Who Cares About Yom Yerushalayim?

May 26th is Jerusalem Day, Yom Yerushalayim. It is the 39th anniversary of the unification of the city by the troops of the IDF.

IDF Troops on the Temple Mount

The question is who celebrates the festival? Not the secular Zionists. Millions of Israelis have never even visited Jerusalem. For secular Zionists there is no difference in sanctity between Afula and Jerusalem.

The Ultra-frum don't celebrate it. They reject the legitimacy of the State and of the IDF and would never recognize or celebrate the sovereignty of either.

That leaves the religious Zionists who do celebrate the day. They allegedly care. I say this with some hesitation because, for instance, the OU web site for this holiday is sorely out-of-date. It's got items from 2003 and 1998. One of those items, an essay by HaRav Eliezer Waldman, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivat Kiryat Arba, to me sounds like a mild political harangue - not a spiritual statement by any means.

Now it seems, as of May 4, 2006, that the State has prepared a new plan to redivide the city. So that further fogs this matter of celebrating a unified Jerusalem.

I guess then let's say it's a holiday for some Jews. But not for all Jews. Hag Sameach.