In 1948, the city of Jerusalem was divided for the first time in its 4000 year history. The Kingdom of Jordan (illegally) occupied the eastern side of the city. Note, please, that this is not “East Jerusalem” as if that were some kind of formal legal definition. “Eastern Jerusalem” was merely a practical geographic designation.
In 1967, the city was reunited, and the classic phrase “Har Habayit B’yadeynu” “The Temple Mount is in our hands” electrified the world. For the first time in 2 millennia, the holiest place in the Jewish universe was back under the control of Jews.
This extraordinary event is commemorated on Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, observed every year on the 28th of Iyyar.
One of the weirdest, if not grotesquely humorous, aspects of the modern propaganda war against the Jewish people is the claim that there are no ties between Jews and Jerusalem, a view espoused by numerous Islami authorities, among them Sheik Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority. He opines that Jerusalem “is solely ‘an Arab and Islamic city and it has always been so…’ Jews have never lived there, the Temple never existed, and Israeli archaeologists have admitted as much.”
Clearly, Tamimi doesn’t know many Israeli archaeologists, because none of them would ever say something so stupid. Neither does Tamimi know the Tanach. In the Tanach, Jerusalem is mentioned 669 times. In the Koran, by contrast, 0 times. Zero. Zip. Nada. Noll. Zilch. Bubkes.
He doesn’t know his way around the siddur, either. If he did, he would have come across the psalm for Monday (Ps. 48) which includes these lines: “Great is the Lord, and highly praised, in the city of our G-d, on His holy mountain/ Splendid, sublime on the north is Mt. Zion, joy of all the earth, city of the great King/….In Your temple, G-d, we meditate upon your kindness/…,Walk all about Zion, encircle her. Count her towers, review her ramparts, scan her citadels…”
To add insult to injury, this psalm praising the (non-existent) holy city and the (non-existent) holy Temple was recited by the (non-existent) Jews in the (non-existent) holy Temple every Monday. And it is repeated by us, nearly 2000 years after the destruction of the (non-existent) Temple, every single Monday.
Keeping a long story short, no people has had as strong an association, for as long a time, with their capital city as the Jewish people have had with Jerusalem. The siddur, among many other aspects of Judaism, keeps that association alive.