Yesterday was a day that should be treasured, not for what it did for Israel, but what it did for the United States of America. As American President Donald Trump and others stressed, the official recognition of Israel's chosen Capital City, Jerusalem, should have been made seventy 70 years ago.
It was a horrendous historic injustice, antisemitic for sure, that although then President Truman was quick to officially recognize the State of Israel, it seriously scarred that recognition by refusing to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel. This very undiplomatic and unprecedented snub continues in the American Court's refusal to list American citizens born in Jerusalem as born in Israel. Gd willing, now that the American Embassy is in Jerusalem, citizens born in Jerusalem will be able to have their passports amended to state that they were born in Jerusalem, Israel.
The main theme in most of the American speeches, including the prerecorded one by Trump, was that the State of Israel, like all other countries has the exclusive right to decided on its Capital City.
Even though my husband and I made aliyah just weeks after our wedding, almost half a century ago, we are still American citizens. And we have friends, who like American Ambassador David Friedman straddle their loyalty to the United States and love for Israel. I kept wondering how Friedman felt as the MC of the ceremony. If he writes his memoirs, will he say that it was the high point of his professional and personal lives? How much of this "instant embassy" was of his doing?
We in Israel never doubted that Jerusalem is our Capital. The change by the American Government is for its benefit, not ours. Gd gave us this Holy Land, and three thousand years ago, King David chose Jerusalem as our Capital City.