Jerusalem is the capital of
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, though not internationally recognized as such. If the area and population of
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
is included, it is Israel's largest city in both population and area, with a population of 763,800 residents over an area of 125.1 km² (48.3 sq mi). Located in the
Judean MountainsThe Judaean Mountains, ;, also Judaean Hills and Hebron Hills is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,000 m.-Geography:...
, between the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
and the northern edge of the
Dead SeaThe Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
, modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the boundaries of the Old City.
Jerusalem is a holy city to the three major
Abrahamic religionsAbrahamic religions are the monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him...
—
JudaismJudaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
,
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and
IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. In Judaism, Jerusalem has been the holiest city since, according to the Biblical Old Testament, King
DavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
of Israel first established it as the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel in c. 1000 BCE, and his son
SolomonSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
commissioned the building of the
First TempleThe Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
in the city. In Christianity, Jerusalem has been a holy city since, according to the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
,
Jesus was crucifiedThe crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
in c. 30 CE, and 300 years later Saint Helena identified the
pilgrimageChristian pilgrimage was first made to sites connected with the ministry of Jesus. Surviving descriptions of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Jerusalem date from the 4th century, when pilgrimage was encouraged by church fathers like Saint Jerome and established by Helena, the mother of...
sites of Jesus' life. In
Sunni IslamSunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
, Jerusalem is the
third-holiestAccording to Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad said "Do not set out on a journey except for three Mosques i.e. Al-Masjid-AI-Haram, the Mosque of Allah's Apostle, and the Mosque of Al-Aqsa, ." In the Islāmic Sunni tradition, the Ka'bah is considered the Holiest site, followed by Masjidun Nabawi as the...
city. It became the first
QiblaThe Qiblah , also transliterated as Qibla, Kiblah or Kibla, is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during salah...
, the focal point for Muslim prayer (Salah) in 610 CE, and, according to Islamic tradition,
MuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
made his
Night JourneyThe Isra and Mi'raj , are the two parts of a Night Journey that, according to Islamic tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad took during a single night around the year 621. It has been described as both a physical and spiritual journey...
there ten years later. As a result, and despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometre (0.347491942733282 sq mi), the Old City is home to sites of key religious importance, among them the
Temple MountThe Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
, the
Western WallThe Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
, the
Church of the Holy SepulchreThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
, the
Dome of the RockThe Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
and
al-Aqsa MosqueAl-Aqsa Mosque also known as al-Aqsa, is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem...
.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world. The old walled city, a World Heritage site, has been traditionally divided into four quarters, although the names used today—the
ArmenianThe Armenian Quarter is one of the four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Armenian Quarter is the smallest of the four quarters, with the smallest number of residents....
,
ChristianThe Christian Quarter is one of the four quarters of the ancient, walled Old City of Jerusalem, the other three being the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter...
, Jewish, and
MuslimThe Muslim Quarter is one of the four quarters of the ancient, walled Old City of Jerusalem. It covers 31 hectares of the northeastern sector of the Old City. The quarter is the largest and most populous and extends from the Lions' Gate in the east, along the northern wall of the Temple Mount in...
Quarters—were introduced in the early 19th century. The Old City was nominated for inclusion on the List of World Heritage in Danger by Jordan in 1982.
Today, the
status of JerusalemThere are differing legal and diplomatic positions on Jerusalem held within the international community. Governments and scholars alike are divided over the legal status of Jerusalem under international law. Most countries of the world do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Many do not...
remains one of the core issues in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflictThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
. During the
1948 Arab-Israeli WarThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
,
West JerusalemWest Jerusalem refers to:*The section of Jerusalem captured by Israel following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.*The western neighborhoods of Jerusalem today.-Division in 1948:...
was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel, while
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
was captured by
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
. Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
and subsequently annexed it. Currently, Israel's
Basic LawThe Basic Laws of Israel are a key component of Israel's constitutional law. These laws deal with the formation and role of the principal state's institutions, and the relations between the state's authorities. Some of them also protect civil rights...
refers to Jerusalem as the country's "undivided capital". The international community has rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as
Palestinian territoryThe Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
held by Israel under
military occupationMilitary occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
. The international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies.
According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of StatisticsThe Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is the statistical organization under the umbrella of the Palestinian Cabinet of the Palestinian National Authority....
, 208,000
PalestiniansThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
live in East Jerusalem, which is sought by the
Palestinian AuthorityThe Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
as a future capital of a future
Palestinian stateProposals for a Palestinian state currently refers to the proposed establishment of an independent state for the Palestinian people in Palestine on land that was occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967 and before by Egypt and by Jordan since 1949...
.
All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the
KnessetThe Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
(Israel's parliament), the residences of the
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
and
PresidentThe President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...
, and the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...
. Jerusalem is home to the
Hebrew UniversityThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
and to the
Israel MuseumThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
with its
Shrine of the BookThe Shrine of the Book , a wing of the Israel Museum near Givat Ram in Jerusalem, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls—discovered 1947–56 in 11 caves in and around the Wadi Qumran...
. The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo has ranked consistently as Israel's top tourist attraction for Israelis.
Etymology
A city called
Rušalimum or
Urušalimum (Foundation of Shalem) appears in ancient
EgyptianAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
records as the first two references to Jerusalem, in c. 2000 BCE and c. 1330 BCE respectively. The form
Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) first appears in the Bible, in the book of Joshua. This form has the appearance of a portmanteau (blend) of
Yireh (an abiding place of the fear and the service of God) and the original root
S-L-MShin-Lamedh-Mem is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words, and many of those words are used as names. The root itself translates as "whole, safe, intact".-Salam "Peace":...
and is not a simple phonetic evolution of the form in the
Amarna lettersThe Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
. The meaning of the common root
S-L-MShin-Lamedh-Mem is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words, and many of those words are used as names. The root itself translates as "whole, safe, intact".-Salam "Peace":...
is unknown but is thought to refer to either "peace" (Salam or Shalom in modern Arabic and Hebrew) or
ShalimShalim was the name of a god in the Canaanite religion pantheon, mentioned in inscriptions found in Ugarit in Syria. William F. Albright identified Shalim as the god of dusk, and Shahar as god of the dawn...
, the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion.
Typically the ending
-im indicates the plural in Hebrew grammar and
-ayim the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name refers to the fact that the city sits on two hills. However the pronunciation of the last syllable as
-ayim appears to be a late development, which had not yet appeared at the time of the
Septuagint.
The tradition names the oldest settled neighborhood of Jerusalem, the
City of David. "
ZionZion is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. The word is first found in Samuel II, 5:7 dating to c.630-540 BCE...
" initially referred to part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole and to represent the biblical
Land of IsraelThe Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
. In Greek and Latin the city's name was transliterated
Hierosolyma (Greek: Ἱεροσόλυμα; in Greek
hieròs,
ιερός, means holy), although the city was renamed
Aelia CapitolinaAelia Capitolina was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.-Politics:...
for part of the
RomanAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
period of its history.
In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as , transliterated as
al-Quds and meaning "The Holy". Official Israeli government policy mandates that , transliterated as
Ūršalīm, which is the cognate of the Hebrew and English names, be used as the Arabic language name for the city in conjunction with . .
Overview
Given the city's central position in both Israeli nationalism (
ZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
) and
Palestinian nationalismPalestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people. It has roots in Pan-Arabism and other movements rejecting colonialism and calling for national independence. More recently, Palestinian Nationalism is expressed through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
, the selectivity required to summarise more than 5,000 years of inhabited history is often influenced by ideological bias or background (see
Historiography and nationalismHistoriography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and "cultural identity". Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former...
). For example, the Jewish periods of the city's history are important to Israeli nationalists (Zionists), whose
discourseDiscourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
suggests that modern Jews descend from the Israelites and
MaccabeesThe Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
, whilst the Islamic, Christian and other non-Jewish periods of the city's history are important to
Palestinian nationalismPalestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people. It has roots in Pan-Arabism and other movements rejecting colonialism and calling for national independence. More recently, Palestinian Nationalism is expressed through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
, whose
discourseDiscourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
suggests that modern Palestinians descend from all the different peoples who have lived in the region. As a result, both sides claim the history of the city has been politicized by the other in order to strengthen their relative claims to the city, and that this is borne out by the different focuses the different writers place on the various events and eras in the city's history.
Overview of Jerusalem's historical periods
Ancient period
Ceramic evidence indicates occupation of the City of David, within present-day Jerusalem, as far back as the
Copper AgeThe Chalcolithic |stone]]") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic/Æneolithic , is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times...
(c. 4th millennium BCE), with evidence of a permanent settlement during the early
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
(c. 3000–2800 BCE). The
Execration TextsExecration texts, also referred to as Proscription Lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the Pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon statuettes of bound foreigners, bowls, or blocks of clay...
(c. 19th century BCE), which refer to a city called
Roshlamem or
Rosh-ramen and the
Amarna lettersThe Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
(c. 14th century BCE) may be the earliest mention of the city. Some archaeologists, including
Kathleen KenyonDame Kathleen Mary Kenyon , was a leading archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent. She is best known for her excavations in Jericho in 1952-1958.-Early life:...
, believe Jerusalem as a city was founded by
Northwest SemiticThe Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today. The group is generally divided into three branches: Ugaritic , Canaanite and Aramaic...
people with organized settlements from around 2600 BCE. According to Jewish tradition, the city was founded by
ShemShem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each...
and
EberEber is an ancestor of the Israelites, according to the "Table of Nations" in and . He was a great-grandson of Noah's son Shem and the father of Peleg born when Eber was 34 years old, and of Joktan. He was the son of Shelah a distant ancestor of Abraham...
, ancestors of
AbrahamAbraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
. In the
biblicalThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
account, Jerusalem ("Salem") when first mentioned is ruled by
MelchizedekMelchizedek or Malki Tzedek translated as "my king righteous") is a king and priest mentioned during the Abram narrative in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis....
, an ally of Abraham (identified with Shem in legend). Later, in the time of Joshua, Jerusalem lay within territory allocated to the
tribe of BenjaminAccording to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...
, but continued to be under the independent control of the
JebusiteAccording to the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites were a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David; the Books of Kings state that Jerusalem was known as Jebus prior to this event...
s until it was conquered by
DavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and made into the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel (c. 11th century BCE). Recent excavations of a
Large Stone StructureThe Large Stone Structure is the name given to the remains of a large public building in the City of David neighborhood of central Jerusalem, south of the Old City, tentatively dated to 10th to 9th century BCE. The name was given to the structure, as a result of its proximity with another site...
and a nearby
Stepped Stone StructureThe Stepped Stone Structure is the name given to the remains at a particular archaeological site on the eastern side of the City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem. The curved, 60ft high, narrow stone structure is built over a series of terraces...
are widely believed to be the remains of King David's palace. The excavations have been interpreted by some archaeologists as lending credence to the biblical narrative, while others disagree.
According to Hebrew scripture, King
DavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
reigned for 40 years. The generally accepted estimate of the conclusion of this reign is 970 BCE. The Bible records that David was succeeded by his son
SolomonSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
, who built
the
Holy TempleThe Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
on
Mount MoriahMoriah is the name given to a mountain range by the Book of Genesis, in which context it is giv. the location of the sacrifice of Isaac. Traditionally Moriah has been interpreted as the name of the specific mountain at which this occurred, rather than just the name of the range...
.
Solomon's TempleSolomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....
(later known as the
First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in
Jewish historyJewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
as the repository of the
Ark of the CovenantThe Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...
. For more than 400 years, until the
BabyloniaBabylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
n conquest in 587 BCE, Jerusalem was the political capital of the united Kingdom of Israel and then the
Kingdom of JudahThe Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
. During this period, known as the
First Temple PeriodSolomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....
, the Temple was the religious center of the Israelites. On Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the
ten northern tribesThe Ten Lost Tribes of Israel refers to those tribes of ancient Israel that formed the Kingdom of Israel and which disappeared from Biblical and all other historical accounts after the kingdom was destroyed in about 720 BC by ancient Assyria...
split off to form the Kingdom of Israel. Under the leadership of the House of David and Solomon, Jerusalem remained the capital of the
Kingdom of JudahThe Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
.
When the
AssyriaAssyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
ns conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE, as the Babylonians conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and laid waste to Solomon's Temple. In 538 BCE, after 50 years of
Babylonian captivityThe Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....
,
PersianThe Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
King Cyrus the GreatCyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
invited the Jews to return to Judah to rebuild the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of
Darius the GreatDarius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple. In about 445 BCE, King
Artaxerxes I of PersiaArtaxerxes I was the sixth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 465 BCE to 424 BCE. He was the son of Xerxes I of Persia and Amestris, daughter of Otanes.*Artaxerxes I was the sixth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 465 BCE to 424 BCE. He was the son of Xerxes I of Persia and...
issued a decree allowing the city and the walls to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship.
Classical antiquity
When Macedonian ruler
Alexander the Great conquered the
Persian EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
, Jerusalem and
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
came under Macedonian control, eventually falling to the
Ptolemaic dynastyThe Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
under
Ptolemy IPtolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
. In 198 BCE,
Ptolemy VPtolemy V Epiphanes , son of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III of Egypt, was the fifth ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty. He became ruler at the age of five, and under a series of regents the kingdom was paralyzed.-Regency infighting:Ptolemy Epiphanes was only a small boy when his father, Ptolemy...
lost Jerusalem and
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
to the
SeleucidsThe Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
under
Antiochus IIIAntiochus III the Great Seleucid Greek king who became the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire as a youth of about eighteen in 223 BC. Antiochus was an ambitious ruler who ruled over Greater Syria and western Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC...
. The
SeleucidThe Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
attempt to recast Jerusalem as a
HellenizedHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
city-statePolis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful
Maccabean revoltThe Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
of
MattathiasMattathias ben Johanan was a Jewish priest whose role in the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks is related in the Books of the Maccabees...
and his five sons against
Antiochus EpiphanesAntiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithridates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne....
, and their establishment of the
Hasmonean KingdomThe Hasmonean dynasty , was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea...
in 152 BCE with Jerusalem again as its capital. In 63 BCE, Pompey the Great intervened in a Hasmonean struggle for the throne and captured Jerusalem, incorporating Judea into the
Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
.
As
RomeThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
became stronger it installed
HerodHerod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
as a Jewish
client kingA satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
. Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size. Shortly after Herod's death, in 6 CE Judea came under direct Roman rule as the
Iudaea ProvinceJudaea or Iudaea are terms used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...
, although Herod's descendants through
Agrippa IIAgrippa II , son of Agrippa I, and like him originally named Marcus Julius Agrippa, was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great, thus last of the Herodians. He was the brother of Berenice, Mariamne, and Drusilla...
remained client kings of neighbouring territories until 96 CE. Roman rule over Jerusalem and the region began to be challenged with the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Jerusalem once again served as the capital of Judea during the three-year rebellion known as the Bar Kokhba revolt, beginning in 132 CE. The Romans succeeded in suppressing the revolt in 135 CE. Emperor
HadrianHadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
romanized the city, renaming it
Aelia CapitolinaAelia Capitolina was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.-Politics:...
, and banned the Jews from entering it. Hadrian renamed the entire
Iudaea ProvinceJudaea or Iudaea are terms used by historians to refer to the Roman province that extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel...
Syria Palaestina, after the biblical
PhilistinesPhilistines , Pleshet or Peleset, were a people who occupied the southern coast of Canaan at the beginning of the Iron Age . According to the Bible, they ruled the five city-states of Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, from the Wadi Gaza in the south to the Yarqon River in the north, but with...
, in an attempt to de-Judaize the country. The enforcement of the ban on Jews entering
Aelia CapitolinaAelia Capitolina was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.-Politics:...
continued until the 4th century CE.
In the five centuries following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the city remained under Roman then
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
rule. During the 4th century, the
Roman EmperorThe Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Constantine IConstantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
constructed Christian sites in Jerusalem, such as the
Church of the Holy SepulchreThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
. Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period, when the city covered two square kilometers (0.8 sq mi.) and had a population of 200,000. From the days of Constantine until the 7th century, Jews were banned from Jerusalem.
The eastern continuation of the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, maintained control of the city for years. Within the span of a few decades, Jerusalem shifted from Byzantine to
PersianThe Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
rule and returned to Roman-Byzantine dominion once more. Following
SassanidThe Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
Khosrau II250px|thumb|Khosrau II 250px|thumb|Khosrau II 250px|thumb|Khosrau II (Khosrow II, Chosroes II, or Xosrov II in classical sources, sometimes called Parvez, "the Ever Victorious" – (in Persian: خسرو پرویز), was the twenty-second Sassanid King of Persia, reigning from 590 to 628...
's early 7th century push into
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, advancing through Syria, Sassanid Generals
ShahrbarazShahrbaraz or Shahrwaraz was a general, with the rank of Eran Spahbod under Khosrau II . His name was Farrokhan, and Shahrbaraz was his title...
and Shahin attacked the Byzantine-controlled city of Jerusalem . They were aided by the Jews of Palestine, who had risen up against the Byzantines.
In the
Siege of JerusalemThe Siege of Jerusalem in 614 was part of the final phase of the Byzantine-Sassanid Wars. The Persian Shah Khosrau II appointed his generals to conquer the Byzantine controlled areas of the Near East, establishing a strategic alliance with the Jewish population of the Sassanid Persia...
(614), after 21 days of relentless
siege warfareA siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...
, Jerusalem was captured. The Byzantine chronicles relate that the
Sassanid armyThe birth of the Sassanid army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I , the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose...
and the Jews slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in the city, an episode which has been the subject of much debate between historians. The conquered city would remain in Sassanid hands for some fifteen years until the Byzantine Emperor
HeracliusHeraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...
reconquered it in 629.
Middle Ages
Jerusalem is considered the third holiest city (after
MeccaMecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
and
MedinaMedina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
) in the Sunni denomination of
IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. Among Muslims of Islam's earliest era it was referred to as
Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple") which was restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "...was called Iliya, reflecting the Roman name given the city following the destruction of
70 c.e.:
Aelia Capitolina". Later the Temple Mount became known as
al-Haram al-Sharif, “The Noble Sanctuary”, while the city around it became known as
Bayt al-Maqdis, and later still,
al-Quds al-Sharif "The Noble City". The
IslamizationIslamization or Islamification has been used to describe the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam...
of Jerusalem began in the first year
A.H.The Hijri year is year numbering system used in the Islamic calendar. It commemorates the Hijra , or emigration of Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina in 622 CE. In Arabic, AH is symbolized by the letter هـ...
(620 CE), when Muslims were instructed to face the city while performing their daily prostrations and, according to Muslim religious tradition, Muhammad's night journey and ascension to heaven took place. After 16 months, the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca. In 638 the Islamic
CaliphateThe term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the
Arab conquestThe Muslim conquest of Syria occurred in the first half of the 7th century, and refers to the region known as the Bilad al-Sham, the Levant, or Greater Syria...
, Jews were allowed back into the city. The
RashidunThe Rightly Guided Caliphs or The Righteous Caliphs is a term used in Sunni Islam to refer to the first four Caliphs who established the Rashidun Caliphate. The concept of "Rightly Guided Caliphs" originated with the Abbasid Dynasty...
caliph
Umar ibn al-Khattab`Umar ibn al-Khattāb c. 2 November , was a leading companion and adviser to the Islamic prophet Muhammad who later became the second Muslim Caliph after Muhammad's death....
signed a treaty with
Monophysite ChristianMonophysitism , or Monophysiticism, is the Christological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature, his humanity being absorbed by his Deity...
Patriarch Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. When led to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest site for Christians, the caliph Umar refused to pray in the church so that Muslims would not request converting the church to a mosque. He prayed outside the church, where the Mosque of Umar (Omar) stands to this day, opposite the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the Gaullic bishop
ArculfArculf , was a Frankish Bishop who toured the Levant in around 680. Bede claimed he was a bishop , who, according to Bede's history of the Church in England , was shipwrecked on the shore of Iona, Scotland on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was hospitably received by Adamnan, the...
, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the
Mosque of UmarMosque of Omar in Jerusalem is located opposite the southern courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Muristan. After the Siege of Jerusalem by the Rashidun army under the command of Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, Patriarch Sophronius refused to surrender except to the Caliph Omar himself....
was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodate 3,000 worshipers.
When the Muslims went to Bayt Al-Maqdes for the first time, They searched for the site of the Far Away Holy Mosque (Al-Masjed Al-Aqsa) that was mentioned in Quran and Hadith according to Islamic beliefs. According to Islamic legend, they found the site full of rubbish, they cleaned it and started using it for prayers thereafter. The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of the
Dome of the RockThe Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
in the late 7th century. The 10th century historian
al-MuqaddasiMuhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din Al-Muqaddasi , also transliterated as Al-Maqdisi and el-Mukaddasi, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of Ahsan at-Taqasim fi Ma`rifat il-Aqalim .-Biography:Al-Muqaddasi, "the Hierosolomite" was born in Jerusalem in 946 AD...
writes that Abd al-Malik built the shrine in order to compete in grandeur with Jerusalem's monumental churches. Over the next four hundred years Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.
In 1099, The Fatimid ruler expelled the native Christian population before Jerusalem was
conqueredThe Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade. The Crusaders stormed and captured the city from Fatimid Egypt.-Background:...
by the
CrusadersThe Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, who massacred most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants when they took the solidly defended city by assault, after a period of siege; later the Crusaders created the
Kingdom of JerusalemThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....
. By early June 1099 Jerusalem’s population had declined from 70,000 to less than 30,000.
In 1187, the city was wrested from the Crusaders by
SaladinṢalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...
who permitted Jews and Muslims to return and settle in the city. Under the
Ayyubid dynastyThe Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries CE. The Ayyubid family, under the brothers Ayyub and Shirkuh, originally served as soldiers for the Zengids until they...
of Saladin, a period of huge investment began in the construction of houses, markets, public baths, and pilgrim hostels as well as the establishment of religious endowments. However, for most of the 13th century, Jerusalem declined to the status of a village due to city's fall of strategic value and Ayyubid internecine struggles.
In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Khwarezmian
TartarsTatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
, who decimated the city's Christian population and drove out the Jews. The Khwarezmian Tartars were driven out by the Ayyubids in 1247. From 1250 to 1517, Jerusalem was ruled by the
MamlukThe Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt was the final independent Egyptian state prior to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in 1805. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. The sultanate's ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, Arabised...
s. During this period of time many clashes occurred between the Mamluks on one side and the crusaders and the
MongolsMongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
on the other side. The area also suffered from many earthquakes and
black plagueThe Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
.
Early modern period
In 1517, Jerusalem and environs fell to the
Ottoman TurksThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, who generally remained in control until 1917. Jerusalem enjoyed a prosperous period of renewal and peace under
Suleiman the MagnificentSuleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
– including the rebuilding of magnificent walls around the Old City. Throughout much of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem remained a provincial, if religiously important center, and did not straddle the main trade route between
DamascusDamascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
and
CairoCairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. The English reference book
Modern history or the present state of all nations written in 1744 stated that "Jerusalem is still reckoned the capital city of Palestine".
The Ottomans brought many innovations: modern postal systems run by the various consulates; the use of the wheel for modes of transportation; stagecoach and carriage, the wheelbarrow and the cart; and the oil-lantern, among the first signs of modernization in the city. In the mid 19th century, the Ottomans constructed the first paved road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and by 1892 the railroad had reached the city.
Modern period
With the annexation of Jerusalem by
Muhammad Ali of EgyptMuhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
in 1831, foreign missions and consulates began to establish a foothold in the city. In 1836,
Ibrahim PashaIbrahim Pasha was the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Wāli and unrecognised Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces was when he was merely a teenager...
allowed Jerusalem's Jewish residents to restore four major synagogues, among them the
HurvaThe Hurva Synagogue, , also known as Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid , is a historic synagogue located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem....
. In the
1834 Arab revolt in PalestineThe 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine was a reaction to conscription into the Egyptian army by the Wāli Muhammad Ali. Ali, as a part of a modernisation policy, began the conscription of ordinary subjects. Traditionally, soldiers were recruited from freebooters, loot-seekers, mercenaries, slaves or...
, Qasim al-Ahmad led his forces from
NablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
and attacked Jerusalem, aided by the
Abu GhoshAbu Ghosh is an Israeli Arab town in Israel, located west of Jerusalem on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. It is situated 610–720 meters above sea level. In 2010, it set the Guinness World Record for largest dish of hummus...
clan, entered the city on 31 May 1834. The Christians and Jews of Jerusalem were subjected to attacks. Ibrahim's Egyptian army routed Qasim's forces in Jerusalem the following month.
Ottoman rule was reinstated in 1840, but many Egyptian Muslims remained in Jerusalem and Jews from
Algiers' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
and North Africa began to settle in the city in growing numbers. In the 1840s and 1850s, the international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine as they sought to extend their protection over the region's religious minorities, a struggle carried out mainly through consular representatives in Jerusalem. According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 Europeans. The volume of Christian pilgrims increased under the Ottomans, doubling the city's population around Easter time.
In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to develop outside the Old City walls to house pilgrims and relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city. The Russian Compound and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860. In 1867 an American Missionary reports an estimated population of Jerusalem of 'above' 15,000, with 4,000 to 5,000 Jews and 6,000 Muslims. Every year there were 5,000 to 6,000 Russian Christian Pilgrims.
British Mandate
In 1917 after the
Battle of JerusalemThe Battle of Jerusalem developed from 17 November with fighting continuing until 30 December 1917 during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I...
, the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, led by
General Edmund AllenbyField Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby GCB, GCMG, GCVO was a British soldier and administrator most famous for his role during the First World War, in which he led the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the conquest of Palestine and Syria in 1917 and 1918.Allenby, nicknamed...
, captured the city, and in 1922, the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
at the
Conference of LausanneThe Conference of Lausanne was a conference held in Lausanne, Switzerland during 1922 and 1923. Its purpose was the negotiation of a treaty to replace the Treaty of Sèvres, which, under the new government of Kemal Pasha, was no longer recognised by Turkey....
entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate for Palestine, the neighbouring mandate of
TransjordanThe Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
to the east across the River Jordan, and the Iraq Mandate beyond it.
From 1922 to 1948 the total population of the city rose from 52,000 to 165,000 with two thirds of Jews and one-third of Arabs (Muslims and Christians). The situation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine was not quiet. In Jerusalem, in particular,
riots occurred in 1920The 1920 Palestine riots, or Nabi Musa riots, took place in British Mandate of Palestine April 4–7, 1920 in and around the Old City of Jerusalem....
and
in 1929The 1929 Palestine riots, also known as the Western Wall Uprising, the 1929 Massacres, , or the Buraq Uprising , refers to a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 when a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into violence...
. Under the British, new garden suburbs were built in the western and northern parts of the city and institutions of higher learning such as the
Hebrew UniversityThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
were founded.
Division and reunification 1948–1967
As the British Mandate for Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a
corpus separatum under the administration of the UN." The international regime (which also included the city of
BethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
) was to remain in force for a period of ten years, whereupon a
referendumA referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
was to be held in which the residents were to decide the future regime of their city. However, this plan was not implemented, as the
1948 war eruptedThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, while the British withdrew from Palestine and Israel declared its independence. The war led to displacement of Arab and Jewish populations in the city. The 1,500 residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were expelled and a few hundred taken prisoner when the Arab Legion captured the quarter on 28 May. The Arab Legion also attacked Western Jerusalem with snipers. Arab residents of Katamon,
TalbiyaTalbiya or Talbiyeh , officially Komemiyut, is an upscale neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, located between Rehavia and Katamon. It was built in the 1920s and 1930s on land purchased from the Greek Patriarchate...
, and the German Colony were driven from their homes. By the end of the war Israel had control of 12 of Jerusalem's 15 Arab residential quarters. An estimated minimum of 30,000 people had become refugees.
The war of 1948 resulted in Jerusalem being divided, with the old walled city lying entirely on the Jordanian side of the
lineGreen Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
. A no-man's land between East and West Jerusalem came into being in November 1948:
Moshe DayanMoshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel...
, commander of the Israeli forces in Jerusalem, met with his Jordanian counterpart
Abdullah el TellAbdullah el-Tell, served in the Transjordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 war in Palestine rising from the rank of company commander to become Military Governor of the Old City of Jerusalem...
in a deserted house in Jerusalem’s
MusraraMusrara also known by its Hebrew name, Morasha is a neighborhood in Jerusalem. It is bordered by Meah Shearim and Beit Yisrael on the north, the Old City on the south and east, and the Russian Compound and Kikar Safra to the west.-History:...
neighborhood and marked out their respective positions: Israel’s position in red and Jordan's in green. This rough map, which was not meant as an official one, became the final
lineGreen Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
in the
1949 Armistice AgreementsThe 1949 Armistice Agreements are a set of agreements signed during 1949 between Israel and neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and established armistice lines between Israeli forces and the forces in...
, which divided the city and left
Mount ScopusMount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
as an Israeli
exclaveIn political geography, an enclave is a territory whose geographical boundaries lie entirely within the boundaries of another territory.An exclave, on the other hand, is a territory legally or politically attached to another territory with which it is not physically contiguous.These are two...
inside
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
. Barbed wire and concrete barriers ran down the center of the city, passing close by Jaffa Gate on the western side of the old walled city, and a crossing point was established at
Mandelbaum GateMandelbaum Gate is a former checkpoint between Israeli and Jordanian sectors of Jerusalem, just north of the western edge of the Old City along the Green Line...
slightly to the north of the old walled city. Military skirmishes frequently threatened the ceasefire. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jerusalem was declared its capital. Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1950, subjecting it to Jordanian law. Only the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
formally recognized such annexation, which, in regard to Jerusalem, was on a
de facto basis. Also, it is dubious if Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation.
After 1948, since the old walled city in its entirety was to the east of the armistice line,
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
was able to take control of all the holy places therein, and contrary to the terms of the armistice agreement, denied Jews access to Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated. Jordan allowed only very limited access to Christian holy sites. Of the 58 synagogues in the Old City, half were either razed or converted to stables and hen-houses over the course of the next 19 years, including the Hurva and the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue. The Jewish Cemetery on the
Mount of OlivesThe Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
was desecrated, with gravestones used as to build roads and latrines. Many other historic and religiously significant buildings were demolished and replaced by modern structures. During this period, the
Dome of the RockThe Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
and Al-Aqsa Mosque underwent major renovations.
The Jewish Quarter became known as
Harat al-Sharaf, and was resettled with refugees from the 1948 war. In 1966 the Jordanian authorities relocated 500 of them to the
Shua'fat refugee campShu'fat , also Shuafat and Sha'fat, is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, forming part of north-eastern Jerusalem. Located on the old Jerusalem-Ramallah road about three miles north of the Old City, Shuafat has a population of 35,000 residents...
as part of plans to redevelop the area.
In 1967, despite Israeli pleas that Jordan remain neutral during the
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, Jordanian forces attacked Israeli-held West Jerusalem on the war's second day. After hand to hand fighting between Israeli and Jordanian soldiers on the
Temple MountThe Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
, the Israel Defense Force captured East Jerusalem, along with the entire West Bank. East Jerusalem, along with some nearby West Bank territory, was subsequently annexed by Israel. On 27 June 1967, a few weeks after the war ended, Israel extended its law and jurisdiction to East Jerusalem and some surrounding area, incorporating it into the Jerusalem Municipality. Although at the time Israel informed the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
that its measures constituted administrative and municipal integration rather than annexation, later rulings by the Israeli Supreme Court indicated that the eastern sector of Jerusalem had become part of Israel. In 1980, Israel passed the
Jerusalem LawThe Jerusalem Law is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel passed by the Knesset on July 30, 1980 .It began as a private member's bill proposed by Geula Cohen, whose original text stated that "the integrity and unity of greater Jerusalem in its boundaries after the Six-Day War...
as an addition to its
Basic LawsThe Basic Laws of Israel are a key component of Israel's constitutional law. These laws deal with the formation and role of the principal state's institutions, and the relations between the state's authorities. Some of them also protect civil rights...
, which declared Jerusalem the "complete and united" capital of Israel.
Jewish and Christian access to the holy sites inside the old walled city was restored. Israel left the
Temple MountThe Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
under the jurisdiction of an Islamic
waqfA waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
, but opened the
Western WallThe Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
to Jewish access. The
Moroccan QuarterThe Moroccan Quarter or Mughrabi Quarter was an 800-year old neighborhood in the southeast corner of the Old City of Jerusalem, bordering on the western wall of the Temple Mount on the east , the Old City walls on the south , the Jewish Quarter to the west, and the Muslim Quarter to...
, which was located adjacent to the Western Wall, was evacuated and razed to make way for a plaza for those visiting the wall. In the following days, Arabs living in the Jewish Quarter were also evicted. On April 18, 1968, the Israeli Treasury Ministry official expropriated the land of the former Moroccan Quarter and the Jewish Quarter for public use, and offered 200
Jordanian dinarThe dinar is the currency of Jordan. The dinar is divided into 10 dirham, 100 qirsh or 1000 fils....
s to each displaced Arab family.
Israel subsequently built Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, and settled Jews in Arab neighborhoods. Following the annexation, Israel conducted a census of Arab residents in the areas annexed. Residents present at the time of the census were given permanent residency status, with the option of applying for citizenship.
The annexation of East Jerusalem was met with international criticism. Following the passing of the
Jerusalem LawThe Jerusalem Law is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel passed by the Knesset on July 30, 1980 .It began as a private member's bill proposed by Geula Cohen, whose original text stated that "the integrity and unity of greater Jerusalem in its boundaries after the Six-Day War...
, the
United Nations Security CouncilThe United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
passed
a resolutionUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 478, adopted on August 20, 1980, declared Israel's 1980 Jerusalem Law a violation of international law, and states that the Council will not recognize this law, and calls on member states to accept the decision of the council. This resolution also calls...
that declared the law "a violation of international law" and requested all member states to withdraw all remaining embassies from the city.
Today
The status of the city, and especially its holy places, remains a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli government has approved building plans in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City in order to expand the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, while prominent Islamic leaders have made claims that Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem, alleging that the 2,500-year old Western Wall was constructed as part of a mosque.
PalestiniansThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
envision East Jerusalem as the capital of a
future Palestinian stateProposals for a Palestinian state currently refers to the proposed establishment of an independent state for the Palestinian people in Palestine on land that was occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967 and before by Egypt and by Jordan since 1949...
, and the city's borders have been the subject of bilateral talks. A strong longing for peace is symbolized by the Peace Monument (with farming tools made out of scrap weapons), facing the Old City wall near the former Israeli-Jordanian border and quoting from the
book of IsaiahThe Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
in Arabic and Hebrew.
Geography
Jerusalem is situated on the southern spur of a
plateauIn geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...
in the
Judean MountainsThe Judaean Mountains, ;, also Judaean Hills and Hebron Hills is a mountain range in Israel and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,000 m.-Geography:...
, which include the
Mount of OlivesThe Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
(East) and
Mount ScopusMount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
(North East). The elevation of the Old City is approximately 760 m (2,493.4 ft). The whole of Jerusalem is surrounded by valleys and dry
riverbedsWadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...
(
wadiWadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...
s). The
KidronThe Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of The Old City of Jerusalem which features significantly in the Bible...
,
HinnomGehenna , Gehinnom and Yiddish Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom ; one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.In the Hebrew Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and...
, and
TyropoeonTyropoeon Valley is the name given by Josephus the historian to the valley or rugged ravine, in the Old City of Jerusalem, which in ancient times separated Mount Moriah from Mount Zion and emptied into the valley of Hinnom...
Valleys intersect in an area just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The
Kidron ValleyThe Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of The Old City of Jerusalem which features significantly in the Bible...
runs to the east of the Old City and separates the
Mount of OlivesThe Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
from the city proper. Along the southern side of old Jerusalem is the
Valley of HinnomGehenna , Gehinnom and Yiddish Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom ; one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.In the Hebrew Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and...
, a steep ravine associated in biblical
eschatologyEschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
with the concept of
GehennaGehenna , Gehinnom and Yiddish Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom ; one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.In the Hebrew Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and...
or
HellIn many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
. The
Tyropoeon ValleyTyropoeon Valley is the name given by Josephus the historian to the valley or rugged ravine, in the Old City of Jerusalem, which in ancient times separated Mount Moriah from Mount Zion and emptied into the valley of Hinnom...
commenced in the northwest near the
Damascus GateDamascus Gate is the main entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side where the highway leads out to Nablus, and from there, in times past, to the capital of Syria, Damascus; as such, its modern English name is Damascus Gate, and its modern Hebrew...
, ran south-southeasterly through the center of the Old City down to the
Pool of SiloamPool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.-History:The Pool of Siloam is mentioned...
, and divided the lower part into two hills, the Temple Mount to the east, and the rest of the city to the west (the lower and the upper cities described by
JosephusTitus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
). Today, this valley is hidden by debris that has accumulated over the centuries.
In biblical times, Jerusalem was surrounded by forests of
almondThe almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...
,
oliveThe olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
and
pinePines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
trees. Over centuries of warfare and neglect, these forests were destroyed. Farmers in the Jerusalem region thus built stone terraces along the slopes to hold back the soil, a feature still very much in evidence in the Jerusalem landscape.
Water supply has always been a major problem in Jerusalem, as attested to by the intricate network of ancient
aqueductAn aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
s, tunnels, pools and cisterns found in the city.
Jerusalem is 60 kilometres (37 mi) east of
Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. On the opposite side of the city, approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi) away, is the
Dead SeaThe Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
, the
lowest body of waterThis article describes extreme locations on Earth. Entries listed in bold are Earth-wide extremes.-Extreme elevations and temperatures per continent:This article describes extreme locations on Earth. Entries listed in bold are Earth-wide extremes....
on Earth. Neighboring cities and towns include
BethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
and
Beit JalaBeit Jala is an Arab Christian town in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank. Beit Jala is located 10 km south of Jerusalem, on the western side of the Hebron road, opposite Bethlehem, at altitude...
to the south,
Abu DisAbu Dis is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate, bordering Jerusalem. Abu Dis is due east of the Jerusalem municipal border. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics , the town had a population of approximately 12,100 in mid-year 2006.-Ottoman era:Abu Dis was one of the...
and Ma'ale Adumim to the east,
Mevaseret ZionMevaseret Zion is a suburb of Jerusalem, Israel. Mevaseret Zion is composed of two distinct townships, Maoz Zion and Mevaseret Yerushalayim—under the jurisdiction of one local council. The newer neighborhoods of Mevaseret Zion were not part of either settlement.Mevaseret Zion is located on a...
to the west, and
RamallahRamallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
and
Giv'at Ze'evGiv'at Ze'ev is an Israeli settlement and town governed by a local council, located in the West Bank five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem. While it lies within the borders of the Matte Binyamin Regional Council, it is a separate municipal entity...
to the north.
Climate
The city is characterized by a
Mediterranean climateA Mediterranean climate is the climate typical of most of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, and is a particular variety of subtropical climate...
, with hot, dry summers, and mild, wet winters. Snow flurries usually occur once or twice a winter, although the city experiences heavy snowfall every three to four years, on average, with short-lived accumulation. January is the coldest month of the year, with an average temperature of 9.1 °C (48.4 °F); July and August are the hottest months, with an average temperature of 24.2 °C (75.6 °F), and the summer months are usually rainless. The average annual precipitation is around 550 mm (22 in), with rain occurring almost entirely between October and May. Jerusalem has nearly 3,400 annual sunshine hours.
Most of the air pollution in Jerusalem comes from vehicular traffic. Many main streets in Jerusalem were not built to accommodate such a large volume of traffic, leading to traffic congestion and more
carbon monoxideCarbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
released into the air. Industrial pollution inside the city is sparse, but emissions from factories on the
Israeli Mediterranean coastThe Israeli coastal plain is the narrow coastal plain along Israel's Mediterranean Sea coast which houses 70% of the country's population. The plain extends north to south and is divided into a number of areas; the Plain of Zebulun , Hof HaCarmel , the Sharon plain , and the Plain of Judea The...
can travel eastward and settle over the city.
Demographics
Population of Jerusalem
| Year | Total |
| 1844 |
15,510 |
| 1876 |
25,030 |
| 1896 |
45,420 |
| 1922 |
62,578 |
| 1931 |
90,053 |
| 1944 |
157,000 |
| 1948 |
165,000 |
| 1967 |
263,307 |
| 1980 |
407,100 |
| 1985 |
457,700 |
| 1990 |
524,400 |
| 1995 |
617,000 |
| 2000 |
657,500 |
| 2005 |
706,400 |
| 2010 |
776,000 |
In December 2007, Jerusalem had a population of 747,600—64% were Jewish, 32% Muslim, and 2% Christian. At the end of 2005, the population density was 5750.4 /km2. According to a study published in 2000, the percentage of Jews in the city's population had been decreasing; this was attributed to a higher Muslim
birth rateCrude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year . Another word used interchangeably with "birth rate" is "natality". When the crude birth rate is subtracted from the crude death rate, it reveals the rate of natural increase...
, and Jewish residents leaving. The study also found that about nine percent of the Old City's 32,488 people were Jews.
In 2005, 2,850 new immigrants settled in Jerusalem, mostly from the United States, France and the former
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In terms of the local population, the number of outgoing residents exceeds the number of incoming residents. In 2005, 16,000 left Jerusalem and only 10,000 moved in. Nevertheless, the population of Jerusalem continues to rise due to the high
birth rateCrude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year . Another word used interchangeably with "birth rate" is "natality". When the crude birth rate is subtracted from the crude death rate, it reveals the rate of natural increase...
, especially in the
Haredi JewishHaredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
and Arabcommunities. Consequently, the
total fertility rateThe total fertility rate of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime, and she...
in Jerusalem (4.02) is higher than in Tel Aviv (1.98) and well above the national average of 2.90. The average size of Jerusalem's 180,000 households is 3.8 people.
In 2005, the total population grew by 13,000 (1.8%)—similar to Israeli national average, but the religious and ethnic composition is shifting. While 31% of the Jewish population is made up of children below the age fifteen, the figure for the Arab population is 42%. This would seem to corroborate the observation that the percentage of Jews in Jerusalem has declined over the past four decades. In 1967, Jews accounted for 74 percent of the population, while the figure for 2006 is down nine percent. Possible factors are the high cost of housing, fewer job opportunities and the increasingly religious character of the city, although proportionally, young
HaredimHaredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
are leaving in higher numbers. Many people are moving to the suburbs and coastal cities in search of cheaper housing and a more secular lifestyle.
In 2009, the percentage of Haredim in the city was increasing. As of 2009, out of 150,100 schoolchildren, 59,900 or 40% are in state-run secular and
National ReligiousReligious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...
schools, while 90,200 or 60% are in Haredi schools. This correlates with the high number of children in Haredi families.
While some Israelis see Jerusalem as poor, rundown and riddled with religious and political tension, the city has been a magnet for Palestinians, offering more jobs and opportunity than any city in the
West BankThe West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
or
Gaza Stripthumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
. Palestinian officials have encouraged Arabs over the years to stay in the city to maintain their claim. Palestinians are attracted to the access to jobs,
healthcareHealth care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
,
social securitySocial security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:...
, other benefits, and
quality of lifeThe term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
Israel provides to Jerusalem residents. Arab residents of Jerusalem who choose not to have Israeli citizenship are granted an Israeli identity card that allows them to pass through checkpoints with relative ease and to travel throughout Israel, making it easier to find work. Residents also are entitled to the subsidized healthcare and social security benefits Israel provides its citizens. Arabs in Jerusalem can send their children to Israeli-run schools, although not every neighborhood has one, and universities. Israeli doctors and highly regarded hospitals such as
Hadassah Medical CenterHadassah Medical Center is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The hospital was founded by Hadassah,...
are available to residents.
Demographics and the Jewish-Arab population divide play a major role in the dispute over Jerusalem. In 1998, the Jerusalem Development Authority proposed expanding city limits to the west to include more areas heavily populated with Jews.
Urban planning issues
Critics of
efforts to promote a Jewish majorityThe Judaization of Jerusalem refers to the actions that Israel has sought to transform the physical and demographic landscape of Jerusalem to correspond with a vision of a united and fundamentally Jewish Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty...
in Jerusalem say that government planning policies are motivated by demographic considerations and seek to limit Arab construction while promoting Jewish construction. According to a
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
report, the number of recorded building violations between 1996 and 2000 was four and half times higher in Jewish neighborhoods but four times fewer demolition orders were issued in West Jerusalem than in East Jerusalem; Arabs in Jerusalem were less likely to receive construction permits than Jews, and "the authorities are much more likely to take action against Palestinian violators" than Jewish violators of the permit process. In recent years, private Jewish foundations have received permission from the government to develop projects on disputed lands, such as the City of David archaeological park in the 60% Arab neighborhood of
SilwanSilwan or Wadi Hilweh is a predominantly Palestinian village adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years a small Jewish minority of 40 families has settled in the area. The village is located in East Jerusalem, an area occupied by Jordan from 1948 until the 1967 Six-day War and by Israel...
(adjacent to the Old City), and the
Museum of ToleranceThe Museum of Tolerance , a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, USA, with an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City, is designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of...
on
MamillaMamilla was an early neighbourhood constructed outside Jerusalem's Old City west from the Jaffa Gate, and now refers to the $400 million commercial and housing district developed in selected parts of the area....
cemetery (adjacent to Zion Square). Opponents view such urban planning moves as geared towards the
Judaization of JerusalemThe Judaization of Jerusalem refers to the actions that Israel has sought to transform the physical and demographic landscape of Jerusalem to correspond with a vision of a united and fundamentally Jewish Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty...
.
Local government
The Jerusalem
City CouncilA city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
is a body of 31 elected members headed by the mayor, who serves a five-year term and appoints eight deputies. The former mayor of Jerusalem,
Uri LupolianskiUri Lupolianski was mayor of Jerusalem from 2003 to 2008 and founder of Yad Sarah.-Biography:Born in Haifa, Israel in 1951, Lupolianski studied at the Yavne School in Haifa and then attended Yeshivat Hanegev. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a paramedic and worked as a teacher at a...
, was elected in 2003. In the November 2008 city elections,
Nir Barkat came out as the winner and is now the mayor. Apart from the mayor and his deputies, City Council members receive no salaries and work on a voluntary basis. The longest-serving Jerusalem mayor was
Teddy KollekTheodor "Teddy" Kollek was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989...
, who spent 28 years—-six consecutive terms-—in office. Most of the meetings of the Jerusalem City Council are private, but each month, it holds a session that is open to the public. Within the city council, religious political parties form an especially powerful faction, accounting for the majority of its seats.
The headquarters of the Jerusalem Municipality and the mayor's office are at
Safra SquareSafra Square is Jerusalem's city hall public square named after Jacob and Esther Safra, parents of Edmond J. Safra, a Jewish philanthropist who contributed generously to the renovation of downtown Jerusalem.-Location:...
(
Kikar Safra) on
Jaffa RoadJaffa Road is one of the longest and oldest streets in Jerusalem. It crosses the city from east to west, from the Old City walls to downtown Jerusalem, the western portal of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. It is lined with shops, businesses and restaurants...
. The municipal complex, comprising two modern buildings and ten renovated historic buildings surrounding a large plaza, opened in 1993. The city falls under the
Jerusalem DistrictThe Jerusalem District is one of six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem District has a land area of 652 km². The population of 910,300 is 67.8% Jewish and 30.6% Arab...
, with Jerusalem as the district's capital.
Political status
Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine passed by the UN in 1947, Jerusalem was envisaged to become a corpus separatum administered by the United Nations. While the Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan, the Arab leadership (the
Arab Higher CommitteeThe Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
in Palestine and the
Arab LeagueThe Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
) rejected it, opposing any partition. In the war of 1948, the western part of the city was occupied by forces of the nascent state of Israel, while the eastern part was occupied by
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
. The international community largely considers the legal status of Jerusalem to derive from the partition plan, and correspondingly refuses to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the city.
On 5 December 1949, the State of Israel's first Prime Minister,
David Ben-Gurion' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and since then all branches of the
Israeli governmentThe Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive...
—legislative, judicial, and executive—have resided there, except for the
Ministry of DefenseThe Ministry of Defence of the government of Israel, is the governmental department responsible for defending the State of Israel from internal and external military threats...
, located at
HaKiryaHaKirya, or The Kirya , is an area in central Tel Aviv, containing various government structures, including the major Israel Defense Forces base, Camp Rabin , named for Yitzhak Rabin...
in
Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. At the time of the proclamation, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and thus only West Jerusalem was proclaimed Israel's capital. Following the Six-Day War, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, and a provision stipulating that the city was the united capital of Israel was added to the country's Basic Law.
The status of a "united Jerusalem" as Israel's "eternal capital" has been a matter of immense controversy within the international community. Although some countries maintain consulates in Jerusalem, all
embassiesA diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...
are located outside the city proper, mostly in Tel Aviv. Due to the non-recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, some non-Israeli press use Tel Aviv as a metonym for Israel.
The
non-bindingA non-binding resolution is a written motion adopted by a deliberative body that cannot progress into a law. The substance of the resolution can be anything that can normally be proposed as a motion....
United Nations Security Council Resolution 478United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, adopted on August 20, 1980, declared Israel's 1980 Jerusalem Law a violation of international law, and states that the Council will not recognize this law, and calls on member states to accept the decision of the council. This resolution also calls...
, passed on 20 August 1980, declared that the Basic Law was "null and void and must be rescinded forthwith". Member states were advised to withdraw their diplomatic representation from Jerusalem as a punitive measure. Most of the remaining countries with embassies in Jerusalem complied with the resolution by relocating them to Tel Aviv, where many embassies already resided prior to Resolution 478. Currently, there are no embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem, although there are embassies in
Mevaseret ZionMevaseret Zion is a suburb of Jerusalem, Israel. Mevaseret Zion is composed of two distinct townships, Maoz Zion and Mevaseret Yerushalayim—under the jurisdiction of one local council. The newer neighborhoods of Mevaseret Zion were not part of either settlement.Mevaseret Zion is located on a...
, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and four consulates in the city itself. In 1995, the United States Congress had planned to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with the passage of the
Jerusalem Embassy ActThe Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999, and...
. However,
U.S. presidentsThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
have argued that Congressional resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem are merely advisory. The Constitution reserves foreign relations as an executive power, and as such, the United States embassy is still in Tel Aviv.
On 28 October 2009, United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moonBan Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...
warned that Jerusalem must be the capital of both Israel and Palestine if peace is to be achieved.
The
Palestinian National AuthorityThe Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
views East Jerusalem as occupied territory according to
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VIof the United Nations Charter...
. The Palestinian Authority claims all of East Jerusalem, including the
Temple MountThe Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
, as the capital of the
State of PalestinePalestine , officially declared as the State of Palestine , is a state that was proclaimed in exile in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the Palestine Liberation Organization's National Council adopted the unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence...
, and claims that West Jerusalem is also subject to permanent status negotiations. However, it has stated that it would be willing to consider alternative solutions, such as making Jerusalem an
open cityIn war, in the event of the imminent capture of a city, the government/military structure of the nation that controls the city will sometimes declare it an open city, thus announcing that they have abandoned all defensive efforts....
.
In 2010, Israel approved legislation giving Jerusalem the highest national priority status in Israel. The law prioritized construction throughout the city, and offered grants and tax benefits to residents to make housing, infrastructure, education, employment, business, tourism, and cultural events more affordable. Communications Minister
Moshe KahlonMoshe Kahlon is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud and as Minister of Communications and Minister of Welfare & Social Services.-Biography:...
said that the bill sent "a clear, unequivocal political message that Jerusalem will not be divided", and that "all those within the Palestinian and international community who expect the current Israeli government to accept any demands regarding Israel's sovereignty over capital are mistaken and misleading".
Government precinct and national institutions
Most national institutions of Israel are located in Jerusalem. The city is home to the
KnessetThe Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
, the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...
, the official residences of the
PresidentThe President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...
and
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
, the
CabinetThe Cabinet of Israel is a formal body composed of government officials called ministers, chosen and led by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must appoint members based on the distribution of votes to political parties during legislative elections, and its composition must be approved by a...
, all ministries except the
Ministry of DefenseThe Ministry of Defence of the government of Israel, is the governmental department responsible for defending the State of Israel from internal and external military threats...
, and the
Bank of IsraelThe Bank of Israel is the central bank of Israel. It is located in Kiryat HaMemshala in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem, with a branch office in Tel Aviv. The current governor is Stanley Fischer.-History:...
. Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, Jerusalem served as the administrative capital of the British Mandate for Palestine, which included present-day Israel and Jordan. From 1949 until 1967, West Jerusalem served as Israel's capital, but was not recognized as such internationally because UN General Assembly Resolution 194 envisaged Jerusalem as an
international cityAn international city is an autonomous or semi-autonomous city-state that is separate from the direct supervision of a single nation-state.-Rationale for establishment:International cities had either had one or both of the following characteristics:...
. As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, the whole of Jerusalem came under Israeli control. On 27 June 1967, the government of
Levi Eshkol' served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.-Biography:...
extended Israeli law and jurisdiction to East Jerusalem, but agreed that administration of the Temple Mount compound would be maintained by the Jordanian waqf, under the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Endowments. In 1988, Israel ordered the closure of
Orient HouseOrient House is a building located in East Jerusalem that served as the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1980s and 1990s. Built in 1897 by Ismail Musa al-Husseini, it has been owned by the Al-Husayni family since...
, home of the Arab Studies Society, but also the headquarters of the
Palestine Liberation OrganizationThe Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
, for security reasons. The building reopened in 1992 as a Palestinian guesthouse. The
Oslo AccordsThe Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles , was an attempt to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict...
stated that the final status of Jerusalem would be determined by negotiations with the
Palestinian AuthorityThe Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
. The accords banned any official Palestinian presence in the city until a final peace agreement, but provided for the opening of a Palestinian trade office in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority regards East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. President
Mahmoud AbbasMahmoud Abbas , also known by the kunya Abu Mazen , has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah ticket.Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally...
has said that any agreement that did not not include East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine would be unacceptable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has similarly stated that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel. Due to its proximity to the city, especially the
Temple MountThe Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
,
Abu DisAbu Dis is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate, bordering Jerusalem. Abu Dis is due east of the Jerusalem municipal border. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics , the town had a population of approximately 12,100 in mid-year 2006.-Ottoman era:Abu Dis was one of the...
, a Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem, has been proposed as the future capital of a Palestinian state by Israel. Israel has not incorporated Abu Dis within its security wall around Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has built a possible future parliament building for the
Palestinian Legislative CouncilThe Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, is a unicameral body with 132 members, elected from 16 electoral districts in the West Bank and Gaza...
in the town, and its Jerusalem Affairs Offices are all located in Abu Dis.
Religious significance
Jerusalem has been sacred to Judaism for roughly 3000 years, to Christianity for around 2000 years, and to Islam for approximately 1400 years. The 2000 Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem lists 1204 synagogues, 158 churches, and 73 mosques within the city. Despite efforts to maintain peaceful religious coexistence, some sites, such as the Temple Mount, have been a continuous source of friction and controversy.
Jerusalem has been sacred to the Jews since King David proclaimed it his capital in the 10th century BCE. Jerusalem was the site of
Solomon's TempleSolomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....
and the Second Temple. Although not mentioned in the
TorahTorah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
/ Pentateuch, it is mentioned in the Bible 632 times. Today, the
Western WallThe Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
, a remnant of the wall surrounding the Second Temple, is a Jewish holy site second only to the
Holy of HoliesThe Holy of Holies is a term in the Hebrew Bible which refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle and later the Temple in Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant was kept during the First Temple, which could be entered only by the High Priest on Yom Kippur...
on the Temple Mount itself. Synagogues around the world are traditionally built with the Holy Ark facing Jerusalem, and Arks within Jerusalem face the "Holy of Holies". As prescribed in the
MishnaThe Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
and codified in the
Shulchan AruchThe Shulchan Aruch also known as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most authoritative legal code of Judaism. It was authored in Safed, Israel, by Yosef Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later...
, daily prayers are recited while facing towards Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Many Jews have "
MizrachIn Judaism, mizrah is the direction that most Jews in the diaspora face during prayer, as Jewish law prescribes that Jews face the site of the Temple in Jerusalem during prayer, and most Jews in the diaspora live west of Jerusalem, so they face eastward during prayer...
" plaques hung on a wall of their homes to indicate the direction of prayer.
Christianity reveres Jerusalem not only for its
Old TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
history but also for its significance in the life of Jesus. According to the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, Jesus was brought to Jerusalem soon after his birth and later in his life cleansed the Second Temple. The
CenacleThe Cenacle , also known as the "Upper Room", is the term used for the site of The Last Supper. The word is a derivative of the Latin word cena, which means dinner....
, believed to be the site of Jesus'
Last SupperThe Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
, is located on
Mount ZionMount Zion is a place name for a site in Jerusalem, the location of which has shifted several times in history. According to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Samuel, it was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace in the City...
in the same building that houses the
Tomb of King DavidKing David's Tomb is the name given to a Jewish religious site on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, near the Hagia Maria Sion Abbey; the site has traditionally been viewed as the burial place of King David, the second king of Israel...
. Another prominent Christian site in Jerusalem is
GolgothaCalvary or Golgotha was the site, outside of ancient Jerusalem’s early first century walls, at which the crucifixion of Jesus is said to have occurred. Calvary and Golgotha are the English names for the site used in Western Christianity...
, the site of the
crucifixionCrucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
. The
Gospel of JohnThe Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
describes it as being located outside Jerusalem, but recent archaeological evidence suggests Golgotha is a short distance from the Old City walls, within the present-day confines of the city. The land currently occupied by the
Church of the Holy SepulchreThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
is considered one of the top candidates for Golgotha and thus has been a Christian pilgrimage site for the past two thousand years.
Jerusalem is considered by some as the
third-holiest cityAccording to Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad said "Do not set out on a journey except for three Mosques i.e. Al-Masjid-AI-Haram, the Mosque of Allah's Apostle, and the Mosque of Al-Aqsa, ." In the Islāmic Sunni tradition, the Ka'bah is considered the Holiest site, followed by Masjidun Nabawi as the...
in Sunni Islam. For approximately a year, before it was permanently switched to the
KabaaThe Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
in
MeccaMecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, the
qiblaThe Qiblah , also transliterated as Qibla, Kiblah or Kibla, is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during salah...
(direction of prayer) for Muslims was Jerusalem. The city's lasting place in Islam, however, is primarily due to
MuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
's
Night of AscensionThe Isra and Mi'raj , are the two parts of a Night Journey that, according to Islamic tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad took during a single night around the year 621. It has been described as both a physical and spiritual journey...
(c. CE 620). Muslims believe Muhammad was miraculously transported one night from
MeccaMecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, whereupon he ascended to
HeavenJannah , is the Islamic conception of paradise. The Arabic word Jannah is a shortened version meaning simply "Garden". According to Islamic eschatology, after death, one will reside in the grave until the appointed resurrection on . Muslims believe that the treatment of the individual in the life...
to meet previous
prophets of IslamMuslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
. The first verse in the
Qur'an'sThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
Surat al-IsraSura Al-Isra , also called Sura Bani Isra'il , is the 17th chapter of the Qur'an, with 111 verses.-Content:...
notes the destination of Muhammad's journey as
al-Aqsa (the farthest) mosque, in assumed reference to the location in Jerusalem. Today, the Temple Mount is topped by two Islamic landmarks intended to commemorate the event—
al-Aqsa MosqueAl-Aqsa Mosque also known as al-Aqsa, is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem...
, derived from the name mentioned in the
Qur'anThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
, and the
Dome of the RockThe Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
, which stands over the Foundation Stone, from which Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to Heaven.
Culture
Although Jerusalem is known primarily for its
religious significanceThe city of Jerusalem, located in modern-day Israel, is significant in a number of religious traditions, including Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which consider it a holy city.-In Judaism:...
, the city is also home to many artistic and cultural venues. The
Israel MuseumThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
attracts nearly one million visitors a year, approximately one-third of them tourists. The 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) museum complex comprises several buildings featuring special exhibits and extensive collections of Judaica, archaeological findings, and Israeli and European art. The
Dead Sea scrollsThe Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
, discovered in the mid-20th century in the
QumranQumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank. It is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalia...
cavesThe Qumran Caves are a series of caves, some natural, some artificial, to be found around the archaeological site of Qumran. It is in a number of these caves that the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found...
near the Dead Sea, are housed in the Museum's
Shrine of the BookThe Shrine of the Book , a wing of the Israel Museum near Givat Ram in Jerusalem, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls—discovered 1947–56 in 11 caves in and around the Wadi Qumran...
. The Youth Wing, which mounts changing exhibits and runs an extensive art education program, is visited by 100,000 children a year. The museum has a large outdoor sculpture garden, and a scale-model of the Second Temple. The
Rockefeller MuseumThe Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum, is an archaeological museum located in East Jerusalem that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in Ottoman Palestine beginning in the late 19th century.The museum is under the management...
, located in East Jerusalem, was the first archaeological museum in the Middle East. It was built in 1938 during the British Mandate.
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, Israel's national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, houses the world's largest library of Holocaust-related information, with an estimated 100,000 books and articles. The complex contains a state-of-the-art museum that explores the genocide of the Jews through exhibits that focus on the personal stories of individuals and families killed in the Holocaust and an art gallery featuring the work of artists who perished. Yad Vashem also commemorates the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, and honors the
Righteous among the NationsRighteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
. The Museum on the Seam, which explores issues of
coexistencePeaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc...
through art, is situated on the road dividing eastern and western Jerusalem.
The
Jerusalem Symphony OrchestraThe Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra of the Israel Broadcasting Authority is a major orchestra of Israel...
, established in the 1940s, has appeared around the world. Other arts facilities include the
International Convention CenterThe International Convention Centre , commonly known as Binyenei HaUma , is a concert hall and conventional center in Giv'at Ram in Jerusalem, Israel. It is the largest convention center in the Middle East...
(
Binyanei HaUma) near the entrance to city, where the
Israel Philharmonic OrchestraThe Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphony orchestra in Israel. It was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra, and in Hebrew as התזמורת הסימפונית הארץ ישראלית The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit...
plays, the Jerusalem Cinemateque, the Gerard Behar Center (formerly Beit Ha'am) in downtown Jerusalem, the
Jerusalem Music CenterThe Jerusalem Music Centre is an institute for musical education in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem, Israel. The centre helps young Israeli musicians to develop their talents through multi-annual programs and courses, master classes, and performances...
in
Yemin MosheYemin Moshe " or "Moses' Memorial") is an old neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, overlooking the Old City.-History:Yemin Moshe was established in 1891 by Moses Montefiore outside Jerusalem's Old City as a solution to the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions inside the walls, and eventually named...
, and the Targ Music Center in
Ein KeremEin Kerem , lit. “Spring of the Vineyard”, and - ‘Ein Kārem), is an ancient village of the Jerusalem District and now a neighbourhood in southwest of Jerusalem. According to Christian tradition, John the Baptist was born in Ein Kerem, leading to the establishment of many churches and monasteries....
. The
Israel FestivalThe Israel Festival is a multidisciplinary arts festival held every spring in Israel. Its center is Jerusalem.The Israel Festival started in 1961 as a summer festival for classical music in the ancient Roman theater in Caesarea...
, featuring indoor and outdoor performances by local and international singers, concerts, plays and street theater, has been held annually since 1961; for the past 25 years, Jerusalem has been the major organizer of this event. The
Jerusalem TheaterThe Jerusalem Theater is a center for the performing arts in Jerusalem, Israel. The theater opened in 1971. The complex consists of the Sherover Theatre, which seats 950, the Henry Crown Symphony Hall with 750 seats, the Rebecca Crown Auditorium, with 450 seats, and the Little Theater with 110...
in the
TalbiyaTalbiya or Talbiyeh , officially Komemiyut, is an upscale neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel, located between Rehavia and Katamon. It was built in the 1920s and 1930s on land purchased from the Greek Patriarchate...
neighborhood hosts over 150 concerts a year, as well as theater and dance companies and performing artists from overseas. The Khan Theater, located in a
caravansaraiA caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...
opposite the old Jerusalem train station, is the city's only
repertoireRepertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
theater. The station itself has become a venue for cultural events in recent years, as the site of
Shav'ua Hasefer, an annual week-long book fair, and outdoor music performances. The
Jerusalem Film FestivalThe Jerusalem Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem, Israel. The festival was the brainchild of Lia van Leer, who inaugurated it on May 17, 1984...
is held annually, screening Israeli and international films.
The
Ticho HouseTicho House is a historical home in Jerusalem, Israel, now a museum. It was one of the first homes built outside the Old City walls at the end of the nineteenth century....
, in downtown Jerusalem, houses the paintings of
Anna TichoAnna Ticho was a Jewish artist who became famous for her drawings of the Jerusalem hills.- Biography :Anna Ticho was born in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1894...
and the Judaica collections of her husband, an ophthalmologist who opened Jerusalem's first eye clinic in this building in 1912. Al-Hoash, established in 2004, is a gallery for the preservation of Palestinian art.
Jerusalem was declared the
Capital of Arab CultureAl-Quds Arab Capital of Culture was the name given to Arab Capital of Culture programme in 2009. The programme, organised by UNESCO and the Arab League, is designed to promote Arab culture and encourage cooperation in the Arab world...
in 2009. Jerusalem is home to the
Palestinian National TheatreThe Palestinian National Theatre is a Palestinian-owned theatre in Jerusalem's American Colony neighbourhood, near New Orient House. The theatre has been serving to actively encourage and promote Palestinian artistic and cultural activities and collaborates with the Palestinian ministry of...
, which engages in cultural preservation as well as innovation, working to rekindle Palestinian interest in the arts.
The Edward Said National Conservatory of MusicThe Edward Said National Conservatory of Music is a Palestinian music conservatory with branches in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. In total, there are more than 500 students. It was established in 1993 as The National Conservatory of Music, with its first branch, in Ramallah, opening in...
sponsors the Palestine Youth Orchestra
which toured the Gulf states and other Middle East countries in 2009. The
Islamic MuseumThe Islamic Museum is a museum on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. On display are exhibits from ten periods of Islamic history encompassing several Muslim regions. The museum is located adjacent to al-Aqsa Mosque.-History:...
on the Temple Mount, established in 1923, houses many Islamic artifacts, from tiny
kohlKohl is an ancient eye cosmetic. It was made by grinding galena and other ingredients. It is widely used in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of West Africa to darken the eyelids and as mascara for the eyelashes...
flasks and rare manuscripts to giant marble columns. While Israel approves and financially supports Arab cultural activities, Arab Capital of Culture events were banned because they were sponsored by the Palestine National Authority. In 2009, a four-day culture festival was held in the
Beit 'AnanBeit 'Anan is a Palestinian village in northwest Jerusalem under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem Municipality. In 2007, it had a population of 3,941. Some residents of Beit 'Anan hold Israeli identity cards, while others hold Palestinian identity cards....
suburb of Jerusalem, attended by more than 15,000 people
The Abraham Fund and the Jerusalem Intercultural Center] (JICC) promote joint Jewish-Palestinian cultural projects. The Jerusalem Center for Middle Eastern Music and Dance is open to Arabs and Jews, and offers workshops on Jewish-Arab dialogue through the arts. The Jewish-Arab Youth Orchestra performs both European classical and Middle Eastern music.
In 2006, a 38 km (23.6 mi)
Jerusalem TrailThe Jerusalem Trail, is a hiking path that extends the Israel National Trail into Jerusalem. The trail is almost a complete circuit, and can be extended to a full loop by following Israel National Trail marks. The length is approximately 42 km . The trail is marked with a gold line between...
was opened, a hiking trail that goes to many cultural sites and national parks in and around Jerusalem.
In 2008, the
Tolerance MonumentThe Tolerance Monument is an outdoor sculpture located in a park near Goldman Promenade in Jerusalem, Israel. The monument was designed by Polish sculptor Czesław Dźwigaj, known for his religious art, in collaboration with sculptor Michal Kubiak...
, an outdoor sculpture by Czesław Dźwigaj, was erected on a hill between Jewish
Armon HaNetzivEast Talpiot is a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1973 in the upswing of building that followed the Six-Day War. The neighborhood is located in East Jerusalem, unilaterally annexed to Israel but internationally recognized as being a part of the West Bank...
and Arab
Jebl MukaberJabel Mukaber is a predominantly Arab neighborhood in southern East Jerusalem. It is bordered by Armon HaNetziv to the west, Abu Tor and Silwan to the north and Sur Baher to the south...
as a symbol of Jerusalem's quest for peace.
Economy
Historically, Jerusalem's economy was supported almost exclusively by religious pilgrims, as it was located far from the major ports of
JaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
and
GazaGaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Jerusalem's religious landmarks today remain the top draw for foreign visitors, with the majority of tourists visiting the
Western WallThe Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount...
and the Old City, but in the past half-century it has become increasingly clear that Jerusalem's providence cannot solely be sustained by its religious significance.
Although many statistics indicate economic growth in the city, since 1967
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
has lagged behind the development of
West JerusalemWest Jerusalem refers to:*The section of Jerusalem captured by Israel following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.*The western neighborhoods of Jerusalem today.-Division in 1948:...
. Nevertheless, the percentage of households with employed persons is higher for Arab households (76.1%) than for Jewish households (66.8%). The unemployment rate in Jerusalem (8.3%) is slightly better than the national average (9.0%), although the civilian
labor forceIn economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce, including both the employed and unemployed.Normally, the labor force of a country consists of everyone of working age In economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce,...
accounted for less than half of all persons fifteen years or older—lower in comparison to that of
Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
(58.0%) and
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
(52.4%). Poverty in the city has increased dramatically in recent years; between 2001 and 2007, the number of people below the
poverty thresholdThe poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country...
increased by forty percent. In 2006, the average monthly income for a worker in Jerusalem was NIS5,940 (US$1,410), NIS1,350 less than that for a worker in Tel Aviv.
During the British Mandate, a law was passed requiring all buildings to be constructed of
Jerusalem stoneJerusalem stone is a name applied to various types of pale limestone, dolomite and dolomitic limestone, common in and around Jerusalem that have been used in building since ancient times...
in order to preserve the unique historic and
aestheticAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
character of the city. Complementing this building code, which is still in force, is the discouragement of
heavy industryHeavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...
in Jerusalem; only about 2.2% of Jerusalem's land is zoned for "industry and infrastructure." By comparison, the percentage of land in Tel Aviv zoned for industry and infrastructure is twice as high, and in Haifa, seven times as high. Only 8.5% of the
Jerusalem DistrictThe Jerusalem District is one of six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem. The Jerusalem District has a land area of 652 km². The population of 910,300 is 67.8% Jewish and 30.6% Arab...
work force is employed in the manufacturing sector, which is half the national average (15.8%). Higher than average percentages are employed in education (17.9% vs. 12.7%); health and welfare (12.6% vs. 10.7%); community and social services (6.4% vs. 4.7%); hotels and restaurants (6.1% vs. 4.7%); and public administration (8.2% vs. 4.7%). Although Tel Aviv remains Israel's financial center, a growing number of
high techHigh tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
companies are moving to Jerusalem, providing 12,000 jobs in 2006. Northern Jerusalem's
Har HotzvimHar Hotzvim , also Campus of Science-Rich Industries is a high-tech industrial park located in northwest Jerusalem, Israel. It is the city's main zone for science-based and technology industries, among them Intel, Teva, Amdocs, NDS, Ophir Optronics, Sandvine, Radware and IDT Global Israel...
industrial park is home to some of Israel's major corporations, among them
IntelIntel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
,
Teva Pharmaceutical IndustriesTeva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. , is an international pharmaceutical company headquartered in Petah Tikva, Israel. It specializes in generic and proprietary pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients...
,
Ophir OptronicsOphir Optronics is a multinational company which sells optronics solutions. The company develops, manufactures and markets infrared optics and laser measurement equipment....
and
ECI TelecomECI Telecom Ltd is a global telecom networking infrastructure provider headquartered in Petah Tikva, Israel. It provides communications platforms and solutions to carriers and service providers, cable/multiple system operators, wireless/cellular service providers, utilities and carrier of carriers,...
. Expansion plans for the park envision one hundred businesses, a fire station, and a school, covering an area of 530,000 m
2 (130 acres).
Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the national government has remained a major player in Jerusalem's economy. The government, centered in Jerusalem, generates a large number of jobs, and offers
subsidiesA subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
and incentives for new business initiatives and start-ups.
In 2010, Jerusalem was named the top leisure travel city in Africa and the Middle East by
Travel + Leisure magazineTravel + Leisure is a travel magazine based in New York City, New York. Published 12 times a year, it has 4.8 million readers, according to its corporate media kit. It is put out by American Express Publishing Corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Express Company led by...
.
Transportation
The airport nearest to Jerusalem is
Atarot AirportAtarot Airport , is a small airport located between Jerusalem and Ramallah. It was the first airport in Mandate Palestine. It has been closed since the Second Intifada.-History:...
, between
RamallahRamallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
and Jerusalem, which was used for domestic flights until its closure in 2001, after the Second Intifada. Since then it has been under the control of the
Israel Defense ForcesThe Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
. All air traffic from Atarot was rerouted to
Ben Gurion International AirportBen Gurion International Airport , also referred to by its Hebrew acronym Natbag , is the largest and busiest international airport in Israel, handling 12,160,339 passengers in 2010...
, Israel's largest and busiest airport, which serves nine million passengers annually.
Egged Bus Cooperative, the second-largest bus company in the world, handles most of the local and intercity bus service. The
DanDan Bus Company is an Israeli bus company based in Tel Aviv. It operates local bus service in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area as well as some intercity bus services between the Gush Dan area and nearby regions such as Samaria, and a connection between Bne Brak and Jerusalem. Dan operates 1,200...
serves the
Bnei Brak-Jerusalem route along with Egged, and Superbus serves the routes between Jerusalem,
Modi'in IllitModi'in Illit is a Haredi Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank, situated midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Modi'in Illit was granted city status by the Israeli government in 2008. It is located six kilometres northeast of Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut and is often referred to as Kiryat...
, and
Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'utModi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut is a city in the Center District of Israel located approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of Modi'in and Maccabim-Re'ut...
. The companies operate from
Jerusalem Central Bus StationThe Jerusalem Central Bus Station is the main bus depot in Jerusalem, Israel and one of the busiest bus stations in the country. Located on Jaffa Road near the entrance to the city, it serves Egged, Superbus and Dan intercity bus routes...
, the city's main
bus depotA bus station is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop...
, located on
Jaffa RoadJaffa Road is one of the longest and oldest streets in Jerusalem. It crosses the city from east to west, from the Old City walls to downtown Jerusalem, the western portal of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. It is lined with shops, businesses and restaurants...
near the western entrance to Jerusalem from
Highway 1Highway 1 , is the main highway connecting Tel Aviv with Jerusalem.-History:The section between Latrun and Jerusalem roughly follows an ancient path connecting Jaffa and Jerusalem...
. Arab neighborhoods in
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
and routes between Jerusalem and locations in the
West BankThe West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
are served by the
East Jerusalem Central Bus StationThe East Jerusalem Central Bus Station is an Arab transportation hub serving Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the West Bank. It is located on Sultan Suleiman Street across from the Old City's Damascus Gate....
, a transportation hub located near the Old City's
Damascus GateDamascus Gate is the main entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side where the highway leads out to Nablus, and from there, in times past, to the capital of Syria, Damascus; as such, its modern English name is Damascus Gate, and its modern Hebrew...
. The
Jerusalem Light RailThe Jerusalem Light Rail is a light rail line, the first of several rapid transit lines planned by Israel for Jerusalem, Israel's capital city. Construction began in 2002 and ended in 2010, when the testing phase began. It was built by the CityPass consortium, which has a 30-year concession to...
initiated service in August 2011. According to plans, the first rail line will be capable of transporting an estimated 200,000 people daily, and has 23 stops. The route is from Pisgat Ze'ev in the north via the Old City and city center to Mt. Herzl in the south.
Another work in progress is a new
high-speed rail lineThe high-speed railway to Jerusalem is a railway line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel, under construction since 2001. It is set to be completed in 2017...
from
Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
to Jerusalem, which is scheduled to be completed in 2017. Its terminus will be an underground station (80 m (262.47 ft) deep) serving the
International Convention CenterThe International Convention Centre , commonly known as Binyenei HaUma , is a concert hall and conventional center in Giv'at Ram in Jerusalem, Israel. It is the largest convention center in the Middle East...
and the Central Bus Station, and is planned to be extended eventually to Malha station.
Israel RailwaysIsrael Railways is the principal passenger railway operating company in Israel, and is responsible for all inter-city and suburban rail way passenger and freight traffic in the country. All its lines are standard gauge. The network is centered in Israel's densely populated coastal plain, from...
operates train services to Malha train station from Tel Aviv via Beit Shemesh.
Begin Expressway is one of Jerusalem's major north-south thoroughfares; it runs on the western side of the city, merging in the north with Route 443, which continues toward Tel Aviv.
Route 60Highway 60 is a north-south intercity road in Israel and the West Bank that stretches from Beersheba to Nazareth.-Route:The route is also known as the "Route of the Patriarchs" since it follows the path of the ancient highway that runs along the length of the central watershed, and which...
runs through the center of the city near the
Green LineGreen Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
between East and West Jerusalem. Construction is progressing on parts of a 35 kilometres (21.7 mi) ring road around the city, fostering faster connection between the suburbs. The eastern half of the project was conceptualized decades ago, but reaction to the proposed highway is still mixed.
Education
Jerusalem is home to several prestigious universities offering courses in
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
,
ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and English. Founded in 1925, the
Hebrew University of JerusalemThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
has been ranked among the top 100 schools in the world. The Board of Governors has included such prominent Jewish intellectuals as
Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
and
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
. The university has produced several
NobelThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
laureates; recent winners associated with Hebrew University include
Avram HershkoAvram Hershko is a Hungarian-Israeli biochemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.-Biography:Born Herskó Ferenc in Karcag, Hungary, Hershko emigrated to Israel in 1950. Received his M.D. in 1965 and his Ph.D in 1969 from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel...
,
David GrossDavid Jonathan Gross is an American particle physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is currently the director and holder of the Frederick W...
, and
Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate. He is notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, behavioral economics and hedonic psychology....
. One of the university's major assets is the Jewish National and University Library, which houses over five million books. The library opened in 1892, over three decades before the university was established, and is one of the world's largest repositories of books on Jewish subjects. Today it is both the central library of the university and the national library of Israel. The Hebrew University operates three campuses in Jerusalem, on
Mount ScopusMount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
, on
Giv'at RamGivat Ram is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem, Israel. Many of Israel's most important national institutions are located in Givat Ram, among them the Knesset, the Israel Museum, the National Library of Israel and the Israeli Supreme Court.-Etymology:...
and a medical campus at the
Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitalHadassah Medical Center is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The hospital was founded by Hadassah,...
.
Al-Quds UniversityAl-Quds University is a Palestinian university with campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh. It was founded in 1984, but its official constitution was written in 1993 when Mohammed Nusseibeh, its first Chancellor and Chancellor of the College of Science and Technology, announced its...
was established in 1984 to serve as a flagship university for the Arab and Palestinian peoples. It describes itself as the "only Arab university in Jerusalem". New York
Bard CollegeBard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
and Al-Quds University agreed to open a joint college in a building originally built to house the
Palestinian Legislative CouncilThe Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, is a unicameral body with 132 members, elected from 16 electoral districts in the West Bank and Gaza...
and
Yasser ArafatMohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
’s office. The college gives
Master of Arts in TeachingThe Master of Arts in Teaching degree is generally a pre-service degree that usually requires a minimum of 30 semester hours beyond the Bachelor's degree. While the program often requires education classes in order to meet state licensure requirements, it emphasizes advanced course work in a...
degrees. Al-Quds University resides southeast of the city proper on a 190000 square metres (46.9 acre)
Abu DisAbu Dis is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate, bordering Jerusalem. Abu Dis is due east of the Jerusalem municipal border. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics , the town had a population of approximately 12,100 in mid-year 2006.-Ottoman era:Abu Dis was one of the...
campus. Other institutions of higher learning in Jerusalem are the
Jerusalem Academy of Music and DanceThe Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...
and Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, whose buildings are located on the campuses of the Hebrew University.
The
Jerusalem College of TechnologyThe Jerusalem College of Technology , , is an Orthodox Jewish college. JCT's main campus are situated in the Givat Mordechai neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Other branches are located in the Givat Shaul neighbourhood of Jerusalem and Ramat Gan...
, founded in 1969, combines training in engineering and other high-tech industries with a Jewish studies program. It is one of many schools in Jerusalem, from elementary school and up, that combine secular and religious studies. Numerous religious educational institutions and
YeshivotYeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
, including some of the most prestigious yeshivas, among them the Brisk, Chevron, Midrash Shmuel and
MirThe Mir yeshiva , known as the Mirrer Yeshiva or The Mir, is an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Jerusalem, Israel. With 6,000 students, it is the largest yeshiva in Israel. Many of the students are from the United States and Canada. It is also believed to be the largest yeshiva in the world...
, are based in the city, with the Mir Yeshiva claiming to be the largest. There were nearly 8,000 twelfth-grade students in Hebrew-language schools during the 2003–2004 school year. However, due to the large portion of students in
Haredi JewishHaredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
frameworks, only fifty-five percent of twelfth graders took
matriculationMatriculation, in the broadest sense, means to be registered or added to a list, from the Latin matricula – little list. In Scottish heraldry, for instance, a matriculation is a registration of armorial bearings...
exams (
BagrutTe'udat Bagrut is the official Israeli matriculation certificate. The bagrut is similar to the British A-levels, German Abitur, French Baccalauréat, and Austrian Matura...
) and only thirty-seven percent were eligible to graduate. Unlike public schools, many Haredi schools do not prepare students to take standardized tests. To attract more university students to Jerusalem, the city has begun to offer a special package of financial incentives and housing subsidies to students who rent apartments in downtown Jerusalem.
Schools for Arabs in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel have been criticized for offering a lower quality education than those catering to Israeli Jewish students. While many schools in the heavily Arab
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
are filled to capacity and there have been complaints of overcrowding, the Jerusalem Municipality is currently building over a dozen new schools in the city's Arab neighborhoods. Schools in
Ras el-AmudRas al-Amud is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, located southeast of the Old City, overlooking Silwan to the south, Abu Dis and al-Eizariya to the east, and the Temple Mount to the north...
and Umm Lison opened in 2008. In March 2007, the Israeli government approved a 5-year plan to build 8,000 new classrooms in the city, 40 percent in the Arab sector and 28 percent in the Haredi sector. A budget of 4.6 billion shekels was allocated for this project. In 2008, Jewish British philanthropists donated $3 million for the construction of schools in Arab East Jerusalem. Arab high school students take the
BagrutTe'udat Bagrut is the official Israeli matriculation certificate. The bagrut is similar to the British A-levels, German Abitur, French Baccalauréat, and Austrian Matura...
matriculation exams, so that much of their curriculum parallels that of other Israeli high schools and includes certain Jewish subjects.
Sports
The two most popular sports are football (soccer) and basketball. Beitar Jerusalem Football Club is one of the most well known in Israel. Fans include political figures who often attend its games. Jerusalem's other major football team, and one of Beitar's top rivals, is Hapoel Jerusalem F.C. Whereas Beitar has been
Israel State CupThe State Cup , is a knockout cup competition in Israeli football, run by the Israeli Football Association.The State Cup was first held in 1927–28 as the Palestine Cup...
champion seven times, Hapoel has won the Cup only once. Beitar has won the top league six times, while Hapoel has never succeeded. Beitar plays in the more prestigious Ligat HaAl, while Hapoel is in the second division
Liga LeumitLiga Leumit is the second tier in the Israeli football league system below the Premier League.-Structure:There are 16 clubs in the league. At the end of each season, the lowest-placed team are relegated to Liga Alef while the highest-placed team from Liga Alef are promoted in their place...
. Since its opening in 1992, Teddy Kollek Stadium has been Jerusalem's primary football stadium, with a capacity of 21,600.
In basketball, Hapoel Jerusalem plays in the top division. The club has won the
State CupThe Israeli Basketball State Cup is the second most important basketball competition in Israel, after Ligat HaAl. The tournament began in the 1955-56 season, and is run by the Israel Basketball Association....
three times, and the ULEB Cup in 2004.
The popular Palestinian football team is called Jabal Al-Mokaber (since 1976) which plays in
West Bank Premier LeagueWest Bank Premier League is one of the two top divisions of the Palestinian Football Federation. The other is the Gaza Strip League. Palestinian clubs have a rich history stretching back to the early 1930s but most teams folded due to the political turmoil that ensued...
. The team hails from
Mount ScopusMount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
at Jerusalem, part of the
Asian Football ConfederationThe Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football in Asia. It has 46 member countries, mostly located on the Asian continent. However, due to the disputed boundary of Europe and Asia, nations such as Russia and Turkey which are located mostly in geographic Asia are...
, and plays at the
Faisal Al-Husseini International StadiumFaisal Al-Husseini International Stadium is an association football stadium in Al-Ram, West Bank. It is the home stadium of the Palestine national football team. It is named for Faisal Husseini, a Palestinian politician who died in 2001...
at Al-Ram, across the West Bank Barrier.
The Jerusalem Half Marathon is an annual event in which runners from all over the world compete on a course that takes in some of the city's most famous sights. In addition to the 21.0975 kilometres (13.1 mi) Half Marathon, runners can also opt for the shorter 10 km (6.2 mi) Fun Run. Both runs start and finish at the stadium in
Givat RamGivat Ram is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem, Israel. Many of Israel's most important national institutions are located in Givat Ram, among them the Knesset, the Israel Museum, the National Library of Israel and the Israeli Supreme Court.-Etymology:...
.
Notable residents
Ancient
- Abdi-Heba
Abdi-Heba was a local chieftain of Jerusalem during the Amarna period . Abdi-Heba's name can be translated as "servant of Hebat", a Hurrian goddess. Some scholars believe the correct reading is Ebed-Nob...
- Melchizedek
Melchizedek or Malki Tzedek translated as "my king righteous") is a king and priest mentioned during the Abram narrative in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis....
- Araunah
Araunah was a Jebusite who was mentioned in the Books of Samuel who owned the threshing floor on the summit of Mount Moriah that David purchased and used as the site for assembling an altar to God. The Scholar renders his name as Arunah....
- Zadok
Zadok was a high priest of the Israelites in Jerusalem after it was conquered by David.Zadok may also refer to:*Rabbi Zadok, tanna of the 1st-century CE*Zadok the Priest, an 18th-century coronation anthem by Handel...
- King David (c. 1040 BCE-c. 970 BCE), second king of the united Kingdom of Israel
- Solomon the Great (c. 1011 BCE-c. 931 BCE), a King of Israel
Modern
- Naomi Ben-Ami
Naomi Ben-Ami is an Israeli government official and the head of the liaison bureau Lishkat Hakesher, also known as Nativ. Ben-Ami is the first woman to head the organization.-Biography:...
(born 1960), Israeli government official and head of Lishkat HakesherNativ or officially Lishkat Hakesher or The Liaison Bureau, is an Israeli liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, or immigration to Israel....
- Amram Blau
Amram Blau was a Haredi rabbi from the Hungarian community of Jerusalem. He was one of the founders of the fiercely Anti-Zionist Neturei Karta.Blau was born in Jerusalem, and grew up in the Meah Shearim neighbourhood...
- Rachel Bluwstein
Sela was a Hebrew poet who immigrated to Palestine in 1909. She is known by her first name, Rachel, or as Rachel the poetess .-Biography:...
- Trude Dothan
Professor Trude Dothan is one of Israel's leading archaeologists, specializing in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in the region, in particular in Philistine culture.-Early life:...
(born 1923), archaeologist
- Shlomo Hillel
Shlomo Hillel is an Iraqi-born Israeli diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Knesset, Minister of Police and Minister of Internal Affairs. He was also an ambassador to several countries in Africa.-Biography:...
- William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...
- Helena Kagan
Helena Kagan was a physician, an Israeli pioneer in pediatrics, who was responsible for the expansion of health care in Israel.- Early life :...
- Ephraim Katzir
Ephraim Katzir was an Israeli biophysicist and former Israeli Labor Party politician. He was the fourth President of Israel from 1973 until 1978.-Biography:...
(1916–2009), biophysicist and fourth President of Israel
- Teddy Kollek
Theodor "Teddy" Kollek was mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1989...
(1911–2007), mayor of Jerusalem and founder of the Jerusalem FoundationThe Jerusalem Foundation is an international non-profit organization whose goal is the improvement of the quality of life for all citizens of Jerusalem. It was founded in 1966 by the mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek. The foundation is politically not affiliated...
- Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor is an Israeli politician and minister. A longtime member of the Likud party, in the late 1990s he became one of the founders of the Centre Party. He rejoined Likud in the early 2000s, and returned to the Knesset following the 2009 elections...
- Sallai Meridor
Sallai Meridor is an Israeli politician. He was the Israeli Ambassador to the United States between 2005–2009, appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert...
- Uzi Narkiss
Uzi Narkiss was an Israeli general. Narkiss was commander of the Israel Defense Forces units in the Central Region during the Six Day War...
- Ezra Nawi
Ezra Itzhak Nawi is an Israeli human rights activist and pacifist. He is particularly active among the Bedouin herders and farmers of the South Hebron Hills. He has been charged for numerous infractions of the law, convicted for a number of offences, and served several short stints in prison as a...
- Yoni Netanyahu (1946–76), commander of Sayeret Matkal
Sayeret Matkal is a special forces unit of the Israel Defence Forces , which is subordinated to the intelligence directorate Aman. First and foremost a field intelligence-gathering unit, conducting deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines to obtain strategic intelligence, Sayeret Matkal is also...
; killed in action during Operation EntebbeOperation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Special Forces of the Israel Defense Forces at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists and...
- Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh , and raised in Jerusalem, is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem...
(born 1949), writer and philosopher.
- Amos Oz
Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva....
(born 1939), writer, novelist, and journalist
- Herbert Plumer
- Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
(born 1981), actress
- Menachem Porush
Menachem Porush was an Israel politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Agudat Yisrael and its alliances between 1959 and 1975, and again from 1977 until 1994.-Biography:...
- Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....
(1922–95), general and the fifth Prime Minister of Israel
- Reuven Rivlin
Reuven "Rubi" Rivlin is an Israeli lawyer, politician, currently serving as a speaker of the Knesset. He belongs to conservative Likud. A former Speaker of the Knesset, in 2007 he ran in the election for President as the Likud candidate...
- Afif Safieh
Afif Safieh is a Palestinian diplomat. He was most recently the Palestinian ambassador to the Russian Federation.Safieh was born in Jerusalem in 1950 to a Christian family. As a child, he attended school in Jerusalem's College Des Frères. In 1972, he obtained a degree in Political Science and...
(born 1950), Palestinian diplomat
- Conrad Schick
Conrad Schick was a German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-nineteenth century.-Biography:...
- Nahman Shai
Nahman Shai is an Israeli journalist and politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Kadima. He previously worked as the IDF spokesman.-Biography:...
- Chemi Shalev
Chemi Shalev is an Israeli journalist and political analyst.Chemi Shalev is a US foreign correspondent for Haaretz newspaper. In 2007-2011, Shalev was deputy editor and diplomatic commentator for the Israel Hayom newspaper...
- Menachem Ussishkin
- Matan Vilnai
Matan Vilnai is an Israeli politician and a former Major General in the Israel Defense Forces . He is currently Minister for Home Front Defense and a member of the Knesset for Independence.-Biography:...
- Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
- A.B. Yehoshua
- Rehavam Ze'evi
Twin towns and sister cities
See List of Israeli twin towns and sister cities and List of twin towns and sister cities in the Palestinian territories New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, United States
(since 1993) PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czech Republic
FesFes or Fez is the second largest city of Morocco, after Casablanca, with a population of approximately 1 million . It is the capital of the Fès-Boulemane region....
, Morocco
(since 1982)
See also
Endnotes
| i. |
The website for Jerusalem is available in three languages—Hebrew, English, and Arabic. |
| ii. |
Jerusalem in other languages: Arabic Bibles use أورشليم Ûrshalîm (Ûrushalîm); official Arabic in Israel: أورشليم القدس, Ûrshalîm-al-Quds (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names) |
| iii. |
Jerusalem is the capital under Israeli law The Jerusalem Law is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel passed by the Knesset on July 30, 1980 .It began as a private member's bill proposed by Geula Cohen, whose original text stated that "the integrity and unity of greater Jerusalem in its boundaries after the Six-Day War...
. The presidential residence, government offices, supreme court and parliament (KnessetThe Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
) are located there. The Palestinian AuthorityThe Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
foresees East Jerusalem as the capital of its future state. The UN and most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, taking the position that the final status of Jerusalem is pending future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Most countries maintain their embassies in Tel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and its suburbs or suburbs of Jerusalem, such as Mevaseret ZionMevaseret Zion is a suburb of Jerusalem, Israel. Mevaseret Zion is composed of two distinct townships, Maoz Zion and Mevaseret Yerushalayim—under the jurisdiction of one local council. The newer neighborhoods of Mevaseret Zion were not part of either settlement.Mevaseret Zion is located on a...
(see CIA Factbook and ) See Positions on JerusalemThere are differing legal and diplomatic positions on Jerusalem held within the international community. Governments and scholars alike are divided over the legal status of Jerusalem under international law. Most countries of the world do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Many do not...
for more information. |
| iv. |
Statistics regarding the demographics of Jerusalem refer to the unified and expanded Israeli municipality, which includes the pre-1967 Israeli and JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian municipalities as well as several additional PalestinianThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
villages and neighborhoods to the northeast. Some of the Palestinian villages and neighborhoods have been relinquished to the West BankThe West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
de facto by way of the Israeli West Bank barrierThe Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier being constructed by the State of Israel along and within the West Bank. Upon completion, the barrier’s total length will be approximately...
, but their legal statuses have not been reverted. |
| v. |
^ Much of the information regarding King David's conquest of Jerusalem comes from Biblical The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
accounts, but modern-day historians have begun to give them credit due to a 1993 excavation. |
| vi. |
Sources disagree on the timing of the creation of the Pact of Umar (Omar). Whereas some say the Pact originated during Umar's lifetime but was later expanded, others say the Pact was created after his death and retroactively attributed to him. Further still, other historians believe the ideas in the Pact pre-date Islam and Umar entirely. |
Further reading
- Cheshin, Amir S.; Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed (1999). Separate and Unequal: the Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
ISBN 978-0-674-80136-3
- Cline, Eric (2004) Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press ISBN 0-472-11313-5.
- Collins, Larry, and La Pierre, Dominique (1988). O Jerusalem! Simon and Shuster, N.Y. ISBN 0-671-66241-4
- Gold, Dore (2007) The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, The West, and the Future of the Holy City International Publishing Company J-M, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-59698-029-7
- Köchler, Hans
Hans Köchler is a professor of philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations...
(1981) The Legal Aspects of the Palestine Problem with Special Regard to the Question of Jerusalem Vienna: Braumüller ISBN 3-7003-0278-9
- The Holy Cities: Jerusalem produced by Danae Film Production, distributed by HDH Communications; 2006
- Wasserstein, Bernard (2002) Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09730-1
- "Keys to Jerusalem: A Brief Overview", The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center, Amman, Jordan, 2010. http://www.rissc.jo/docs/J101-10-10-10.pdf
- Sebag Montefiore, Simon
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian and writer.-Family history:Simon's father, a doctor, is descended from a famous line of wealthy Sephardic Jews who became diplomats and bankers all over Europe...
(2011) Jerusalem: the Biography, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 978-0-297-85265-0
External links
Government, United Nations document related to the recent dispute over Jerusalem
Culture
Education
Maps
- Modern-day map of Jerusalem, from City of Jerusalem.
- Ancient Maps of Jerusalem, from the Jewish National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Modern maps, post-1947 from PASSIA
The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs was founded in March 1987 by Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi and by a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals in Jerusalem. PASSIA is an Arab non-profit institution located in Jerusalem with a financially and legally independent...
- Maps of Jerusalem, from Israel Star News