Jerusalem of Gold
After the conquest of Babylon by the Persian King in 538 BC, Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Despite years of occupation by Alexander the Great and his successors, the Jews remained and, under the Macabees, threw off Greek rule. Jerusalem was conquered by Pompey the Great’s Roman armies in the 1st century BC and became a client kingdom and then later a province of the Roman Empire. In about the year 30 AD or so, Jerusalem was the scene of the last ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, according to Christian teachings. The Jews rose against the Roman rulers in AD 70 and Jerusalem held out in a siege against the Roman Armies of Vespasian and his son Titus for some months before falling to a general assault. After another Jewish revolt in the 2nd Century AD, the city was razed and rebuilt as the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina in a bid to prevent further Jewish revolts.
Christianity became a recognized religion in AD 330 under the Emperor Constantine. Many Christian buildings in Jerusalem today, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, date back to this time.
Muslims appeared on the scene in AD 638, conquering the city and claiming Jerusalem as a sacred place because the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have ascended to heaven from within its walls.
Centuries of tolerance eventually gave way to religious strife which sparked the First Crusade of 1099. The Christians Crusaders were victorious, but their victory was short-lived. The Muslim leader Saladin defeated the Crusader armies at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 and seized Jerusalem, reinstated Islam as the dominant religion. Later, the Mamaluks superseded Saladin and continued to keep the Christians at bay while constructing many of the distinctive Islamic buildings one can see today around the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The Ottoman Turks took control of the city in the 16th Century.
Jewish immigration to Jerusalem and surrounding areas increased during the 18th and 19th centuries, slowly reestablished Jews as the majority. Settlements grew up outside the city walls as the pressure of overcrowding increased. As the Ottoman Empire declined, major European powers began to take an interest. In 1917 during World War I, Britain captured the city from the Turks.
The British supported Zionism in the Balfour Declaration and took Palestine as a League of Nations mandate. But conflicting promises not only to the Arab community, but to France, Britain’s World War I ally, caused tensions that occasionally flared into open war. At one point, the British restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, even while millions were being slaughtered in the Nazi holocaust. After the war the 1947 UN partition plan, which would have created a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine, with Jerusalem as a UN administrated zone, was rejected by the Arabs. The resulting 1948 War of Independence left Jerusalem split between Jews and Jordanians, with parts of Palestine occupied by the Jordanians and the Egyptians. 19 years later, during the Six Day War, Israel captured the rest of the city. For the first time in almost two thousand years, Jerusalem was Jewish again. In the words of the song, Jerusalem of Gold:
We have returned to the cisterns
To the market and to the market-place
A ram’s horn calls out on the Temple Mount
In the Old City.
And in the caves in the mountain
Thousands of suns shine –
We will once again descend to the Dead Sea
By way of Jericho!
Jerusalem of gold, and of bronze and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
Jerusalem remains the heart of a very troubled land as conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians flare into occasional violence and terrorism. Israel considers the undivided Jerusalem its capital, a claim currently not recognized by the world community. The city remains, though, a place of pilgrimage and a source of awe, sacred to three great religions
Dome of the Rock
Enclosing the sacred rock upon which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son and from which, according to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Mohammed was accepted into heaven to pray, the Dome was built between 688 and 691 AD. Its patron was the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. The caliph was concerned that the imposing Church of the Holy Sepulcher was seducing Arab minds. While the golden dome is the most immediately eye-catching feature, the colorfully tiled decoration and intricate Quranic writing around the outside walls makes it one of the most attractive mosques anywhere. The massive rock is encased inside but access to the mosque is very limited since the start of the second Intifada.
Tower of David
This is both one of the country’s most impressive restoration projects and a major museum complex. Its numerous rooms contain some impressive dioramas, artifacts, holograms and videos that tell a version of the city’s story. Visitors can follow one of four or five special signposted routes through the museum, including one for the disabled.
Originally built by Herod, the original palace was destroyed in the Great Revolt of 66AD. 250 years later the Byzantines mistook the ruins for King David’s palace (hence the name) and promptly built a new fortress on the site. Changing hands over the centuries (Muslim, Crusader, Ottoman), the present site took its form in 14th century. The citadel dominates the Jaffa Gate area of the Old City at the edge of the Christian Quarter.
The Western Wall
1n stark contrast to the ornate magnificence of the Muslim’s Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall (HaKotel HaMa’aravi or just HaKotel) is nothing more than a bare stone wall. However, it still manages to be one of the most captivating places in all of Jerusalem. The Western Wall is the only part left of the ramparts that surrounded the holy Temple of the Jews built by Solomon and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Jews gather here to weep and pray on these ruins. It was the Christians who named it the “Wailing Wall” because of all the tears shed by the Jews.
The Western Wall is constructed of limestone. A visitor will notice that there is no cement or mortar holding them together. As one looks up, the stones get smaller, because stones were added over the centuries. The base of the wall is actually about twenty feet below ground. One of the stones is more than 40 feet long, and weighs 400 tons. This is the largest stone ever quarried by man. Nothing else like it exists in the world No crane today can even lift such a stone. How it got there is an engineering mystery. Others stones weigh over 100 tons. These stones can be viewed in the archeological tunnels that have been opened in the past few years. One theory is that the quarry was located to the north of the Temple Mount and at a higher elevation, so that the builders could push the stones into place using the lever and pulley systems that existed at the time.
The Jews believe there is a divine presence hovering above it and that the dew drops that cover the hyssop and wild caper plants growing between the stones are tears being shed for the sorrow of Israel. The wall area is divided into the men’s and women’s side. A huge plaza is in front of the place of worship.
Church of the Holy Sepulcher
Technically this isn’t actually one church as in fact there are about 36 different churches inside the one huge building. Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians… all have their own churches and priests here and relationships are not always amicable. A story goes that the main key to the Church had to be given to a Muslim family to look after, in order to stop the different churches squabbling.
The Church was built in 335 by Emperor Constantine, and was added to by the Crusaders, on the site where it is believed Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. As befitting a church with so many influences, the architecture and design inside differs at every turn. It’s dark and garishly decorated with lots of gold and rich colors, and very somber.
The first thing one will see is the slab of stone which is called the Stone of Unction, which tradition states Christ’s body was laid to be washed and prepared for burial. To the right is a stairway to the Calvary. It is in the rock face against which is a fixed huge steel cross. It’s situated behind the spot where the wooden cross of Golgotha would have stood. The platform of Calvary is raised about 5 meters above the floor. It is divided into two chapels, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic. The place where Jesus was nailed to the cross is in the Latin chapel. To the left from the Stone of Unction is Christ’s Tomb. One may enter it, but it only holds about 5 people at a time. This is a very sacred place for Christians as many believe this is the actual tomb where Christ was buried and resurrected
The Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives affords one of the best views of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Mount faces the Temple Mount. The Jewish cemetery on the hillside is probably one of the most difficult places to be buried. Many Jews want to be buried there because they want to be near the valley of Jehoshaphat where it is believed that mankind will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. Note the stones on top of the graves. This is a Jewish custom.
It is believed that the path that goes between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount is where Jesus made the triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding the donkey that had never before been mounted. This is the Palm Sunday tradition. At the top of the mount, Jesus ascended into Heaven after completing the ministry on Earth. Bible prophecy also holds this place to be of extreme significance. Here, the Bible states that Christ’s physical return, the Second Coming will take place.
“The Church of all Nations” is nearby, so named because of the contributions of many nations for the mosaics of the apses and cupolas: Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Argentina, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, France, Canada, Chile, Spain, Germany, Mexico, England, US. There is also a Russian style church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene, the Carmel of Prater Nostra, which Christ taught the Lords Prayer, and a tear shaped church called Dominus Flevit, or “Cry of the Master.”
Via Dolorosa
No Christian pilgrim can visit Jerusalem without walking the Via Dolorosa. The Via Dolorosa is a narrow street in the Muslim Quarter and it is believed that it is the route of Christ to the place he was crucified. There are 14 stops during the route (stations of the Cross). Each stop has a particular meaning. The 1st Station is where Christ was condemned to death. The 2nd Station is where He took up the Cross. The 3rd Station is where He fell for the first time because of the weight of the Cross. The 4th Station is where Jesus met his mother. The 5th Station is where Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the Cross. The 6th Station is where Veronica wiped His sweat away. The 7th Station is where He fell for the second time. The 8th Station is where He consoled the women of the city. The 9th Station is where He fell for the third time There 10th through 13th Stations are where He was nailed to the Cross, He died and He was taken down from the Cross. The 14th Station is the Holy Sepulcher.
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem – the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority – is a sprawling complex of museums, archives, monuments and sculptures connected by a maze of walkways. It is the world’s largest repository of information about the Holocaust. “Shem” means name. Six million Jews (along with a fair number of gypsies, homosexuals, disabled and people with the wrong ideology) were slaughtered in a mind-numbing example of man’s inhumanity to man. The goal of Yad Vashem is to give a name to every person who died, to personalize this faceless mass, branded like livestock, numbers burned onto their arms, packed into cattle cars, and shipped off to concentration camps and gas chambers. It is one of the most chilling places on Earth.
