The Longest Wait in Jewish History Ended On This Day

追加: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Jerusalem has been [music] destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured [music] 44 times. And for 2,000 years, through every exile, every massacre, [music] every empire that came and went, one people kept saying the same four words.

[00:00:18]The world [music] thought it was nostalgia. It turned out to be a promise. Every Passover, in every corner of the world, Jews [music] ended the night with Leshana Haba'a B'Yerushalayim. Next year in Jerusalem.

[00:00:30]Not next year Jerusalem will be ours, [music] not next year we will conquer Jerusalem, but rather next year we will be in Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem was never about owning it, but rather [music] belonging to the city, to Jerusalem. The world told the story of June [music] 1967 as a military victory. Six days, tanks, paratroopers, the radio said, >> [music] >> Har Habayit Beyadenu, the Temple Mount is in our hands. But the world misses [music] what actually happened that morning. It wasn't only the Israeli army that arrived at the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, it also marked the end >> [music] >> to the longest wait in human history.

[00:01:14]There is a strange thing about Jerusalem. Every empire that ever ruled this city tried to [music] make it their own. The Romans renamed it, the Byzantines built over it, the Crusaders fortified it, the Mamluks reshaped it, the Ottomans >> [music] >> walled it, the British administered it.

[00:01:31]One by one, they all left because Jerusalem doesn't belong to whoever [music] holds it.

[00:01:38]It belongs to whoever it was waiting for. Today, we walk through streets our ancestors [music] only dreamed of. We argue about parking on roads paved with prophecy. We complain about the traffic on the way [music] to the Kotel. And what did we come back for?

[00:01:55]We didn't return to Jerusalem [music] just for the sake of holding it.

[00:01:59]We returned to be worthy of it as well. Jerusalem is not a trophy. [music] It is a calling. A people doesn't wait 2,000 years to come home only to be ordinary. [music] A city built on the dreams of millions wasn't meant to be just another capital.

[00:02:16]It was meant to be a light. [music] So, today, on Jerusalem Day, we don't only celebrate the fact that we reunified the city and that we are here, we also celebrate [music] what it took to get to that moment today. 2,000 years of prayer, six [music] days of war, one unbroken promise.

[00:02:35]Said in every [music] exile, sung in every synagogue, carried into battle by every soldier who turned [music] next year into this year. And we are still here.

[00:02:47]Praying, loving, arguing, building, falling, but always rising in the only [music] city on Earth where an entire people came home. L'Shana >> [music] >> Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim. Which is Hebrew for to this year in Jerusalem.

[00:03:03]>> [music] >> I wish everybody a happy Jerusalem Day from our ancestral [music] homeland and our eternal capital.