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Jerusalem
Jerusalem capital of the State of Israel and spiritual center for
most of the western world. Jerusalem is more than just a physical
grouping of stone buildings and ancient walls spreading out over the
Judean hills: it is the Holy City, symbol of universal peace and redemption
for over 3,000 years.
Geographical Location
Jerusalem is located on the ridge of the Judean Mountains. These mountains
continue to spread out west of the city, but to the east the green
landscape gradually merges with the barren Judean desert which descends
to the Dead Sea. The city is built entirely on hills, its houses picturesquely
dotting the rocky slopes.
Part of the city's historical importance can be attributed to
the fact that it lies in one of the crossroads of Israel, balanced
between the north-south route leading from Hebron and Bethlehem
to Shechem (Nablus) and the east-west routes from the coast to
the Jordan Valley.
In biblical times, Jerusalem was surrounded by thick, green forests
of almond, olive and pine trees. But in the course of numerous
wars and settlements, much of this lush greenery was destroyed
and the soil left to dry out in the summer sun and wash away in
the heavy winter rains. From earliest times, farmers have therefore
been forced to terrace the ground and build stone fences along
the slopes to hold back the soil. This stone terracing is still
in evidence all along the Jerusalem landscape. A deliberate attempt
has been made in modern times to replant the trees and the approach
to Jerusalem is once again flanked by heavily forested areas.
Climate
Jerusalem has a rainy, temperate winter and a hot, completely dry
summer. It is especially pleasant in the summer when the air is clear
and the cool evening breezes bring relief from the noon-day heat.
There is an occasional snowfall in mid-winter lasting only a few days.
Boundaries
The boundaries of the city have changed often, the last expansion
taking place as a result of the Six-Day War in 1967. The remains
of several different encircling walls attest to the city's changing
size even in ancient times.
Names
The first mention of the city of Jerusalem appears in the Egyptian
Execration Texts of the 19th and 18th centuries b.c.e. It is referred
to there as a Canaanite city-state whose name was probably pronounced
as "Rushalimum." In the Tell el-Amarna letters of the 14th century
b.c.e. it is called Urusalim, and in Abraham's day it seems to have
been known simply as Salem. In later times, the rabbis interpreted
this as a variation of the Hebrew word shalom (peace) and gave the
city its designation as the "City of Peace."
Jerusalem is also sacred to many religions and this atmosphere
of holiness is reflected in some of its names.The Greeks added
the prefix hiero ("holy") and called it Hierosolyma. and the Arabs
call it Al Kuds ("The Holy"). Almost every occupying power has
given the city a new name. It was called Jebus by the Jebusites
who preceded the Israelite conquest. The name Zion at first designated
a part of that Jebusite city, but was later used to refer to the
whole city. Later, David gave his name to the city and it was
called Ir David (The City of David). Jerusalem has since had many
names, reflective of the love and reverence of its admirers, including
"God's City," "Faithful City," and "The Beautiful City."
History
Although there is archaeological evidence of man having been in the
Jerusalem area in prehistoric times, there does not seem to have been
a permanent settlement there until the Canaanite period. It was during
this time (c. 2000 b.c.e.) that Abraham met up with Melchizedek, priest-king
of Salem. The Bible later tells how Abraham came to Har ha-Moriah
(Mount Moriah) for Akedat Yizhak -- the near- sacrifice of his son
Isaac (see Akedah). According to rabbinic tradition, Har ha-Moriah
ultimately became the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem. When
the Israelite tribes divided Canaan into tribal lots, Jerusalem was
originally assigned to the tribe of Benjamin, but they seemed unable
to gain control of the area from the local inhabitants. So Jerusalem
remained a Jebusite city until the time of David, thus cutting the
Israelite territory in two and separating the central tribes from
the southern ones.
David
When David became king, he set about uniting all the tribes into one
nation. That meant eliminating the foreign enclave which presented
a physical barrier to unification. At the same time, he hoped that
by
taking Jerusalem, the only city not owned by any tribe, he could create
the national capital there and thus avoid inter-tribal jealousies.
David managed to capture Jerusalem with relative ease by infiltrating
his men into the city through the water tunnels and surprising
the enemy within the city walls. He used his own private army
for this purpose rather than the combined armies of all the tribes.
The city therefore became his royal domain -- the "City of David,"
capital of Israel.
When the Ark of the Law was later transferred there by the king,
Jerusalem became not only the Royal City, but the Holy City as
well. Yet for all its importance, the City of David was actually
very small, covering an area of only about 30,000 square meters
(roughly the size of three football fields set side by side).
It was located in the Siloam Valley on the south-eastern slope
of what would later become the Temple Mount.
Solomon
Though David himself chose the site for the Temple, it was left to
his son Solomon to actually carry out the plans for its construction.
During Solomon's reign, Jerusalem really took on the aura of a thriving
capital, with its magnificently designed Temple and royal palace.
At first the city was below in the valley and the Temple on the mountain
towering above the city. Later the importent people and the king began
to live on the mountain around the Temple. During this period the
city changed its shape, expanding in all directions. But it was still
within what is the Old City of today. Trade caravans passed through
its markets, and the presence of a chariot force, foreign guards and
a sumptious court replete with a large harem, contributed to its fame
and growth. Solomon enlarged his father's city to more than five times
its original size.
Divided Kingdom
When the kingdom split in 930 b.c.e. after Solomon's death, Jerusalem
lost much of its political supremacy. The kingdom of Israel established
its own capital and Jerusalem, now impoverished and weakened, remained
only as the ruling city for the smaller kingdom of Judah. For the
next four centuries, the city alternated between short periods of
prosperity and longer periods of religious and political crises. Some
kings defiled its holy ground with pagan shrines, while others tried
to purify its sanctuaries and restore it to its former state of glory.
Uzziah fortified the city, making it the center of moral and social
regeneration. And Hezekiah reinforced the walls, repaired the Temple,
and built a water tunnel capable of supplying the city in times of
emergency.
Exile
In 587 b.c.e. the Babylonian army captured the city of Jerusalem after
several months' siege. The Babylonian captain exiled most of the inhabitants
and, according to the Bible, "he burnt the house of the Lord, and
the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great
man's house burnt he with fire." This disaster left Jerusalem desolate
for over 50 years.
Return
In 536 b.c.e., after the fall of Babylon, Cyrus, king of Persia who
became the overlord of Judah, issued his famous declaration which
allowed the Jews to return to Zion and rebuild the Temple. Slowly
the Jews began returning to the Holy City and gradually they began
to rebuild from the ruins. In the fifth century, under the leadership
of Ezra and Nehemiah' the walls were repaired' the Jewish community
reorganized and eventually the Temple rebuilt.
Hellenistic Period
Jerusalem submitted peacefully with the rest of Judah to Alexander
the Great (332 b.c.e.) who left the Jews pretty much on their own.
But after Alexander's death in 323 b.c.e., the city suffered through
a series of wars fought by his would-be successors. It was finally
taken over by the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty and remained under their
rule in relative stability for the next hundred years.
In 198 b.c.e. the Seleucids (Syrian Greeks) defeated the Egyptians
and, once again, Jerusalem changed hands. At first, the situation
in Jerusalem seemed unchanged and even slightly improved. Jews
were granted a charter confirming their right to live by "the
laws of their fathers" and Jerusalemites were even partly exempted
from taxes.
But in many subtle ways the Seleucids were attempting to Hellenize
the Jews. In 175 b.c.e. Antiochus Epiphanes became ruler and the
pressure for Hellenization became more blatant and forceful. The
name of Jerusalem was changed to Antioch, a gymnasium was built
just beneath the Temple and the Temple itself was ransacked.
Hasmoneans
Enraged by these actions, the Jews began an armed rebellion under
the leadership of the priestly Hasmonean family. In December 164 b.c.e.
the Hasmoneans were able to reoccupy Jerusalem and cleanse the Temple.
The festival of Hanukkah celebrates that event. Though the city was
besieged several times during the Hasmonean rule, it remained as the
capital of the kingdom until 63 b.c.e. and boasted of evergrowing
political, economic and religious activity. The remains of Hasmonean
walls, coins, arrowheads and monuments found in Jerusalem are evidence
of the prosperity of the city during that time.
Romans
Hasmonean rule was ended in the first century b.c.e. by the Roman
invaders who divided the country into districts so that Jerusalem
lost its status as capital. The Hasmoneans made one last attempt to
regain control, but were ruthlessly suppressed by King Herod who seized
control of Jerusalem in 37 b.c.e.
In an effort to secure his hold on the city, Herod completely
transformed its appearance. He built a palace surrounded by towers
on the northwest corner of the city. He enlarged the Temple area
and surrounded it with a wall, of which the Western Wall is the
only remaining section. He also entirely rebuilt the Temple, doubling
its height and richly adorning its exterior.
Upon Herod's death, Jerusalem was ruled by a series of Roman procurators.
(One of these, Pontius Pilate (26--36 c.e.) was responsible for
the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem.) But the misrule
of these administrators provoked the outbreak of yet another Jewish
revolt, which soon became a full-scale war. In 70 c.e. Titus and
his Roman legions laid siege to the city and then stormed its
weakened defenders. The city was burned, its inhabitants massacred
and the Temple destroyed. Of the once-glorious city, only the
three towers of Herod's palace and the western wall of the Temple
Mount remained intact.
According to Jewish sources, the Romans razed Jerusalem to the
ground and plowed the site over to prevent further settlement.
Even so, some Jews managed to return. When the emperor Hadrian
tried to establish a Roman colony there, the second Jewish-Roman
war broke out with Bar Kokhba leading the Jewish rebels. They
were defeated by Hadrian who subsequently decreed that no circumcised
person should be allowed into Jerusalem under pain of death.
The Romans then proceeded to convert Jerusalem into a typical
Roman colony, calling it Aelia Capitolina. After Hadrian's death
the ban on Jews in Jerusalem was unofficially lifted, only to
be renewed by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. He permitted
Jews to enter Jerusalem only once a year, on the ninth of Av,
anniversary of the destruction of both Temples.
Byzantines
Constantine was the founder of the Byzantine empire and a devout Christian.
He tried to make Jerusalem into a center of Christian worship by erecting
many churches there, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and
designating various areas as Christian holy sites. He also restored
the name "Jerusalem" to the city. This policy of Christianizing Jerusalem
was maintained by most of the Byzantine rulers who extended the restrictions
on Jewish settlement in the city. Byzantine control had been threatened
at various times by the Persians and in 614 the Persians actually
managed to capture Jerusalem and hand it over to the Jews. But this
victory was short-lived and the Byzantines returned in 629 to again
expel the Jews. They ruled Jerusalem until their defeat at the hands
of the Muslim Arab caliph, Omar, in 638.
Arabs
The Arabs, like all of Jerusalem's rulers, tried to change the character
of the city to fit their own religious needs. Jerusalem was sacred
to the Muslim Arabs as the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven.
The Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount, is the most magnificent
of the mosques and holy sites built by the Arabs in Jerusalem to commemorate
that event.
But the Arabs never really restored Jerusalem to its former glory
and it remained basically a provincial town. The majority of the
population was still Christian, though the Jews were allowed to
settle there. They developed two Jewish quarters: one southwest
of the Temple area, and one north of it. The city's inhabitants
were for the most part impoverished merchants.
Crusaders
In 1099 the Crusaders besieged Jerusalem and, in one of history's
strange ironies, the "City of Peace" was once again involved in war
and bloodshed. The Christian soldiers, led by Godfrey of Bouillon,
scaled the city walls and massacred the inhabitants -- Jews and Muslims
alike. In order to repopulate the city, the Crusaders transferred
Christian Arab tribes from Transjordan and settled them in the former
Jewish quarter.
Jerusalem became the capital of the Crusader kingdom and thrived
because of the concentration of all the government and church
bodies there. Tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims visited
the city every year, thus adding to its growth and prosperity.
But the Jews were still for the most part banned, as during the
previous Christian period.
Saladin
When the Muslims, under Saladin, recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, the
Jews enjoyed a short period of resettlement in Jerusalem. But with
Saladin's death, the city remained without any stable authority and
was shuttled back and forth between Christians and Muslims.
Mamluks
In 1250 a new Muslim force appeared on the scene, the Mamluks, who
managed to establish themselves as rulers of Jerusalem for over 260
years. Jewish life in Jerusalem was somewhat freer under Mamluk rule
than it had been with the Christians. The city remained poor but Jewish
scholarship and learning thrived. Ottoman Empire.
Jerusalem came under the domination of the Ottoman Turks in 1517
when Sultan Selim I took it in a bloody battle with the Mamluks.
His successor, Suleiman the Magnificent, left his mark on Jerusalem's
history by building the present-day wall around the Old City.
The construction of the wall, which took five years, made a great
impression on the Jews of the time and it remains as one of the
dominant architectural features of the city to this day. Legend
has it that Suleiman had a dream that he would be eaten by lions
if he did not build the wall. One of the gates to the Old City
has two lions carved on it and is called "Lions's Gate" in memory
of that dream.
But aside from spurring a construction boom, the Turks did not
pay much attention to Jerusalem. They considered it insignificant
from a strategic and political point of view, and during their
400-year reign, only a few Turks settled in the area. Neither
industry nor trade developed to any important degree and the inhabitants
were often forced to accept charity from outside sources. The
three main sections or quarters of the city --- Jewish, Muslim
and Christian --- remained overcrowded and squalid.
The "New" City
In 1859, in an effort to relieve the congestion in the Jewish quarter,
Sir Moses Montefiore bought a plot of land near Mount Zion and established
the first Jewish quarter outside the city walls. He also built a windmill
on the plot which became one of the landmarks of the city and its
first "industrial" structure. Thus began the development of the New
City of Jerusalem and the expansion of the Jewish settlement there.
During the next few decades, many more Jewish neighborhoods were
founded outside the walls, each with the distinctive ethnic flavor
of its inhabitants. These quarters were usually built as uniform
blocks with the windows facing inward on a closed courtyard. This
fortress-like arrangement was meant to protect the inhabitants
from Arab attacks. Among the Jewish communities to spring up in
the New City at the end of the 19th century were the Mahaneh Yehudah
quarter founded by Moroccan Jews, Shaarei Rahamim, founded by
Kurds, and the Hungarian and Bukharan quarters inhabited by immigrants
from Hungary and Bukhara (a territory in the U.S.S.R.).
The Christians also began establishing a foothold outside the
city walls and soon there was a Russian compound for the Russian
Orthodox community and a German Colony for the Protestant Templars.
One of the most important Jewish communities established in the
New City was the Mea Shearim section founded in 1874 by pious
Jews from within the city walls. Various communities of Ashkenazi
Jews came to settle there and these kolels as the communities
were called, were supported by funds from their hometown congregations.
In the early years each kolel lived a totally separate existence
within the narrow streets and winding alleys of its neighborhood,
establishing its own yeshivot, synagogues and community services.
They were later united under one all-encompassing religious authority,
and Mea Shearim remains today as a stronghold of ultra-Orthodoxy
and the traditional eastern European Jewish way of life.
With all this new settlement activity, Jerusalem began taking
on the character of a "westernized" city. Roads were built and
modern shops opened. Even suburban communities such as Rehavia
were established whose beautiful homes contrasted sharply with
the dense, shabby quarters near the center of town. At the turn
of the 20th century, the population of Jerusalem was estimated
at 45,000 including 28,200 Jews.
The British
The outbreak of World War I, however, changed the status of Jerusalem.
It suddenly became the focus of international attention as various
factions vied for control in the Middle East. The Turks sided with
Germany and Jerusalem, no longer able to remain isolated from world
affairs, became he nerve center for the attack on the eastern portion
o' the British Empire. But step by step the Turks were forced to give
way to the British counter-attack. On December 11, 1917 the Turks
officially surrendered Jerusalem to the British forces under General
Allenby, who marched victoriously through the crowded city streets
on his majestic white horse.
The
Jews welcomed British rule. The efficiency and progressiveness
of the British administration, coupled with the Zionist movement
now in full swing and the historic Balfour Declaration which gave
it impetus, encouraged greater Jewish settlement in Jerusalem.
The Jews engaged in a tremendous building boom west of the city
walls, as did the Arabs in the eastern part of the city. Hospitals
and schools were erected and the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus
was opened in 1925.
But along with the development came increased tension between
the Arabs and Jews. Jerusalem, one of the few cities where the
two groups lived side by side, became the focal point of this
tension and exploded many times into bloody riots and acts of
terror. Haj Amin al Husseini, appointed by the British as mufti
(religious leader) of Jerusalem, incited his people to violent
hatred of the Jews. Jewish, Arab and British facilities in Jerusalem
were bombed by extremists on all sides.
Independence
Unable to cope with the situation, the British referred the problem
to the United Nations and on November 19, 1947, the UN General Assembly
approved a partition plan for Palestine, which left Jerusalem as an
international zone, belonging neither to the Jews nor the Arabs. Refusing
to accept the decision, the Arabs immediately began attacking Jewish
settlements, including those in Jerusalem. The Old City was cut off
from the New while the areas outside the walls were divided into warring
camps of Jews and Arabs. Jewish Jerusalem was put under virtual siege
by Arabs attacking the supply convoys along the approach to the city.
Thus began Israel's War of Independence.
The Divided City
Jerusalem emerged from the battle in April 1949 as a divided city.
The cease-fire line, running roughly north-south, left the Old City
of Jerusalem and its eastern environs to the Arabs while the Jews
maintained control over the New City to the west. Walls were built
along parts of the border to guard against sniper attacks. They were
a tragic symbol of the physical and spiritual rift between the two
peoples. For 19 years the Jews were denied access to the Western Wall,
the old synagogues, the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and other
Jewish holy sites. There was a Jewish enclave on Mount Scopus, but
it was isolated from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem, the University
and Hadassah hospital facilities remaining neglected and unused. By
UN arrangement, only occasional convoys of Jewish police were allowed
access to the area, and they were often fired on by the Arabs.
But Jewish Jerusalem recovered quickly and construction began
immediately to replace lost facilities. A new modern University
was built, Hadassah hospital opened a new branch, an improved
museum was erected, and new roads were constructed to replace
the Arab-held Latrun highway running from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The Reunited City
In 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, Jerusalem was again unified,
this time under Israeli rule, and the Jews and Arabs alike were given
free access to all of its ancient and modern sites. Upon entering
East Jerusalem and the Old City, the Israeli forces found that the
Arabs had destroyed many of the old synagogues and desecrated the
cemetery on the Mount of Olives, using the tombstones as building
blocks. The Jews restored these areas, rebuilt the synagogues, renovated
and reopened the facilities on Mt. Scopus and greatly improved the
living conditions in the area, benefiting Arabs and Jews alike. Israel
has also developed previously barren areas in the eastern sectors,
building whole new, modern communities.
In 1993, local elections in Jerusalem resulted in the Labor party's
loss to the Likud and the end to its rule of the city for a generation.
In a highly controversial and politically unwise move, Prime Minster
Yizhak Rabin persuaded longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kolleck
(in office since 1965) to run again, despite the fact that the
83 year old Kolleck had originally conceded that he was too old
to run for a seventh term.
Kolleck lost to member of the Knesset Ehud Olmert, an articulate
former health minister some thirty years Kolleck's junior. After
the signing of the Declaration of Principles between Israel and
the PLO in the same year, the Labor party tried to mix national
with local politics declaring that the elections in Jerusalem
would be viewed as a referendum on the peace process. This tactic
was damaging in Jerusalem, a city whose distinctive religious
and ethnic makeup consistently produced an ultra-nationalist majority.
Kolleck lost the election largely due to the fact that former
Kolleck supporters could not bring themselves to vote for such
an aged figure and the city's 89,000 eligible Arab voters virtually
boycotted the elections in order not to legitimize Israeli rule
in East Jerusalem. The haredi population voted in droves for Olmert
after Rabbi Meir Porush, the candidate for United Torah Judaism
dropped out of the race on the night before the elections. Kolleck,
announced his resignation from the city council on November 29.
Demography
The population of unified Jerusalem had exceeded 646,100 by 1995 consisting
of 473,200 Jews and 172,800 non-Jews, including Christians. It is
a heterogeneous population, ranging from urban, educated Arabs to
semi-nomadic Bedouin, from Hasidim to Oriental Jews. Though the various
populations have integrated somewhat, there are still quarters in
Jerusalem which maintain the character of their distinctive populations.
After 1967, the inhabitants of East Jerusalem were considered Israel
residents with Jordanian citizenship. (They could apply for Israeli
citizenship but practically none of them did so.) This status allowed
them to vote for and be elected to the Jerusalem municipality but
not to the Knesset. As Jordanian citizens they could cross the cease-fire
line and visit in Jordan while they also had the right to move freely
throughout Israel.
The Jerusalem Landscape
The landscape of Jerusalem is unique, a vista where ancient structures
are interspersed with ultra-modern buildings. To preserve the special
character of Jerusalem, the British Mandatory Authority ruled that
all buildings in Jerusalem should be constructed of local stone. An
effort has been made ever since to adhere to that policy so that most
of the structures in Jerusalem are in harmony with the hilly, rocky
landscape. The hills themselves have, to a great extent, determined
the contours of the city. Jerusalem is really a city made up of individual
communities, each built on a hill or cluster of hills and separated
from neighboring areas by valleys or rocky slopes.
Jerusalem's holy sites provide the greatest attraction for Jews,
Christians and Muslims all over the world. Its ancient mosques,
churches and synagogues dot the landscape. The Dome of the Rock
and the El Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the
Via Dolorosa, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, David's Tomb,
Solomon's Pools, Mount Zion... all these are places that evoke
a mystical and spiritual sense of belonging for the hundreds of
thousands who throng Jerusalem each year.
The ancient walls surrounding the Old City, built by Suleiman
in the 16th century, became the identifying symbol of unified
Jerusalem. There are seven gates built into those walls that are
open to traffic: Herod's, Damascus and New gates in the north,
Jaffa gate in the west, Zion and Dung gates in the south, and
St. Stephen's (Lion's) gate in the east. The eighth gate, known
as the Golden Gate or the Gate of Mercy, was sealed by the Muslim
authorities because Muslim legend has it that the Jewish Messiah
will enter Jerusalem through this point.
Archaeology
Jerusalem's rich history and religious significance have attracted
many archaeologists seeking relics of the past and a clearer picture
of the life and times of the early inhabitants. From the 19th century
onwards, excavations have been carried out near the city walls, the
Temple Mount, the old City of David and various other sites. The Israelis
point out whimsically that one cannot turn over a stone in Jerusalem
without uncovering some ancient archaeological find.
The most extensive excavations ever conducted in the area were
carried out by Professor Benjamin Mazar near the Western Wall.
He continued the work started by the American Edward Robinson
in 1838 and British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon from 1961 to
1967. Since 1969 archaeological excavations in the Jewish Quarter
in the Old City of Jerusalem have been in progress under the initiative
and leadership of Nahman Avigad. Among the finds in his excavations
are the Israelite Gate Tower, the Cardo, an ancient shopping market,
and the Nea Church.
Water Supply
One of the points that has intrigued archaeologists and historians
alike is the way in which Jerusalem has been supplied with water throughout
the ages. There is only one natural water source in the Jerusalem
vicinity --- the Gihon spring on the eastern slope of the Old City.
The Canaanites built a tunnel leading from the spring into the city
and it was through this tunnel that David made his historic entry
into the city. At the end of the eighth century b.c.e. Hezekiah, king
of Judah, had a new tunnel built which conducted the waters of the
Gihon to the Siloam pools within what were then the city limits. This
tunnel is still in existence today. One can wade through it and read
the inscription placed there by the builders over 2,500 years ago.
It tells how the workers, digging from both ends, met at an exact
point in the center in what must have been a great engineering feat
for those days. There were other pools, cisterns and reservoirs built
round the city to increase its water supply but they proved to be
inadequate for the growing population. So Pontius Pilate, the Roman
ruler, built an aqueduct to bring more water from the springs near
Hebron in the first century c.e.
However, water shortages plagued Jerusalem's residents in various
periods. In the 19th century the waters of the Gihon became polluted
and Jerusalem residents were compelled to buy water brought in
from elsewhere by train or donkey.
In the 1930s several pipelines were led from other springs to
Jerusalem, thus solving the water supply problem. During the War
of Independence these were temporarily cut off by the Arabs, but
the supply was restored shortly thereafter.
In Judaism
Jerusalem occupies a very special place in the Jewish religion. It
is, of course, often mentioned in the Bible, in a historical and poetical
context. It is sometimes given a quasi-mystical character and is frequently
used to signify all of Israel or all of Judaism. Because of its special
holiness, Jerusalem is treated differently from other cities by the
sages. There could be no permanent ownership of property in the city;
its ritual purity had to be protected, and so no burial sites were
allowed within the city walls.
While the Temple stood, Jews were expected to make three pilgrimages
there each year --- on Passover, Sukkot, and Shavuot. Many still
make these pilgrimages, using the opportunity to mourn the destruction
of the Temple. Jerusalem is also a popular subject for Jewish
legend, folklore and song.
In Other religions
Christianity:
For Christians, Jerusalem marks the physical and spiritual center
of the cosmos. It is the spot where the Garden of Eden was located
and history began. They also believe it is the place where the
world will reach its end.
There are those who feel that New Jerusalem should be for Christians
only, believing that the Jewish claim to the city ended with the
destruction of the Temple. They see Christianity as the rightful
heir to the city because it is where Jesus preached, where he
died, and where he is said to have been resurrected.
On the other hand, there are many Christian theologians who approve
of the Jewish settlement of the city and view the successes of
the State of Israel as a positive step in the rebirth of the Holy
City. Islam:
For Muslims, the three holiest cities, in order of importance,
are Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. They consider the rock in Jerusalem's
Mosque of Omar to be the center of the universe. This rock, which
supposedly bears the hoofprint of Mohammed's horse, is the place
from which the Prophet is said to have made his Night Journey
to the heavens.
In the Art
Jerusalem has provided the inspiration for many writers, poets, musicians
and artists. Jewish poets of the Middle Ages wrote of their yearning
to return to Zion. 19th century British poets used Jerusalem as a
symbol of man's yearning for a better life and a nobler society, and
many books dealing with Jerusalem have been on the best seller lists
since the Six-Day War in 1967.
For centuries, artists have attempted to present realistic and
imaginary interpretations of the city. Its many faces have been
carved in stone, etched in metal and wood, and painted on canvas.
Pictures of Jerusalem appear on coins, old manuscripts, books,
and in museum collections all over the world.
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by C.D.I. Systems 1992 (LTD) and Keter.
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