10,000 Signatures Presented to Knesset in Support of Jerusalem

June 6, 2013

3 min read

Left to right: Rabbi Tuly Weisz of Israel365, MK Gila Gamliel of the Likud party and Josh Reinstein, Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus (Photo: Ayal Kellman)
Left to right: Rabbi Tuly Weisz of Israel365, MK Gila Gamliel of the Likud party and Josh Reinstein, Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus (Photo: Ayal Kellman)

This week marks the forty-sixth anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967.  To mark this special date, 10,000 people worldwide added their digital signatures to the Jerusalem Covenant, a document proclaiming the city’s eternal unity as Israel’s undivided capital.  The signatures were presented Tuesday to MK Gila Gamliel, Chairperson of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, by Israel365.

        The Jerusalem Covenant was drafted in 1992 by Deputy Chief Justice Rabbi Menachem Elon to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s reunification.  It was then sent worldwide in a year-long celebratory tour, visiting Jewish communities around the globe.  The purpose of the covenant was threefold, according to Ministry Director-General Yeshayahu Barzel: first, to connect the international Jewish community to the united city of Jerusalem; second, to foster a sense of unity within the international Jewish community, especially among those from the former Soviet Union; and third, to show the world that the international Jewish community stands as one behind a united Jerusalem.  In May of 1993, at the end of its world tour, the covenant was presented to the Israeli government.  The original document is displayed in the Chagall Hall of the Knesset, alongside Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and is signed by a host of political, military and spiritual leaders, including Deputy Minister Avraham Verdiger, Mayor Teddy Kollek and Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz.

        The Covenant was inspired by the renewal of the covenant of God during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, as described in Nehemiah 8.  Upon Nehemiah’s arrival in Israel, he began a vigorous campaign to restore Jerusalem and combat her enemies politically.  He rebuilt the walls and restored their seven gates.  The people then gathered in Jerusalem to hear Ezra read from the Torah and reaffirm their commitment to God.  The Jerusalem Covenant’s seven paragraphs are meant to correspond to Jerusalem’s seven gates at the time.  The modern-day Old City, too, has seven functioning gates (an eighth gate, the Gate of Mercy, has been sealed for centuries).

        Israel365’s recent Jerusalem Covenant project garnered an additional 10,000 signatures from Jerusalem supporters worldwide.  The organization began its project on May 14th, the date corresponding to the Hebrew anniversary of the reunification.  In just over two weeks, the project was a mere five hundred signatures from its stated goal of 10,000.  Asking “Do you agree that the Jewish people have a Biblical right to Jerusalem?” Israel365 conducted a large-scale campaign via social media to collect the digital signatures “from Albania to Zimbabwe,” according to Israel365 founder and director Tuly Weisz.

Israel365 collaborated with Christian Friends of Israeli Communities Heartland to gather all the signatures.  Sondra Oster Baras of CFOIC Heartland said, “It has been an amazing privilege for us at CFOIC Heartland to partner with Israel365 on this important initiative to enable Christians from all over the world to show their support for Jerusalem.  For more than 15 years, we have been connecting Christian Zionists with Israel and especially with the heart of Biblical Israel – Judea and Samaria.  But the heart of it all is Jerusalem – the spiritual and geographical center of the Land of Israel and the People of Israel.  We will never forget Jerusalem.”

Along with the signatures, collected in an elegant, bound document, Rabbi Weisz presented MK Gamliel with a replica of a famous 500-year-old Holy Land map of Jerusalem from the Judaica Webstore.  Arik Barel of the Judaica Webstore expressed, “This piece elegantly demonstrates the Jewish people’s historic claim to our capital city and it’s an honor that it will now adorn the walls of the Knesset.”

        Following the presentation, Rabbi Weisz said, “There is no single issue that unites Jewish and Christian Zionists as much as their steadfast support for Jerusalem as the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people.”  Likewise, MK Gamliel posted on her Facebook page, “While there are many doubts in the world, there is one thing that is clear. That Jerusalem is the undivided and eternal capital of the Jewish people!”

 

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