The Reunification of Jerusalem

As the Jewish holidays of 1967 drew to a close, Boris Shapiro decided to celebrate them in a way that had been impossible for centuries: as a citizen of a Jewish state in the Old City of Jerusalem. 

Shapiro, an Israeli originally from what is now Azerbaijan, was 17 years old at the time. He wanted to experience Simchat Torah—a holiday centered on the significance of the Torah for the Jewish people—on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which Israel had captured from Jordan just a few months earlier during the Six-Day War. 

The trip was exciting and historic, Shapiro recalls, but he found the experience spiritually unsatisfying. “There was euphoria and curiosity, but it was mostly about buying trinkets from Arab vendors. I felt little reverence around me. The synagogue service was uninspiring, even compared to what I remembered from our synagogue in Baku,” he says.

“On Jerusalem Day thousands of people march through the Old City carrying Israeli flags during the so-called Flag Dance”

Religious Revival
Shapiro’s impressions of Jerusalem after the reunification are shared by many Israelis of his generation. They reflect the change Israeli society has undergone since then: a shift away from its secular-socialist foundations toward greater religious engagement and recognition. 

On Jerusalem Day, which begins this year on the evening of May 14, thousands of people march through the Old City carrying Israeli flags during the so-called Flag Dance. Jerusalem Day is celebrated annually on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, the day Israel captured the eastern part of the city and reunited it with West Jerusalem. Both the Flag Dance—which once began as a modest nighttime walk by a handful of Jews—and other new traditions are part of a broader trend in which Jerusalem has gradually become the center of a religious revival in Israeli society, especially since the 1990s. 

Prior to that, the Jewish autumn festivals—Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah—only led to a limited increase in the number of visitors to the Western Wall, a remnant of the Jewish Temple. Today, the holidays attract hundreds of thousands of visitors, not only during those periods, when typically fourteen large prayer services take place, but also during Passover, Hanukkah, and Shavuot. Israel’s two chief rabbis—one Sephardic and one Ashkenazi—organize extra mass prayers at the Western Wall on special occasions, including a prayer gathering in 2023 for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas. 

In addition, there is the pilgrimage to the Temple Mount itself—the holiest site in Judaism. While the site was once strictly off-limits for Jewish prayers and religious gatherings, the situation has changed dramatically under the current government. In 2025, more than 80,000 Jews visited the Temple Mount: 30 percent more than the previous year and more than double the number in 2021. Jews are now permitted to pray, sing, bow, and even prostrate themselves—an act of humility known in Hebrew as hishhtachavot. Just a few years ago, even speaking Hebrew could be grounds for removal by the Waqf, the Islamic religious authority that effectively controlled the area until 2023. 

Emotion and great joy
For religious Jews, the reunification of Jerusalem was, of course, a very different experience. Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, now 91 years old, visited the Western Wall six days after the liberation of the Old City, during Shavuot—another important Jewish holiday. “Crowds of people came from all over the country. We crowded at the entrance. Many were crying with emotion,” Nebenzahl recalls. “The joy was immense. I went inside and recited the Musaf prayer [an additional prayer for holidays and special occasions]. That prayer remains vivid in my mind to this day.” 

The joy, he added, “was twofold: first because we had liberated the Temple Mount, and second because we had been saved from our enemies.” By this he was referring to the great fear of a devastating Arab invasion in the days leading up to Israel’s preemptive strike that launched the Six-Day War. 

An estimated 200,000 Jews visited the Old City of Jerusalem during Shavuot in 1967. Yet it took decades before the traditional Shavuot march through the Old City became an established tradition (which takes place a few weeks after the march on Jerusalem Day). Today, tens of thousands of Jews fill the alleys of the Old City on Shavuot, in a massive procession reminiscent of that first pilgrimage in 1967. 

Shapiro visited the Temple Mount in 1967, shortly before Israel transferred control to the Waqf in an effort to accommodate the local Arab population and the broader Muslim world. He recalls seeing the Foundation Stone, which according to Jewish tradition marks the spot where Abraham bound his son Isaac—a central story in both Judaism and Christianity about obedience and faith. 

“I remember visiting the Temple Mount and then descending to see the Foundation Stone”

Shapiro, a father of one son and grandfather of three, has become more religious over the years. On every visit to Israel, he makes his way to the Old City of Jerusalem. “I remember visiting the Temple Mount and then descending to see the Foundation Stone. I took it all in, but perhaps I was too young to truly understand its significance. Perhaps Israel as a society was also still too young at the time to fully grasp the miracle of our return to this place.” 

Reunification and Reconstruction
Jerusalem, and especially the eastern part of the city, has a large Arab population and is regularly the scene of terrorist attacks. Large parts of the Arab world view the city as the future capital of a Palestinian state, while many countries still do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Yet Shapiro believes that Israel has essentially succeeded in reuniting the city. In this regard, he points to the relatively peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs, despite the ongoing tensions. 

“Especially since it became possible again to pray on the Temple Mount, I would say that we have reunited Jerusalem both symbolically and practically,” says Shapiro. “But it took time before many of us understood the full significance of that.” 

Rabbi Nebenzahl says that being able to visit and live in the Old City of Jerusalem is a source of joy and gratitude. “But that is precisely why it hurts all the more that the Jewish Temple has still not been rebuilt.” At the same time, he adds, “those who mourn the destruction of the Temple also rejoice that Jerusalem is being rebuilt all around us.”