Articles with the tag: jerusalem day

Jerusalem Matters

Through 2,000 years of exile, Jews from four corners of the world always turned in prayer toward Jerusalem. What memory were they so eager to preserve?

We need to understand the importance of memory. Memory is not history or dead memorabilia. By defining the past, memory creates the present. Dictators have long appreciated this. Which is why Stalin airbrushed Trotsky out of photographs, and revisionists denied the Holocaust ever happened.

In Hebrew, the word for man is “zachar”; for memory it is “zecher.” Man is memory. People who suffer memory loss through illness or accident don’t just misplace their keys. They lose their selves. They become lost and adrift, because without memory, the current moment has no context, and no…

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Jerusalem Matters

London comes from a Celtic word which means, “A wild and wooded town.” Cairo is an anglicized version of the Arab name for Mars, while Paris is named for the Paris of Greek myth. In contrast, Jerusalem was named by G-d Himself.

On the 28th day of Iyar (approximately one week before Shavuos) the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were liberated during the 1967 Six Day War, uniting the Arab and Jewish sections of the city. The day is commemorated in Israel as Jerusalem Day.

Through 2,000 years of exile, Jews from four corners of the world always turned in prayer toward Jerusalem. What memory were they so eager to preserve?

We need to understand the importance…

Continue reading Jerusalem Matters