that sprang from a contest earlier that year, in which Teddy Kollek, the mayor of Jerusalem (the Israeli part) asked that the 1967 Israel song contest be devoted to songs about Jerusalem. Naomi Shemer, a prolific and popular songwriter, came up with Jerusalem of Gold (lyrics in English here). Shuly Nathan‘s singing made the song an overwhelming hit. A few weeks later, when the IDF retook Jerusalem from Jordan, the song became almost mystical in its timing. “Jerusalem of Gold” rang out from everywhere. Soldiers sang it as they streamed to the Kotel. (You can hear Shuly sing the song in this video. You have to sit through most of it to get the song, but it’s well worth it to hear what Israelis heard 40 years ago.) After the war ended, thousands and thousands of Israelis walked hand-in-hand to the newly-made plaza and beheld the Wall for what for many was the first time in their lives. And they prayed. And they sang. And Jews returned to the site of our ancient Temples.

Listen to this beautiful version of the song by Ofra Haza (thanks to Omri for enlightening me to its existence) dubbed in Hebrew and English. And while you’re listening, reflect on the amazing number of coincidences that led to the recovery of Jerusalem, and the recovery of the Temple Mount, our holiest site, which was forbidden to Jews under Muslim rule. Think especially of the years of 1948 to 1967, when the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, occupied by Jews for millennia, was taken by force by the Jordanians, who then expelled all the remaining Jews, destroyed all of the synagogues, and descrated Jewish cemeteries that had been there for centuries. There was never an outrcy by any world body over these events. There was never a movement by any world body to repatriate the Jews of Jerusalem—the “indigenous” inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter since the time of King David. There was never a movement by any world body to guarantee Jewish religious access to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. But on June 7, 1967, the tables were turned, and the Temple Mount was once again under Jewish control. It didn’t take a world body. It took something much greater.

I think about all those coincidences, and I see God’s touch in the events of 1967. I see God’s hand in the recovery of Jerusalem. And I, as a writer who has experienced what I call the “lightning from God”—the overwhelming urge to write something that seems to utterly write itself with no conscious input from me—see God’s touch in “Jerusalem of Gold.”

I’m with those who think that Israel will have to give much of the West Bank to the Palestinians, if the Palestinians ever renounce terror. But I think there is no way that Jerusalem will ever leave our hands again, nor do I think that it should. Naomi Shemer captured the hearts and minds of Jews everywhere in her paean to Jerusalem. Listen, and even those of you who aren’t Jewish will understand why, at the end of the Passover Seder, Jews all over the world say: “Next year in Jerusalem!”