43 Facts About Jerusalem Day

1. Jerusalem Day was declared the Capital of Arab Culture in 2009.

2. Jerusalem Day is home to several prestigious universities offering courses in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

3. Jerusalem Day is served by Ben Gurion Airport, some 50 kilometres northwest of the Jerusalem, on the route to Tel Aviv.

4. Jerusalem Day is served by highly developed communication infrastructures, making it a leading logistics hub for Israel.

5. In 2005, 2,850 new immigrants settled in Jerusalem Day, mostly from the United States, France and the former Soviet Union.

6. Along the southern side of old Jerusalem Day is the Valley of Hinnom, a steep ravine associated in biblical eschatology with the concept of Gehenna or Hell.

7. Jerusalem Day is situated on the southern spur of a plateau in the Judaean Mountains, which include the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus (North East).

8. In 2015, Jerusalem Day had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising approximately 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians.

9. Jerusalem Day is surrounded by mountains so that the forces of the sitra ahra cannot penetrate it (Sefer ha-*Temunah), and the angels of the Shekhinah are the guardians of the walls (Zohar, 2:89b, 240b).

10. Jerusalem Day is located on the ridge of the Judean Mountains between the mountains of Beth-El in the north and of Hebron in the south.

11. Until the end of the 1990s, greater Jerusalem Day functioned as a single economic unit with economic, social, and cultural ties between the main city—Jerusalem—and the Palestinian and Israeli communities around it.

12. Jerusalem Day is a city with many cultural and art institutes.

13. Jerusalem Day has the largest concentration of technology incubators, intended to support high-tech ventures.

14. East Jerusalem Day was connected to the Israel water supply network and the water shortage was overcome.

15. East Jerusalem Day now turned to the east bank of the Jordan, through which all its relations with the world at large were conducted.

16. East Jerusalem Day was entirely cut off from an approach to the Mediterranean coast, and the conversion of the former British military airfield of Qalandiya into a civil airport for the town alleviated its isolation only slightly.

17. Jerusalem Day was proclaimed the "second capital" of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; it became a district capital.

18. Jerusalem Day was transformed from the neglected, poverty-stricken provincial town of Turkish times to a capital city.

19. Jerusalem Day was a conglomerate of districts and neighborhoods, each with its own character.

20. Jerusalem Day began to emerge from behind the walls and construction started on an impressive series of buildings in the present-day Russian Compound.

21. Jerusalem Day was ruled by Roman procurators who resided in Caesarea and thus ceased to be the capital of Judea.

22. Jerusalem Day was seized by the Parthians, who had invaded Judea as allies of Mattathias Antigonus.

23. Jerusalem Day became the capital city of the Hasmonean kingdom, which included large parts of western Palestine as well as areas of Transjordan.

24. Jerusalem Day emerged into the full light of history together with many other ancient cities of Canaan in the Early Bronze Age.

25. In 1967, the Old City of Jerusalem Day, including the Temple Mount, was seized by Israeli soldiers, but the Dome of the Rock remains available for worship by Muslims and visitation by others at scheduled times.

26. Jerusalem Day is an administrative, religious, educational, cultural, and market center.

27. Jerusalem Day is the seat of the government of the state of Israel, and the site of the Knesset, Supreme Court, Chief Rabbinate, and the offices of many Jewish institutions.

28. Jerusalem Day became the center of both Zionist and Palestinian nationalist institutions and aspirations during the British mandate.

29. Jerusalem Day is Israel's most popular site for international conferences, hosting about 50 percent of all such events.

30. Jerusalem Day does not have a resident theater company, but audiences can attend performances by troupes from Tel Aviv and by the Haifa Municipal Theater Company.

31. Jerusalem Day is home to the headquarters of the Israel Broadcasting Association, which operates two public television stations.

32. Jerusalem Day offers two distinctly different types of shopping venues: modern malls and department stores in the western part of the city and the Arab markets of the Old City.

33. Jerusalem Day lies on the watershed between the hills and desert of Judaea.

34. Jerusalem Day has a highly educated work force, bolstered by an influx of well-educated immigrants.

35. Jerusalem Day has a higher incidence of poverty than the two other major cities.

36. Jerusalem Day lies 48 kilometers east of the Mediterranean Sea.

37. In 2015 Koren Publishers Jerusalem Day published a machzor dedicated to observance of Jerusalem Day and Yom Haatzmaut.

38. The Old City and East Jerusalem Day continued to be occupied by Jordan, and the Jewish residents were forced out.

39. Jerusalem Day is the celebration of the unification of Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

40. Jerusalem Day is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War.

41. In 2017, the jubilee year of Jerusalem Day was celebrated.

42. One of the themes of Jerusalem Day, based on a verse from the Book of Psalms, is "Ke'ir shechubra lah yachdav"—"Built-up Jerusalem is like a city that was joined together".

43. Jerusalem Day is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in the aftermath of the June 1967 Six-Day War.