Zion’s Zionist Deficit
Jerusalem Day: Why I am doing more soul-searching than celebrating
Jerusalem is my city. It is built on hills, it is embedded in the West Bank. Samaria lies to our north and Judea to the south. Until Israel’s victory in the June 1967 Six-Day War, the city was artificially separated along the armistice lines that ended the 1948 War of Independence. This left parts of North, South, and East Jerusalem under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
The city’s liberation 58 years ago is marked annually on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar — today.
By June 28, 1967, the barriers that had divided Jerusalem for 19 years had been dismantled. The city — whose boundaries have since been expanded beyond the municipal borders as demarcated by Jordan — was incorporated into Israel proper. The annexation was opposed by the US State Department in the Johnson administration and condemned by the UN Security Council.
Even today, few countries recognize Jerusalem, not even “Western” Jerusalem, as Israel’s capital. Let’s not forget that there was an international uproar back on December 13, 1949, when Israel moved the Knesset to West Jerusalem. Presently, only the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea (Paraguay comes and goes) have embassies in Jerusalem. All the EU countries maintain embassies in metro Tel Aviv.
International opposition notwithstanding, all Israeli governments have worked on a bipartisan basis to solidify Jewish control of the city by constructing a string of strategically placed residential neighborhoods on vacant land: Gilo and Har Homa in the south, East Talpiot in the east; Ramat Eshkol, French Hill, Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Yaakov, Ramot and Ramat Shlomo in the north. To emphasize, all were built on mostly vacant hills.
These neighborhoods, as well as Jerusalem’s walled Old City, are described —deceptively — as being in East Jerusalem. Indeed, the international community considers them “settlements” in the “Palestinian Occupied Territories.”
In recent years, Orthodox nationalists have made it a point to move into densely populated Arab neighborhoods such as the City of David, the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, and Sheikh Jarrah (also known as Shimon Hatzadik), thereby raising tensions while asserting Jewish rights.
Yet, for the most part, the people of Jerusalem get along. Jews and Arabs live in proximity and share common public spaces. Arabs attend the same colleges and universities, have access to the same world-class hospitals, and work and shop in some of the same supermarkets. There is no way to divide the city along an east-west axis. Anyone who advocates that shows a profound ignorance of political geography.
Partisan Celebrations
Orthodox nationalists embrace Jerusalem Day more than other Israelis. It was once a less parochial affair. Today, festivities are focused on the Old City, where Orthodox evening prayer services will be held tonight, and a huge Israeli flag will be unfurled in the Western Wall plaza.
The municipality budgets NIS 700,000 for Jerusalem Day events. Some of the coordination for the day is handled by the Am Klavi NGO, whose board includes the son of the late Meir Kahane. The Netanyahu government will hold a special cabinet meeting in the City of David, adjacent to the Arab neighborhood of Silwan.
This afternoon, there will be a flag dance and procession, with boys and girls separated, as has become customary in national Orthodox circles. Girls and their families are to gather on Bezalel Street, and march via the Jaffa Gate to the Western Wall; boys and their families march from King George Street via the Damascus Gate to the Western Wall. This obviates the scourge of mixed dancing. The boys have been asked not to curse or spit at the Arabs in the Old City and not to bang on shuttered storefronts.
State of Jerusalem
I live in a delightful, thriving Jerusalem Anglo bubble. There are religious services of every hue just outside my door. My Jerusalem is a comparatively well-run city under Mayor Moshe Leon. He’s a bit like New York City’s Fiorello La Guardia. During COVID, he went around singing in the streets to people holed up in their apartments. The city is relatively clean, given that many of its residents are not civic-minded — they are slobs and many dog owners are filthy and lazy. The bin men come like clockwork, and so do the street sweepers. Besides hospitals and universities, we have the world-class Israel Museum among other fine institutions, the National Library of Israel, and lots of theatres, including English-language productions. The skyline is changing, with soaring buildings everywhere. New lines are being added to the light rail. There are more bus options than ever before. On the surface, Jerusalem is a thriving and cosmopolitan city.
But dig a little deeper, and the news is not so good. Jerusalem is the city with the largest population in Israel, with more than a million residents. About 595,300 of Jerusalem’s residents are Jews (57%), about 400,000 are Arabs (38%), and some 51,400 are expats who live here long term (5%).
Of the city’s Jewish majority, some 29.5% lean insular haredi. And of Jewish pupils enrolled in the schools, 40.3% are in non-Zionist haredi schools. Orthodox nationalist schools and standard public schools absorb another 23.3% of the Jewish pupil population. There are also a variety of private and charter-like schools.
Arab pupils comprise 36% of the Jerusalem school population and attend Arabic language schools that do not generally follow the Israeli curriculum. So, between the Arabs and haredim, the majority of pupils study a non-Zionist curriculum.
Young
In 2024, 25,680 babies were born to Jerusalem residents. Our city has a higher fertility rate than the national average: 16,563 babies were born to Jewish women (about 66%) and 9,117 to Arab women (about 34%). Jerusalem’s population is young. Some 31.7% of the city’s population is children below age 14. Only 9.5% are aged 65 and over. Many of the youngsters are haredim and Arabs.
More young people — including those born here — exit Jerusalem than come here to live. Non-Orthodox and traditional young people come to study at the Hebrew University, Bezalel, Shalem, and drama, film and music schools — and then tend to leave once they have completed their education. There is not much to do on Shabbat if you are not Orthodox; few eateries are open, and there is no public transport.
Poor
Jerusalem is one of the poorest cities in the country. It survives thanks to the largesse of the national government and philanthropic aid. The poor city list goes: Jerusalem, Bet Shemesh, Bnei Brak, Lod, and Netanya. Technically, though, the haredi town of Modi’in Elit, also known as Kiryat Sefer, may be the poorest municipality.
In Jerusalem, 22% of Jews and 66% of Arabs can’t make ends meet, spending more than they have each month. Fifty-six percent of the Arab population lives below the poverty level. The underprivileged are exempted from or get discounts on local taxes. Many others in the Haredi and Arab sectors who should be paying their full share don’t. As a consequence, the rest of us pay the highest municipal taxes in the country.
Balagan
The city is one big construction site and a traffic nightmare. The light rail is partially shut for the next 14 weeks for expansion. Because of the Netanyahu government’s judicial putsch and the sense that the October 7 War has turned into “Operation Save Bibi,” there are endless disruptive protest demonstrations. Concurrently, militant Haredi demonstrations against serving in the IDF are also a regular nuisance, blocking traffic.
Jerusalem Arabs
Because the Arabs opt not to vote in the municipal elections, they have no influence on the city council. One result is that Palestinian homes built without the necessary permits are regularly demolished by the municipality (181 in 2024). The catch is that it is almost impossible for Arabs in Jerusalem to obtain the proper permits. Paradoxically, Arabs not only work in construction as laborers; some of Jerusalem’s wealthiest contractors are Arabs.
A few neighborhoods in former Jordanian Jerusalem that have been annexed to metropolitan Jerusalem have become no-go zones — they find themselves on the wrong side of the Jerusalem “envelope” security barrier that was built during the second intifada, and was placed there for reasons of topography and logistics. Consequently, that leaves an estimated 80,000 Jerusalem Palestinian Arabs with no police protection, no ambulance service, and no garbage pick-up. Yet, they are obliged to pay Jerusalem taxes and must pass through checkpoints to get to work in Jerusalem.
My position is that with sovereignty comes responsibility. If we want to show our sovereignty, there should be no visible differences in the treatment of Jerusalem Arabs: Arab neighborhoods should look as clean and safe as Jewish neighborhoods, with the same playgrounds and street lighting. Same everything.
On the bright side, the Arabs of Jerusalem have a standard of living higher than that in the West Bank. Despite the fact that their schools do not prepare them, Israeli vocational colleges and the Hebrew University have undertaken costly government-funded remedial programs to bring Arab students into the educational mainstream. Indeed, I sometimes hear more Arabic than Hebrew spoken on HU’s Mount Scopus campus.
Zion’s Zionist Deficit
Consider that roughly 40 percent of Jerusalem’s population is Palestinian Arab, who, as noted, foolishly boycott the municipal elections. They carry blue ID cards like me, they have the same health and social benefits that I have. However, they are ineligible to vote in the Knesset elections (unless they apply for citizenship, which, on principle, they will not do). Of course, Palestinian Arabs within the Green Line vote in Knesset elections, and there are 10 Arab parliamentarians in the current 25th Knesset.
Forty-two percent of votes to non-Zionist Parties
A distressing portion of Jerusalem’s Jewish population is anti-Zionist haredim. A larger chunk is non-Zionist. In the last Knesset elections in November 2022 (that is, before the current war), Jerusalem showed itself to be a non-Zionist city. The parties that won the plurality of votes were non-Zionist: 23.8% to UTJ and 18.31% to Shas, for a total of 42%. These parties represent constituents who do not serve in the IDF or do national service. Right now, they are boycotting the Netanyahu government (of which they are the crucial pillars) in Knesset votes to protest its failure to codify permanent deferments from national and IDF service. Both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi clerics who serve as spiritual leaders of these parties, including those on the Zionist payroll, incite against serving, and some even against aliya.
The Small-minded Zionist Vote
And Jerusalem’s Zionist minority is not to my taste. The city’s Zionist vote went to Netanyahu’s Likud 19% and to a combined Orthodox-nationalist-neo-Kahanist ticket that, at Netanyahu’s insistence, ran together, garnering 14% of the vote. Netanyahu’s Likud and the ultra-rightists got a total of 33% of the Jerusalem vote.
What I would like to think of as tolerant, centrist, or left-of-center Zionist parties won only in the single digits in Jerusalem: Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid was 7%, and Benny Gantz got 5%, with Meretz pulling 2.7%.
So when I add the non-Zionist Arabs and the non-Zionist Jews, I calculate a non-Zionist Zion.
Back to Jerusalem Day
What many of the Jerusalem Day celebrants want — and they want it now, like Moshiach — is to build a Third Temple and begin animal sacrifices. The “Returning to the Mount” movement has been offering NIS 50,000 to anyone who succeeds in sacrificing a goat on the Temple Mount. Someday, these Templar Jews hope to demolish the Muslim shrines now on the Mount and build the third temple.
To get them closer to this goal, they have accelerated their pilgrimages to the Mount. Orthodox rabbis used to forbid visits on the grounds that the place was too holy for Jews to tread upon — some still do. But since 2009, spearheaded by Orthodox nationalist holy men, pilgrimages have become de rigueur. Today, some Templar groups are encouraging marchers, in contravention of police guidelines, to visit the Mount with their Israeli flags.
The status quo that forbade Orthodox prayers on the Temple Mount was lifted by a Jerusalem municipal judge in January 2025. Hence, the praying and genuflecting, you see. In 2024, a record 58,149 pilgrims visited the Mount. Students at one Old City yeshiva go to the mikva ritual bath every day and then up to the Temple Mount for morning prayer and Talmud study.
Arab and Muslim social media document every visit. So, while most Jewish people in Israel and abroad may be oblivious to what the Jewish Templars are up to, Muslims from Palestine to Pakistan are very much in the loop. The best way to unite the fractious Palestinian polity or Turks, Persians, and Arabs is to make the Temple Mount the issue. It was not by happenstance that Mohammed Deif named his surprise attack of October 7, 2023, Operation Al-Aksa Deluge.
I think it unwise to transform the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict into a war between 16 million Jews and 2 billion Muslims.
No time for parades
I am humbled and grateful to live freely in Israel’s capital. That said, I am not so much in the mood to celebrate on this Jerusalem Day.
Put aside that Jerusalem Day is now a parochial and politicized event. This country is in the midst — approaching day 600! — of a war that has taken the lives of some 1,878 Israeli citizens and soldiers. We have 58 captives (some alive, most dead) languishing in the dark, rancid tunnels of Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has never been more internationally isolated.
Not since the 1940s has world Jewry been so threatened by antisemitism.
The IDF has been ordered to expand operations in the Strip with the elusive objective of defeating an already decapitated Hamas. Moreover, it is hard to celebrate when so many enemy non-combatants are dying or dislocated or hungry, even if it is because Hamas is using them as fodder for war.
Maybe next year we can celebrate. This year, we should be soul-searching.
Nail hit on head. As usual.
I agree with everything you wrote. For the first time in 50 years I am worried about the future of our precious country. Our present "leadership" is leading us down the path of self destruction.