Israel Commemorates "Jerusalem Day," Celebrating the Unification of Jerusalem in 1967

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

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Chapter: Jewish holidays: Israel Commemorates "Jerusalem Day," Celebrating the Unification of Jerusalem in 1967 Posted: 26 May 2014  Paratroopers at the Western Wall, 1967  (Israel Government Press Office) David Rubinger's iconic 1967 picture of Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall is one of the most famous pictures in modern Jewish history. The photo was taken just hours after the Israel Defense Forces captured Jerusalem's Old City during the Six-Day War after the Jordanian army fired on the Jewish half of the city. Israel Daily Picture has discovered that the Western Wall has been a magnet for Jewish soldiers over the last century. We present these pictures for "Yom Yerushalayim" which begins Tuesday evening.  Austrian Jewish soldiers at the Western Wall.  The Austrian and German armies were allied with the Turkish army  during World War I, 1915 (Harvard Library/Central Zionist Archives). The  photographer, Ya'akov Ben-Dov, moved to Palestine from Kiev in 1907. He was drafted into  the Ottoman army during World War I and served as a photographer in Jerusalem Jewish soldiers from the British Army after the capture of Jerusalem in December 1917 (Wikipedia)   Two British soldiers, presumably Jewish, at the Western Wall during a major snow storm in 1921 (Library of Congress)