The status of Jerusalem

A while ago, I wrote about how I had checked out the weather in Jerusalem by clicking on Yahoo weather. I was shocked to see that Jerusalem had been divided into Jerusalem, Il and Jerusalem Ps. Subsequently, the folks at Yahoo weather reunited Jerusalem.

My curiosity aroused, I checked out the weather of Jerusalem on the aljazeera site the other day. When I selected the country of Israel, the only option on the drop down menu of Select city was Tel Aviv. When I selected Palestine the only option on the drop down menu of Select city was Jerusalem.

http://english.aljazeera.net/weather/
As we are in the period of the nine days with Tisha B'Av fast approaching when we mourn the destruction of the two Temples that were built in Jerusalem, it behooves us to read an excellent article written a couple of years ago titled Why Jerusalem is special by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. The following is an excerpt from the Jpost article.

In 1978, at the end of the Camp David peace talks between Israel and Egypt, US president Jimmy Carter pressed prime minister Menachem Begin to sign a letter in which he would “merely” agree to place the final status of Jerusalem on the negotiating table. Begin refused. Emotionally, he explained that in the Middle Ages there lived a beloved rabbi: Rav Amnon of Mayence, who was pressed by the bishop to at least consider converting to Christianity. After a lengthy argument, the rabbi agreed to ponder the issue for three days. As soon as he returned home, the rabbi was smitten by despair. Three days later, he returned to the bishop. “Punish me, oh Bishop,” he cried. “I should never have agreed to think about such an egregious act. The tongue which said I would ponder, the hand that shook yours in acquiescence, the leg that came to do your bidding – remove them from my body.”
The bishop did so. The next day, Rosh Hashana, the rabbi was brought in agony to the synagogue, where he cried out before the congregation the Unetaneh Tokef prayer he had composed the day before. Begin told Carter: “Jerusalem is the fount of our Torah, the focus of our mission. Our Psalmist declared, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be removed from my body, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not….’

“Please don’t ask me to sign your letter; I would rather forfeit my right hand and my tongue. I cannot repeat Rav Amnon’s transgression….”
Click here to read full article.