Jerusalem

Introduction
Getting There
Getting Around
People
Neighborhoods
History
Government
Public Safety
Economy
Environment
Shoppping
Education
Health Care
Media
Sports
Parks and Recreation
Performing Arts
Libraries and Museums
Tourism
Holidays and Festivals
Famous Citizens
For Further Study

Jerusalem, Israel, Middle East

Founded: c. 4000 bc
Location: The Judaean hills, about 30 km (20 mi) from the Jordan River
Flag: Blue horizontal stripes on a white field, with a blue and yellow emblem in the center.
Time Zone: 2 pm = noon Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Ethnic Composition: 70% Jewish; 30% Arab
Elevation: 757 meters (2,484 feet) above sea level
Latitude and Longitude: 31°47′N, 35°15′E
Climate: Subtropical, semiarid; warm, dry summers; cool, rainy winters
Annual Mean Temperature: January 9°C (48°F); July 23°C (73°F)
Average Annual Precipitation: 500 mm (20 in)
Government: Mayor-council
Weights and Measures: Metric system
Monetary Units: New Israeli Shekel (NIS)
Telephone Area Codes: 02 (Jerusalem area code); 972 (country code for Israel)
Postal Codes: 9000 and up

1. Introduction

Located east of the Jordan River in the Judaean Hills, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in terms of both geographical area and population size. A holy city for three of the world's major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—Jerusalem has a long and tumultuous history, during which it has been home to people of many nationalities and faiths. Reunified since 1967, Jerusalem is really three cities in one: the historic walled Old City that is home to its holy places, the modern urban center to the west, and the Arab district to the east. In addition to being Israel's spiritual, political, and administrative capital, Jerusalem is also a leader in education and health care, and its religious, historical, and cultural attractions make it the country's premier tourist destination.

2. Getting There

Jerusalem lies 48 kilometers (30 miles) east of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the north, south, and east by the West Bank of the Jordan River, occupied by Israel since the Six Day War in 1967. Israel's border with Jordan is 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the city.

Highways

Route 60, the main north-south highway, cuts through the middle of Jerusalem, leading to Nablus to the north and Hebron and Beersheba to the south. The major east-west highway, Route 1, leads northwest to Tel Aviv and eastward to Jordan, first intersecting with Route 90, which in turn leads north to Jericho and beyond to Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee. The Allon Road traverses the Judaean Desert, leading to Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Bus and Railroad Service

Intercity buses from points throughout Israel, including Ben Gurion International Airport, arrive and depart from the Egged Central Bus Station on Jaffa Road. There is also bus service to Cairo, Egypt, and Amman, Jordan. There are separate bus stations for destinations within jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. There is train service to Tel Aviv, continuing to Haifa, leaving from the train station in Remez Square.

Airports

Ben Gurion International Airport is located 50 km (12 mi) west of Jerusalem along Route 1 leading to Tel Aviv. Of the approximately 5 million passengers who use the airport every year, more than 40 percent travel on flights operated by El Al, Israel's national airline.

Shipping

Jerusalem is not a port city.

3. Getting Around

The modern municipality of Jerusalem, as defined by its post-1967 borders, lies between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives to the east, Hadassah Medical Center to the west, and past Jerusalem's municipal airport to the north. Within these boundaries is the historic, walled Old City, which forms a rough quadrilateral measuring about 900 meters (3,000 feet) on each side. Seven gates lead to the twisting, narrow streets of the Old City, which is divided into Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Armenian quarters. To the west, the Jaffa Gate provides the main access to the modern Jerusalem, while the Damascus Gate is the main entryway to the Arab enclave of East Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Population Profile

Population: 3,738,500
Area: 109 sq km (42 sq mi)
Ethnic composition: 70% Jewish; 30% Arab
World population rank ¹: approx. 68
Percentage of national population ²: n.a.
Average yearly growth rate: n.a (Tel Aviv 1.98%)
Nicknames: The Holy City

1. The Jerusalem metropolitan area's rank among the world's urban areas.
2. The percent of Israel's total population living in the Jerusalem metropolitan area.

Bus and Commuter Rail Service

The Egged Bus Cooperative, which offers inter-city bus transportation, also provides transportation within Jerusalem itself. Bus service is frequent, punctual, and reasonably priced, with a flat fare for all local bus rides, no matter how short or long. Private Arab companies provide service to the West Bank.

There is no real commuter rail service, but shared taxis called sheruts, which seat up to seven passengers, are a popular mode of transport in the city.

Sightseeing

Egged, which provides most of the city's public transportation, offers an introductory tour of Jerusalem that takes in 36 major tourist sites and allows visitors to embark at any of them and board another bus later at no extra charge. Egged also offers half-day bus tours of the Old City and of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Walking tours are a popular way to see many of Jerusalem's historic sites. Tours of both the Old City and the newer part of Jerusalem are offered by Zion Walking Tours. Archaeological Seminars walking tours focus on the historical periods of the first and second temples, and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) offers tours of the Old City as well as nature hikes in the nearby countryside.

4. People

Jerusalem is one of Israel's most populous city, and its population continues to grow rapidly thanks to a high birth rate and the arrival of new immigrants, many of them from the former Soviet republics. Since 1986, the city's population has grown by 28 percent, with peripheral neighborhoods, such as Manchat and Pisgat Ze'ev, recording the greatest increases. At the end of 1996, Jerusalem's population was 602,100, and it is expected to reach 650,000 by 2000.

As of 1996, Jews accounted for 70 percent of the city's inhabitants, with Arabs making up the rest. Of the city's Arabs, 92 percent were Muslim and eight percent Christian. Because of Jerusalem's large non-Jewish and Orthodox Jewish populations—both of which tend to have large families—young people account for an unusually large percentage of the city's population: in 1996, 44 percent of the population was aged zero to 19 (including 13 percent aged zero to four) while only eight percent were senior citizens.

5. Neighborhoods

Jerusalem consists of three main areas. The city's great holy and historic sites are found in the walled Old City, home to the Muslim Dome of the Rock, the Christian Church of the Sepulchre, and the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple. To the west lies the modern, predominantly Jewish city of Jerusalem, also called the New City, the political and administrative capital of Israel. To the east of the Old City lies East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city, which was cut off from the rest of Jerusalem between Israeli independence in 1948 and the Six Day War in 1967. The former dividing line, known as the Green Line, is now called HaShalom Road. Besides hotels and restaurants, East Jerusalem, whose main streets are Nablus Road and Salah ad-Din Street, is home to many retailers and other small businesses. Further east is the Mount of Olives. To the north lie Mount Scopus, the main campus of Hebrew University, and Hadassah Hospital.

The heart of the New City is the triangle formed by King George V Street, Jaffa Road, and Ben Yehuda Street, the site of numerous hotels, restaurants, and cafes, and the popular gathering place Zion Square. Just to the north lies Mea She'arim ("One Hundred Gates"), home to Jerusalem's ultra-orthodox community (or, as they are known in Israel, "Haredim"), whose distinctive appearance and way of life evokes the vanished world of their Eastern European forebears in the days before World War II (1939–45).

The district of Giv'at Ram to the west is home to several notable landmarks, including the Israel Museum, the Knesset (parliament building), and the Supreme Court. In an area further to the west are Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial and museum; the tomb of Israel's founding father Theodore Herzl (1860–1904); the famous Chagall stained-glass windows of the Hadassah Medical Center; and Ein Kerem, a former Arab village that was the birthplace of John the Baptist (fl. c. 27).

Among the city's residential districts outside the downtown area are Yemin Moshe (the first settlement developed outside the city walls in the nineteenth century), Talbiye, Rehavia, Bet ha-Kerem, and the "German Colony," built by the German Templars in the nineteenth century. Arab neighborhoods outside the Old City include ash-Shaykh Jarrah, Wadi al-Joz, Bayt Hanina, Bayt Safafa, and the American Colony.

6. History

With a history extending over some 4,000 years, Jerusalem has been inhabited longer than almost any other city in the world and has had a long succession of rulers. Its first recorded connection with the Biblical kingdom of Israel occurs in the middle of the second millennium B. C. Around 1000 B. C. , King David (c. 1013–c. 973 B. C. ) made it the capital of a united Israel. It also became the spiritual center of the Jewish nation when David's successor, King Solomon, built the First Temple 50 years later. Within the next thousand years, the city was conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians (586 B. C. ) and the Romans (A. D. 70), who rebuilt it yet once more under the name of Aelia Capitolina in A. D. 130.

After a period of Byzantine rule, Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims in the seventh century and remained part of the Islamic world for more than 1,000 years, with an interruption of about a century after it was captured by Crusaders in 1099. Four hundred years of rule by the Ottoman Empire began in 1517 and included the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1538–1566), who oversaw major rebuilding of the city. After his reign, however, the condition of Jerusalem declined, and it gradually fell into a state of neglect. A revival of European interest in the Middle East in the late eighteenth century led to the building of consulates and other public buildings.

The Crimean War (1853–56) in the mid-nineteenth century also led to some new interest in the region and more development. This period also saw the beginning of new settlement by European Jews, beginning with the purchase of land outside the city walls in 1855 by Sir Moses Montefiore. By 1900 there were 60 Jewish settlements surrounding the old city. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914–18), Jerusalem was captured by British forces under the command of Gen. Edmund Allenby (1861–1936) and, together with the rest of Palestine, placed under British mandate by the League of Nations. During this period, Jewish immigration to the city increased, resulting in escalating tensions with Palestine's Arab neighbors. In its 1947 partition plan for Palestine, the United Nations proposed turning Jerusalem into an internationally administered city, but Arab forces rejected the plan and laid siege to the city.

The British left Palestine on May 14, 1948, and the state of Israel was proclaimed. The following year, Jerusalem was declared its capital, and it became the seat of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament). The Old City and East Jerusalem, occupied by Arab forces during the Israeli-Arab war that followed the proclamation of Israel's independence, remained under Arab control until 1967, and East Jerusalem was declared the second capital of Jordan.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli forces annexed the Old City, and all of Jerusalem was placed under Israeli rule. Since that time, extensive preservation and restoration have been carried out in the Old City while the newer part of the city has been expanded by the addition of new housing developments. This expansion has made Jerusalem Israel's largest city. In 1980 the Israeli government confirmed the official status of Jerusalem as the nation's capital.

7. Government

As the capital of the state of Israel, Jerusalem is the seat of its government and home to all government institutions, including the parliament, or Knesset, and the Supreme Court. At the local level, Jerusalem is governed by a mayor and city council whose members are elected to four-year terms. Although Palestinian Arabs living in East Jerusalem have the right to vote in Israeli elections, they have refused to do so in accord with their refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli government.

8. Public Safety

In spite of the ever-present threat of terrorism due to Arab-Israeli tensions, Jerusalem is statistically safer than virtually any large city in the United States and many elsewhere in the world. In 1997, the city had a total of 22 deaths from terrorism and 16 non-terrorist-related murders. The streets of western Jerusalem are generally populated and safe at night. It is a common observation, applicable both in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, that traffic congestion and aggressive driving are a greater threat to the personal safety of both drivers and pedestrians than street crime.

9. Economy

As the political, religious, and scholarly capital of Israel, Jerusalem's economy is based on service industries, including government, education, religion, and tourism, with manufacturing playing a relatively small role. Preservation of the city's historic character has also prevented the establishment of large-scale industry in the city and the surrounding area.

In 1996 Jerusalem's civilian work force numbered 188,500, of whom two-thirds were employed in service-sector jobs. Jerusalem has a highly educated work force, bolstered by an influx of well-educated immigrants. But due in part to the number of Orthodox Jewish and Muslim families with single-income households, the percentage of Jerusalem's overall population in the labor force is relatively low compared to Israel's other major cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. In addition to the smaller work force, the economic status of Jerusalem's residents is further lowered by the fact that the public-service jobs held by many residents pay less than jobs in such fields as manufacturing, commerce, and financial services. The average monthly salary for wage-earning families in Jerusalem is significantly lower than that of families in Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Jerusalem also has a higher incidence of poverty than the two other major cities. In 1996 as many as 21 percent of the city's families lived below the poverty line, including 40 percent of the city's children. In the 1990s, the number of families receiving public assistance rose steadily, reaching 32,600 households by 1996.

10. Environment

Jerusalem lies on the watershed between the hills and desert of Judaea. It has varied vegetation with as many as 1,000 different plant species. About 70 bird species are present year round, as well as 150 types of migratory fowl. The shoreline of the nearby mineral-rich Dead Sea, located in the Syrian-African Rift Valley, is the lowest point on earth.

11. Shopping

Jerusalem offers two distinctly different types of shopping venues: modern malls and department stores in the western part of the city and the Arab markets of the Old City. In the west, the major downtown shopping area is the central triangle formed by King George, Ben Yehuda, and Jaffa streets, home to two urban shopping malls and the city's major department store, Hamashbir. The most upscale shopping, including most commercial art galleries, is found on King David Street, and the Nahalat Shiv'a neighborhood is known for its selection of arts and crafts. Further afield, there is Jerusalem's largest suburban shopping center, the air-conditioned Kanyon Mall in the Malkah district.

The most colorful shopping experience to be found in Jerusalem, however, is afforded by the crowded, bustling market stalls (or suks ) of the Old City, where haggling with merchants is the rule and can reduce the initial asking price of an item by over one-half. A large selection of souvenirs is available for visitors of all religions, including many items that incorporate olive wood, silver, and turquoise. Ceramics are another of the many specialty items available in the market stalls.

12. Education

As Israel's center of scholarship and religion, Jerusalem has a highly educated population, even exceeding the relatively high national average of the nation as a whole. Approximately 36 percent of the population over the age of 15 have had over 13 years of education, and 19 percent have had more than 16 years. (Among the Jewish population, these figures rise to 45 percent and 24 percent respectively.)

Given Jerusalem's high number of large families, the city has an unusually large population of school-aged children, numbering some 160,000. Of these, 65,000 are ultra-Orthodox children whose education is overseen by a separate Ultra-Orthodox Educational Department, and 24,000 are Arabs. Education for non-Orthodox or Modern Orthodox Jews is administered by the Jerusalem Education Authority. The following combined school enrollment was recorded in 1997: kindergarten, 25,427; primary education, 64,278; high school, 42,699; Arab students at all levels, 24,272; total, 159,403.

Hebrew University, founded in 1925, is Israel's most prestigious post-secondary institution. Almost 23,000 full-time students are enrolled at its regular campuses at Mount Scopus and Giv'at Ram, its medical school at Ein Kerem, and its agricultural college at Rehovot. The university, which has 1,400 senior faculty members, is the site of nearly 40 percent of all civilian research carried out in Israel. Other colleges in Jerusalem include the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Hebrew Union College, and the Rubin Academy of Music. Al-Quds University, a national Arabic Palestinian university, is the only Arab University in Jerusalem. It was originally established in 1984 by the merger of four colleges in Jerusalem and its suburbs.

13. Health Care

Jerusalem's best-known health care institution is the Hadassah Medical Organization, which operates hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus. The 700-bed Ein Kerem Hospital is known for pioneering work with in vitro fertilization, bone marrow transplantation, laser surgery, gene therapy, and other areas. With 300 beds, the Hadassah Hospital at Mount Scopus serves the Jewish and Arab population of northern and eastern Jerusalem, providing facilities which include a physical rehabilitation center, a neonatal intensive care unit, and a hospice to care for the terminally ill. In 1998, the two hospitals recorded a combined total of 72,893 hospitalization, 250,952 outpatient visits, 22,068 major surgeries, and 114,992 emergency room admissions.

Other hospitals in Jerusalem include Sha'are Tzedeq, which specializes in meeting the needs of Orthodox Jewish patients; Biqur Holim; al-Maqasid al-Khayriyah, a Muslim hospital; St. John's Ophthalmic Hospital; and Ezrat Hashim, a psychiatric facility. The Magen David Adom ("red star of David") and the Red Crescent, counterparts of the Red Cross, provide supplementary emergency services to the city.

14. Media

Only one daily newspaper for the Jewish community is published in Jerusalem—the English-language Jerusalem Post (published every day except Saturday). This traditionally left-wing paper, founded in 1932 by the Jewish labor movement, has favored the right politically since its purchase in 1990 by the Canadian-based Hollinger media franchise. The bi-weekly Jerusalem Report provides in-depth English-language coverage of local, national, and regional events. The free monthly publication Your Jerusalem provides helpful entertainment listings and restaurant reviews for both visitors and residents. Several Palestinian publications, both dailies and weeklies, originate in Jerusalem, including the weekly Biladi, which is sold in East Jerusalem and the Old City.

Jerusalem is home to the headquarters of the Israel Broadcasting Association, which operates two public television stations. There are also two Arabic-language television stations, an independent commercial station, and over 50 cable channels available. National Radio 1 broadcasts news bulletins and current affairs programming. Radio programs from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and the Voice of America are also available.

15. Sports

Sport is a somewhat problematic issue in Jerusalem, where the high-pro-file ultra-Orthodox community opposes it as a secular pursuit. However, construction of Israel's national soccer stadium—the Teddy Stadium, named for former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (b. 1911)—was finally completed in 1992 despite ultra-Orthodox opposition. It is located in the Jerusalem suburb of Malkah. For those who are sports fans, the two favorites are soccer and basketball. The city's premier soccer team is Betar Jerusalem, which won its league's championship in 1993 and 1997 and competed for the European Cup. The city's basketball team is Hapoel Jerusalem, which plays home games in the Goldberg Sports Hall at the Teddy Stadium.

16. Parks and Recreation

Jerusalem's parks, gardens, forests, and other cultivated open areas are maintained by the Jerusalem Foundation, founded in 1966. The city's largest parks are Independence Park (Gan Ha'Atzmaut), centrally located in the downtown area of west Jerusalem, and Sacher Park, located further west, near the Knesset. Sacher Park is connected with a wooded area known as the Valley of the Cross. Directly opposite the Knesset is the Wohl Rose Garden, containing some 650 varieties of roses. Liberty Bell Park, which contains an exact replica of the U.S. Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, is a popular site for recreational activities and also has an amphitheater.

Southeast of the city, the Haas Sherover Promenade, between Abu Tor and East Talpiot, offers a dramatic view of the Old City and the Judaean Desert. Jerusalem Forest to the west has been planted with trees (said to number six million) in memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Another forest at the outskirts of the city is Nahal Sorek, located beyond Ein Kerem. Its caves contain interesting stalactite and stalagmite formations. Wadi Qelt, located to the east between Jerusalem and Jericho, is a desert gorge with a nature reserve, spring, waterfall, and aqueduct. It is also the site of the picturesque St. George's Monastery, which is built into the side of a cliff. Wadi Qelt and Nahal Sorek are popular hiking spots.

Popular recreational activities include soccer, hiking, and bicycling. Jerusalem also has both open-air and indoor swimming pools and a skating rink with artificial ice made of silicon. Sports programs are run by the city, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), and neighborhood sports clubs. The YMCA has a soccer field that can seat as many as 10,000 spectators.

17. Performing Arts

The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performs regularly at the Henry Crown Theater, part of the Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts (which also includes the Jerusalem Theater and the Rebecca Crown Theater). In the summer months, the modern Sultan's Pool Amphitheatre, near Yemin Moshe, with a view of the Old City walls is a dramatic venue for both classical and popular concerts. Classical, jazz, and folk music concerts are performed at the Gerard Bakhar Theater. Concerts are also presented at area universities and at the Israel Museum.

Jerusalem does not have a resident theater company, but audiences can attend performances by troupes from Tel Aviv (the Habimah and Carmeri Theater Companies) and by the Haifa Municipal Theater Company. The annual Israel Festival in May and June brings performances by additional groups from many parts of the world, and experimental theater can be seen regularly at the Khan Theatre. Musical theater, often in English, is featured at Tzavta. The Train Theatre is a railroad carriage that has been converted to a puppet theater. The Bat Dor and Inbal dance companies perform frequently in Jerusalem, as does the Israel Opera.

Arabic theater and dancing is presented at the Al-Masrah Centre for Palestinian Culture and Art and the Al-Kasaba Theatre.

18. Libraries and Museums

With some 2,500,000 volumes, the Jewish National and University Library is the largest in the country and has the world's premier collection of Judaica. It also has excellent collections in archaeology and Oriental studies. Jerusalem's other major libraries are the library of the Knesset, the State Archives, and the Municipal Library, which has multiple branches.

The Israel Museum, located in Jerusalem, is the country's national museum. Its holdings include some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an extensive collection of archaeological artifacts from the Middle East, Jewish ritual art, Jewish ethnography, and sculpture. Archaeological exhibits are also found in the Rockefeller Museum, the Bible Lands Museum, and the Citadel Museum of the History of Jerusalem. Museums focusing on Arabic art, culture, and history include the Islamic Museum, the Islamic Art Museum, the L. A. Mayer Memorial Institute for Islamic Art, and the Palestinian Arab Folklore Centre.

Specialized museums include Ammunition Hill Museum, commemorating the 1967 Six Day War; the Armenian Art and History Museum in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City; the Bloomfield Science Museum; the Burnt house of Kathros, the reconstructed home of a Jewish family during the era of the Second Temple; and the Second Temple model, a scale model of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple.

Yad Vashem, in the Ein Kerem district, is both a museum of the Holocaust and a memorial to those who perished in it. The Historical Museum portion documents the Holocaust from the rise of Nazism through World War II. The Hall of Members Cemetery con tains ashes brought from Europe's concentration camps, an eternal flame, and pillars symbolizing the chimneys of the crematoria in which the bodies of victims were incinerated. Also included in Yad Vashem are the Garden of Righteous Gentiles and a Children's Memorial.

19. Tourism

With its religious and historic sites, cultural attractions, and picturesque mountain setting, Jerusalem is Israel's foremost tourist destination, drawing one-and-a-half million visitors a year, or roughly 70 percent of all persons who visit Israel. In the same year, Jerusalem's hotels employed 6,151 workers and welcomed 970,000 guests. The city has 65 hotels, with a combined total of 8,046 rooms. About 38 percent of travelers to Jerusalem come from the Americas, and 43 percent come from Europe.

Jerusalem is also Israel's most popular site for international conferences, hosting about 50 percent of all such events.

20. Holidays and Festivals

January-February
Tu B'Shvat

February
Jerusalem Musical Encounters

February-March
Purim

March
International Festival of Poets
International Judaica Fair

March-April
Pesach (Passover)

April-May
Independence Day
Lag Ba-Omer

May-June
Israel Festival
Jerusalem Liberation Day
Shavuot

July
International Film Festival

July-August
Tish B'Av

August
Jerusalem International Puppet Theatre Festival

September
Early Music Workshop

September-October
Rosh Hashanah
Yom Kippur
Succot
Simchat Torah

October
Jerusalem Marathon

November-December
Chanukah

December
Liturgica

21. Famous Citizens

S. Y. Agnon (1887–1970), fiction writer.

Yehuda Amichai (b. 1924), poet.

Aharon Appelfeld (b. 1932), novelist.

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), Israel's first prime minister.

David Grossman (b. 1954), novelist.

Teddy Kollek (b. 1911), longtime mayor.

Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), historian of mysticism.

Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952), early Zionist leader and first president of Israel.

Avraham B. Yehoshua (b. 1936), novelist and playwright.

22. For Further Study

Websites

Focus on Israel. [Online] Available http://www.focusmm.com.au/israel/is_anamn.htm (accessed December 30, 1999).

Israel Tourist Information. [Online] Available http://www.infotour.co.il (accessed December 30, 1999).

Jerusalem Post online. [Online] Available http://www.jpost.co.il/ (accessed December 30, 1999).

Jerusalem website. [Online] Available http://www.huji.ac.il/jerusalem.html (accessed December 30, 1999).

Ministry of Tourism. [Online] Available http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/sites.html (accessed December 30, 1999).

Municipality of Jerusalem Website. [Online] Available http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/ (accessed December 30, 1999).

Government Offices

Ministry of Economy and Planning
P.O. Box 292
3 Rehov Kaplan
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91131

Office of the Prime Minister
P.O. Box 187
3 Rehov Kaplan
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91919

Tourist and Convention Bureaus

Ministry of Tourism
24 Rehov King George
Jerusalem 91009
02-675-4910

Tourist Information
17 Rehov Jaffa
Jerusalem
02-628-0382

Publications

Al Quds
P. O. Box 19788
Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post Building
P.O. Box 81
Jerusalem 91000

Books

Ben-Dov, M. Jerusalem, Man and Stone: An Archeologist's Personal View of His City. Translation from the Hebrew, Yael Guiladi. Tel-Aviv : Modan, 1990.

Benvenisti, Meron. City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem. Translated by Maxine Kaufman Nunn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Dumper, Michael. The Politics of Jerusalem Since 1967. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Elon, Amos. Jerusalem: Battlegrounds of Memory. New York: Kodansha International, 1995.

Elon, Amos. Jerusalem: City of Mirrors. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

King, Anthony. Jerusalem Revealed. Cambridgeshire, England: Boxer Publishing, 1997.

Kroyanker, David. Jerusalem Architecture. Introduction by Teddy Kollek. New York: Vendome Press, 1994.

Nellhaus, Arlynn. Into the Heart of Jerusalem: A Traveler's Guide to Visits, Celebrations, and Sojourns. Santa Fe, NM: John Muir, 1999.

Romann, Michael, and Alex Weingrod. Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Rosovsky, Nitza, ed. City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Videorecordings

Jerusalem [videorecording] with Martin Gilbert. New York: A&E Home Video, 1996. 2 videocassettes (ca. 150 min.): sd. col.; 1/2 in. Produced by Krosney Productions for the History Channel. v. 1. From a dream to destruction. v. 2. Pilgrims and Conquerors.

Jerusalem 3000 [videorecording]. Yoram Globus presents Jerusalem 3000. Burbank, California: Warner Home Video, 1998.1 videocassette (30 min.): sd., col. ; 1/2 in.

Jerusalem , Heb. Yerushalayim, Arab. Al Quds, city (1994 pop. 578,800), capital of Israel. It is situated on a ridge 2,500 ft (760 m) high that lies west of the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. Jerusalem is an administrative, religious, educational, cultural, and market center. Tourism and the construction of houses and hotels are the city's major industries. Manufactures include cut and polished diamonds, plastics, clothing, and shoes, and electronic printing and other high-technology industries have been developed. The city is served by road, rail, and air transport.

Jerusalem is a holy city for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Often under the name of Zion, it figures prominently in Jewish and Christian literature as a symbol of the capital of the Messiah. Jerusalem's churches and shrines are legion. The traditional identifications vary in reliability from certainty (such as Gethsemane) to pious supposition (such as the Tomb of the Virgin). The most famous and most difficult identification is that of Calvary. Excavations have been made in Jerusalem since 1835, and after 1967, the Israelis increased this activity. Many of Jerusalem's original streets, including the main Cardo, have been excavated and turned into tourist sites.

The Old City

The eastern part of Jerusalem is the Old City, a quadrangular area built on two hills and surrounded by a wall completed in 1542 by the Ottoman sultan Sulayman I. Within the wall are four quarters. The Muslim quarter, in the east, contains a sacred enclosure, the Haram esh-Sherif (known as the Temple Mount to Jews), within which, built on the old Mt. Moriah, are the Dome of the Rock (completed 691), or Mosque of Omar, and the Mosque of al-Aksa. The wall of the Haram incorporates the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, a remnant of the retaining wall of the Second Temple and a holy place for Jews. Nearby and southwest of the Haram is the Jewish quarter, with several famous old synagogues. Partially destroyed in previous Arab-Israeli fighting, the Old City was captured in 1967 by the Israelis, who began to rebuild and renovate the Jewish quarter. To the west of the Jewish quarter is the Armenian quarter, site of the Gulbenkian Library. The Christian quarter occupies the northern and northwestern parts of the Old City. Its greatest monument is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Through the area runs the Via Dolorosa, along which Jesus is said to have carried his cross.

The New City and Other Districts

The New City, extending west and southwest of the Old City, has developed tremendously since the 19th cent. It is the site of several educational institutions, as well as the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and other government buildings (including the striking Supreme Court building, which opened in 1992). Yad Vashem, a memorial to the Holocaust , is also in that section of the city. To the east of the Old City is the Valley of the Kidron, beyond which lie the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives. To the north is Mt. Scopus, a Jewish intellectual center that is the site of the Hadassah Medical Center, Hebrew Univ., and the Jewish National Library. Another campus of Hebrew Univ. is located on the western edge of the city at Ein Karem. From 1948 to 1967, Mt. Scopus was an Israeli exclave in Arab territory. To the west and south of the Old City runs the Valley of Hinnom; this meets the Kidron near the pool of Siloam, which is next to the site of the original city of Jerusalem, now partly excavated and called the City of David (see Ophel ).

Cultural and Educational Institutions

Jerusalem has numerous museums; one of the finest is the Israel Museum, in the New City, whose collection ranges from the contemporary to displays of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The city is the seat of Hebrew Univ., the British School of Archaeology, the Dominican Fathers' Convent of St. Étienne, with the attached Bible School and French Archaeological School, the American College, the Greek Catholic Seminary of St. Anne, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, the Swedish Theological Institute, the Near East School of Archaeology, the Rubin Academy of Music, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

History

Early History to 1900

Despite incomplete archaeological work, it is evident that Jerusalem was occupied as far back as the 4th millenium BC In the late Bronze Age (2000–1550 BC), it was a Jebusite (Canaanite) stronghold. David captured it (c.1000 BC) from the Jebusites and walled the city. After Solomon built the Temple on Mt. Moriah in the 10th cent. BC, Jerusalem became the spiritual and political capital of the Hebrews. In 586 BC it fell to the Babylonians, and the Temple was destroyed.

The city was restored to Hebrew rule later in the 6th cent. BC by Cyrus the Great , king of Persia. The Temple was rebuilt (538–515 BC; known as the Second Temple) by Zerubbabel , a governor of Jerusalem under the Persians. In the mid-5th cent. BC, Ezra reinvigorated the Jewish community in Jerusalem. The city was the capital of the Maccabees in the 2d and 1st cent. BC

After Jerusalem had been taken for the Romans by Pompey , it became the capital of the Herod dynasty, which ruled under the aegis of Rome. The Roman emperor Titus ruined the city and destroyed the Temple (AD 70) in order to punish and discourage the Jews. After the revolt of Bar Kokba (AD 132–35), Hadrian rebuilt the city as a pagan shrine called Aelia Capitolina but forbade Jews to live on the site.

With the imperial toleration of Christianity (from 313), Jerusalem underwent a revival, greatly aided by St. Helena, who sponsored much building in the early 4th cent. Since that time Jerusalem has been a world pilgrimage spot. Muslims, who believe that the city was visited by Muhammad , treated Jerusalem favorably after they captured it in 637, making it the chief shrine after Mecca. From 688 to 691 the Dome of the Rock mosque was constructed.

In the 11th cent. the Fatimids began to hinder Christian pilgrims; their destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher helped bring on the Crusades . Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099 and for most of the 12th cent. was the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1187, Muslims under Saladin recaptured the city. Thereafter, under Mamluk and then Ottoman rule, Jerusalem was rebuilt and restored (especially by Sulayman I ); but by the late 16th cent. it was declining as a commercial and religious center.

In the early 19th cent., Jerusalem began to revive. The flow of Christian pilgrims increased, and churches, hospices, and other institutions were built. Jewish immigration accelerated (especially from the time of the Egyptian occupation of Jerusalem by Muhammad Ali in 1832–41), and by 1900, Jews made up the largest community in the city and expanded settlement outside the Old City walls.

The Twentieth Century

In 1917, during World War I, Jerusalem was captured by British forces under Gen. Edmund Allenby . After the war it was made the capital of the British-held League of Nations Palestine mandate (1922–48). As the end of the mandate approached, Arabs and Jews both sought to hold sole possession of the city. Most Christians favored a free city open to all religions. This view prevailed in the United Nations, which, in partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, declared that Jerusalem and its environs (including Bethlehem) would be an internationally administered enclave in the projected Arab state. Even before the partition went into effect (May 14, 1948), fighting between Jews and Arabs broke out in the city. On May 28, the Jews in the Old City surrendered. The New City remained in Jewish hands. The Old City and all areas held by the Arab Legion (East Jerusalem) were annexed by Jordan in Apr., 1949. Israel responded by retaining the area it held. On Dec. 14, 1949, the New City of Jerusalem was made the capital of Israel.

In the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, Israeli forces took the Old City. The Israeli government then formally annexed the Old City and placed all of Jerusalem under a unified administration. Arab East Jerusalemites were offered regular Israeli citizenship but chose to maintain their status as Jordanians. Israel transferred many Arabs out of the Old City but promised access to the holy places to people of all religions. In July, 1980, Israel's parliament approved a bill affirming Jerusalem as the nation's capital. With suburbanization and housing developments in formerly Jordanian-held territory, Jerusalem has become Israel's largest city. Strife between Arabs and Jews persists. The issue of the status of East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel but regarded by Palestinians as the eventual capital of their own state, remains difficult. In 1998, Israel announced a controversial plan to expand Jerusalem by annexing nearby towns.

Bibliography

See S. B. Cohen, Jerusalem: Bridging the Four Walls (1977); M. Har-El, This Is Jerusalem (1977); L. Collins and D. Lapierre, O Jerusalem (1980); M. Gilbert, Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City (1985); F. E. Peters, Jerusalem (1985); A. L. Eckardt, ed., Jerusalem: City of Ages (1987); A. Rabinovich, Jerusalem on Earth (1988); H. Shanks, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (1995); S. S. Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography (2011).

Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the site of its religious sanctuary (the Temple), and as such the ‘Holy City’. Archaeological evidence indicates that part of the site was inhabited as early as c.3000 BC. About 1000 BC the Jebusite stronghold known as ‘Zion’ was captured by David, who made Jerusalem the capital of the United Monarchy. Solomon built the Temple and enlarged the city. About 597 BC and again c.586 BC it was captured and devastated by Nebuchadnezzar, and many of its inhabitants were deported to Babylon. The return from the Exile was followed, after some years, by the rebuilding of the Temple in 520–515 BC (the ‘Second Temple’). After the Exile the Jews were an ecclesiastically governed State under the suzerainty of various foreign powers. There was a short dynasty of priest-kings at the end of the Maccabean wars, but after the conquest by Pompey in 63 BC the country was ruled, directly or indirectly, from Rome. The Jews rebelled in AD 66; Jerusalem was besieged for four years, and when it fell in 70, the city, including the Temple, was destroyed. It was refounded as a Gentile city under the name of Aelia Capitolina in 135.

The Christian history of the city begins with the short ministry of the Lord, culminating in His Crucifixion and Resurrection. The Apostles lived and taught in Jerusalem for some time after Pentecost and met in Jerusalem for the first Christian council (Acts 15; c. AD 49). It was not, however, until the visit of St Helena (c.326) and the beginning of the fashion of venerating holy places that Jerusalem became important as a Christian centre. The see, previously suffragan to Caesarea, was granted patriarchal dignity at the Council of Chalcedon (451), but it never attained the prestige of the other patriarchates. The Christian centre of the city is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The present city covers only part of that of NT times. The traditional sites of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre lie in an area outside the walls of the town of Herod the Great, but within those built by Herod Agrippa some 14 years after the Crucifixion, and are therefore within the present Old City.

Jérusalem. Opera in 4 acts by Verdi to lib. by Royer and Vaëz being Fr. version (1847) of Verdi's opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1842). Little of Solera's orig. plot was kept, ballet was added, and much of the mus. material was re-ordered, cut, and revised, with a considerable amount of new mus. (It. vers. is Gerusalemma.) Prod. Paris 1847, New Orleans 1850, La Scala 1850, Leeds (Opera North) 1990.

Jerusalem.
1. See cross.

2. The Ideal or Holy City, a symbol of Paradise as the goal of a pilgrim (or indeed of any Christian), and therefore represented by the centre of a medieval labyrinth or maze cut in turf or inlaid in a church floor (as in the nave of Chartres Cathedral, France) used for ritual pilgrimages and penances.

Jerusalem.
1. Setting for unison ch. by C. H. Parry of Blake's poem Milton. Comp. and f.p. 1916. Orch. by Elgar for Leeds Fest. 1922.

2. Oratorio by H. H. Pierson, Norwich Fest. 1852.

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