An agreement has been reached on Thursday’s Jerusalem flags parade (a.k.a. Jerusalem flags dance), Kipa reported Wednesday.
After a hearing in the High Court of Justice, organizers of the traditional flags parade reached an agreement with Israel police, according to which only 600 people will participate in this year’s parade/dance, and the dance will take the form of a human chain, beginning at Tzahal Square on Shlomo Hamelech and Yafo Streets, near the Old City wall, and reaching the Western Wall. Several hundred more people holding Israeli flags will be allowed to stand on the city walls.
An additional agreement was reached: only 450 people will participate the traditional rally in the Western Wall plaza, at the end of the dance/human chain parade. Normally, tens of thousands, especially Zionist yeshivas youths, participate in the Jerusalem Day flags parade every year.
In their petition to the High Court, the flag dance parade organizers demanded to be permitted to form a human chain from the city center to the Western Wall, with 3,000 participants.
Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) is an Israeli national holiday commemorating the reunification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City in the aftermath of the June 1967 Six-Day War. The day is officially marked by state ceremonies and memorial services. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared Jerusalem Day a minor religious holiday to mark the regaining of access to the Western Wall.