Jerusalem is the capital and largest city of Israel and one of the world’s holiest cities. It is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. For centuries, Jerusalem has been a spiritual center to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jews consider Jerusalem a holy city because it was their religious and political center during Biblical times. Christians consider Jerusalem holy because many events in the life of Jesus Christ took place there. Muslims also revere the city and believe that the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven from there.
About three-fifths of Jerusalem’s population are Jews. The remainder is mostly Muslims, plus a small number of Christians, including Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Protestants, and members of Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Jerusalem is a city of three Sabbaths—Friday (Muslim), Saturday (Jewish), and Sunday (Christian). Businesses in Jerusalem may be closed on any of these three days. The Jewish Sabbath, however, is by far the most widely observed. After it begins on Friday evening, much of Jewish Jerusalem closes down and most public transportation stops.
Jerusalem lies about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of the Mediterranean Sea. The city is surrounded on the north, east, and south by the West Bank, a disputed territory inhabited by both Palestinians and Israelis. In 1949, at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan. Israel controlled the western part of the city, and Jordan controlled the eastern section. Israel took control of the entire city in 1967. Jerusalem today is claimed by both the Palestinians and the Israelis as their capital.
The city
Jerusalem lies on hilly, rocky land in the Judean Hills. The city is divided into three sections: (1) the Old City; (2) West Jerusalem, also called the New City; and (3) East Jerusalem.
The Old City,
which occupies much of the area of Biblical Jerusalem, is the historical heart of the city. It covers a rectangular area of about 1/3 square mile (1 square kilometer) in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
The Old City is enclosed by stone walls about 40 feet (12 meters) high and 21/2 miles (4 kilometers) long. Although Jerusalem has always been a walled city, its present walls were built during the 1500’s. Some sections of the foundation are much older. A number of gates open into the walls, including the Jaffa Gate, Zion Gate, Dung Gate, Lion’s Gate (also known as St. Stephen’s Gate), Damascus Gate, New Gate, and Herod’s Gate (also known as Flower Gate). Until the late 1800’s, these gates were closed at night to protect inhabitants.
The skyline of the Old City is dominated by a Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock. The shrine stands on a raised area that the Muslims call al-Haram al-Sharīf (the Noble Sanctuary). The Jews call the area the Temple Mount because it was the site of the first and second Jewish Temples in ancient times.
The Old City is divided into four neighborhoods—the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. The Armenian quarter is occupied primarily by members of the Armenian Church, an independent church that is close to the Eastern Orthodox Churches in its beliefs. The largest religions in the Christian quarter are the Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church. Most inhabitants of the Jewish and Muslim quarters are followers of Judaism and Islam, respectively.
The narrow cobblestone lanes that wind through the Old City have remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years. Houses, many with inner courtyards, stand crowded together. The busiest streets are the suqs (markets), which have small shops that sell food, clothing, pottery, jewelry, and souvenirs. Most of the streets are too narrow for automobiles. Donkeys and pushcarts transport heavy loads.
From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the Old City. The area had a poor sanitation system and inadequate supplies of electric power and water. After 1967, Israel expanded its modern public services into the Old City, including sewerage, electric and water systems, garbage collection, and social welfare programs.
West Jerusalem
is the most modern part of the city. It includes the downtown area, which is centered on a triangle formed by King George Street, Jaffa Road, and Ben-Yehuda Street. Fashionable shops, hotels, restaurants, and tall office buildings line these streets.
Several modern public buildings in West Jerusalem are in a neighborhood called Givat Ram. Among them are the campuses of Hebrew University and the Israel Museum. The Knesset (parliament), the Supreme Court, and other government buildings stand nearby.
A neighborhood known as Mea Shearim, north of downtown, is the home of many Orthodox Jews. It has dozens of small synagogues and study houses.
To the southwest is a picturesque neighborhood called Ein Kerem. The huge Hadassah Medical Center stands nearby, with its famous stained glass windows designed by the Russian-born artist Marc Chagall. Also in the area is Yad Vashem, a memorial museum dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, the Nazi campaign to exterminate the Jews during World War II (1939-1945).
East Jerusalem,
north of the Old City, is where most of Jerusalem’s Arabs live. Many Arab restaurants and shops are in this part of the city. Some neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are run-down, with old, neglected housing, but other areas are more modern. Israel built several modern Jewish neighborhoods, including Ramat Eshkol and Gilo, after taking control of East Jerusalem in 1967. There are also modern buildings on the original campus of Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, which was rebuilt and expanded in the 1970’s.
Holy places
Jerusalem has a central place in the worship, doctrine, and daily practice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The city’s large number of synagogues, churches, mosques, and other religious institutions reflects the significance of the city for all three faiths. Each religious community supervises its own holy sites.
Jewish sites.
According to tradition, Jerusalem is where God ordered the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice Abraham’s son Isaac to him. The Jews built their Temple, the center of Jewish worship in ancient times, at the site of Abraham’s sacrifice on the Temple Mount in the Old City. Two successive buildings, the First Temple and the Second Temple, stood at the site, but both buildings were destroyed by enemies.
The First Temple housed the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred chest holding the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The Western Wall is the only surviving part of the Second Temple and Judaism’s most sacred shrine. It is a stone retaining wall that reinforced the western side of the Temple Mount in ancient times. The wall is sometimes called the Wailing Wall because of the sorrowful prayers said there to mourn the destroyed Temple.
Other sites in the city sacred to the Jews include King David’s tomb on Mount Zion in West Jerusalem, and the Jewish Cemetery and the Tombs of the Prophets on the Mount of Olives, a hill just east of the Old City. Many sites associated with Biblical figures are sacred to Christians, too.
Christian sites.
Many monasteries, convents, shrines, and religious seminaries in Jerusalem mark events in the life of Jesus Christ and in the formation of the Christian Church. Jesus taught in Jerusalem and is believed to have performed numerous miracles there. The Last Supper supposedly took place in a room known as the Cenacle (also called Coenaculum) on Mount Zion. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City occupies the site said to be the place of Jesus’s Crucifixion (called Calvary or Golgotha), as well as his burial and Resurrection. Several Christian sects share custody of the church, which was originally built by Constantine the Great, then rebuilt and dedicated by the Crusaders in A.D. 1149. The building stands at the end of the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows), believed to be the path over which Jesus carried his cross to Calvary. Jesus was last seen by his followers on the Mount of Olives before he ascended to heaven. All these sites attract many religious pilgrims.
Islamic sites.
Jerusalem is Islam’s third holiest city, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. According to tradition, the Prophet Muhammad originally selected Jerusalem as the qibla, the direction the faithful should face during prayer. But the prophet later redirected his followers to face Mecca instead of Jerusalem when praying, to symbolize Islam’s independence. This change helped ease the tension that had existed between Muslims and Jews. Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven from a stone now enclosed by a golden-domed shrine called the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock and an ancient mosque called Al Aqsa Mosque rank among the holiest sites in Islam. They form the central features of al-Haram al-Sharīf.
The people of Jerusalem
About three-fifths of Jerusalem’s people are Jews. Arab people known as Palestinians make up nearly all the remaining population. Generally, Jews live in West Jerusalem and Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Growing numbers of Jews also live in new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The central business district, in West Jerusalem, is almost entirely Jewish, and the markets of the Old City are mostly Arab. The most common languages are Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
The population of Jerusalem has grown substantially since Israel became independent in 1948. The city continues to add to its population through both natural growth and immigration. Only about half of Jerusalem’s people are native-born Israelis. Many others are Jews who have immigrated to Israel from countries around the world. Large numbers have come from Poland, Russia, and other Eastern European countries; from other Middle Eastern countries; and from northern Africa, prominently Morocco. As a result, Jerusalem’s Jewish citizens represent a mixture of cultures and nationalities.
Jerusalem’s Jewish citizens also differ in the extent to which they follow the laws and practices of Judaism. Secular Jews have a strong sense of Jewish identity but may observe few, if any, religious traditions. A group of extremely traditional Orthodox Jews called haredim or ultra-Orthodox Jews make up about a third of Jerusalem’s Jews and are the fastest-growing group in the city. Many haredim follow ways of life that developed among Jewish communities in Eastern Europe hundreds of years ago. Most haredim speak a Germanic language called Yiddish along with Hebrew. Most men wear long black coats, beards, dangling side curls, and black, sometimes fur-trimmed, hats. The women typically wear long dresses, black stockings, and headscarves or wigs for modesty.
Confrontations have occasionally developed between Jews of different religious convictions over observances of Jewish law. Many extremely religious Jews believe that only a life of prayer and religious study is proper for the holy city. For example, they have protested the opening of nonkosher restaurants. They also have demanded that their neighborhood streets be closed to traffic during the Jewish Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. A small group of haredim called Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City) do not even recognize the state of Israel. They believe that only the Messiah, whom God will send, can establish the Jewish state.
Architecture
Jerusalem’s architecture is a mixture of old and new. The Old City contains architectural examples from each major period in the city’s history. Many ancient historical sites and places of worship stand near modern shopping centers and industrial zones. Architecture from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s displays European influences. Usefulness rather than style characterizes new apartment buildings constructed by the government as housing for immigrants. Many buildings, old and new, have matching exteriors because all construction is required to be faced with a cream-colored limestone called Jerusalem stone, produced by nearby quarries.
Culture
Jerusalem can be described as a vast open-air museum because of the many archaeological sites throughout the area. The city also has many indoor museums, some dealing with Biblical history. The Israel Museum is famous for its collections of fine art and archaeology. It includes a building called the Shrine of the Book, where some of the ancient manuscripts called the Dead Sea Scrolls are exhibited. Other notable museums include the Rockefeller Museum and the Bible Lands Museum, both famous for their archaeological treasures. The L. A. Mayer Museum of Islamic Art displays Islamic textiles, pottery, and other arts and crafts. 
Jerusalem is a major center of education and religious study. Hebrew University of Jerusalem offers courses in many areas of scholarship but is especially famous for science, law, archaeology, mathematics, and Jewish studies. Students from throughout the world attend seminaries in Jerusalem to become rabbis, ministers, priests, or Islamic religious leaders. The Islamic seminaries are supported by Muslim foundations called waqfs << wuhkfs >>, which receive income from endowed land and other property throughout the Islamic world. The foundations also support Islamic law schools, prayer rooms, colleges, orphanages, homes for the poor, public fountains, baths, mosques, and tombs. Jerusalem also has many schools called yeshivas for study of the Talmud, a collection of Jewish religious and civil laws.
The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra plays regular concerts at Henry Crown Symphony Hall. Music lovers can also enjoy concerts by chamber music ensembles and choirs, and performances by several dance companies. Night life flourishes at many of the city’s restaurants and cafes, and at motion-picture theaters. Local and international festivals provide a wide variety of cultural events that range from opera and theater to classical music and rock music.
Economy
Tourism is one of Jerusalem’s main economic activities. The city has hundreds of hotels, restaurants, travel agents, taxis, and guides to serve tourists. Many people in Jerusalem also work for the government or Hebrew University. Construction has become a major source of employment as the city continues to grow. Jerusalem is also the headquarters of many technology companies.
Jerusalem has almost no heavy industry but does have some modern factories, mostly in West Jerusalem. They produce chemicals, clothing, leather goods, machinery, and plastics. There are also printing, diamond-polishing, and food-processing industries. Older handicraft industries include embroidery, pottery and glassware, silverwork, and wood carvings.
Government
After Israel took control of East Jerusalem and the Old City in 1967, the Knesset established Jerusalem as a single city under Israel’s administration. The citizens of Jerusalem elect a 31-member Municipal Council for five-year terms. The citizens elect the city’s mayor for a four-year term. The city is governed by a multiparty coalition of religious and secular parties.
History
Ancient times.
Jerusalem’s origin dates back about 4,000 years. About 1000 B.C., King David captured the city from a people called the Jebusites and made it the capital of the Israelites. David’s son King Solomon built a magnificent place of worship, the First Temple, in his capital city. Solomon also built a great palace complex consisting of many buildings. After Solomon died in about 928 B.C., his kingdom split into a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah. Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah.
In 587 or 586 B.C., the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed Solomon’s Temple, and took many Jews to Babylonia as captives. In 538 B.C., Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after he conquered the Babylonians. The returning Jews then rebuilt their center of worship, the Second Temple.
By about 400 B.C., priests and scribes of the Temple had established laws governing Jerusalem. They helped the city recover as a religious center. Alexander the Great of Macedonia took control of Judah in 332 B.C. and conquered King Darius III of Persia in 331 B.C. Alexander and the kings who succeeded him granted administrative power to the priests and allowed the Jews to follow their own religion. But in 168 or 167 B.C., King Antiochus IV tried to stop the practice of Judaism. He angered the Jews by dedicating the Temple to the Greek god Zeus. The Jews, led by the warrior Judah Maccabee, overthrew Antiochus. About 165 B.C., the Jews recaptured the Temple and rededicated it to God. Judah Maccabee’s family, the priestly Hasmoneans, established an independent state that lasted about 80 years.
Roman rule.
In 63 B.C., the Roman general Pompey the Great captured Jerusalem and made it part of the Roman Empire. In 54 B.C., the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus stole the Temple’s funds. The Romans named Herod the Great king of the Jews, and he took control of Jerusalem in 37 B.C. Herod began a huge building program and made major architectural changes in the city. He also restored the Temple.
Beginning in A.D. 6, Judea (the Roman name for Judah) had no king. Jerusalem was ruled by a Roman procurator (administrator). Roman rule was generally peaceful, but riots were sometimes set off by leaders who claimed to be sent by God to preserve Judaism. The Romans arrested most of these leaders, who were called Zealots, and crucified them. Jesus of Nazareth arrived in Jerusalem in about A.D. 28 and declared the coming of the Kingdom of God. His followers believed he was the Messiah. But Jewish leaders said he had blasphemed (insulted God). They brought him before the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced him to be crucified.
Roman rule became harsh, and the Jews, led by the Zealots, began a major revolt in A.D. 66. They seized Jerusalem and held it until the Roman general Titus retook it in A.D. 70. The Romans destroyed the Temple and much of the city’s fortifications. Only part of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount remained. Many Jews died during the siege. Survivors were either executed or enslaved and exiled.
Jerusalem remained largely uninhabited until about 130, when the Roman emperor Hadrian announced plans to build a Roman city on the site. He renamed the city Aelia Capitolina and built temples to Roman gods, including one to the god Jupiter on the Temple Mount. The Jews, led by a warrior named Bar Kokhba, rebelled again in 132 and recaptured the city. Hadrian drove out the rebels three years later and tried to end all Jewish hope of regaining Jerusalem by prohibiting Jews from visiting or living there. But the city’s importance as a spiritual center continued.
By the early 300’s, the ban against Jews visiting the city was no longer strictly enforced. After Constantine the Great became the sole emperor in 324, he replaced Jerusalem’s Roman structures with Christian monuments and built several churches there, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. He also restored Jerusalem as the city’s name.
In 395, the Roman Empire split into the West Roman Empire and the East Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem became part of the Byzantine Empire.
Muslim rule.
In the early 600’s, control of Jerusalem changed three times. First, Persian troops captured the city and held it from 614 to 629. Byzantine forces regained control but lost Jerusalem again in 638, this time to Muslim Arabs. The Dome of the Rock was built from 688 to 691, during the rule of a caliph (Muslim leader) named Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān.
During the 900’s and 1000’s, a number of Muslim groups fought for control of Jerusalem. In 1099, the Crusaders, who were European Christians, captured Jerusalem from the Muslims in the First Crusade. The Crusaders killed both Muslims and Jews and established a Crusader state called the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Jerusalem served as capital of the kingdom until 1187, when the Muslim leader Saladin reconquered the city. Saladin repaired the city walls, and Muslims and Jews returned to the city in large numbers. Except for a brief period in the 1200’s, Jerusalem remained under Muslim control for more than 700 years. The city was controlled by the Mamluks, Muslims from Egypt, from 1250 to 1516. Then the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim empire centered in what is now Turkey, took the city.
Under the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem began to grow. At first, most of the city’s population were Muslims, and even Christians greatly outnumbered Jews. However, increasing numbers of Jews immigrated to the city. By about 1870, Jews had become the majority group.
By the mid-1800’s, construction had spread outside of the walls of the Old City. The Jewish neighborhood of Yemin Moshe was constructed in 1860 with the financial assistance of Sir Moses Montefiore, a Jewish philanthropist from England. Other neighborhoods north and west of the Old City followed, including Mea Shearim and Nahalat Shivah. Christian and Muslim groups also built new communities outside the walls.
British rule.
In December 1917, during World War I (1914-1918), British troops under General Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem and ended Ottoman control over the city. A month earlier, the British government had issued the Balfour Declaration, an official document supporting a national homeland for Jews in Palestine. The League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations (UN), made Palestine a mandated territory—that is, an area administered by the United Kingdom, under the League’s supervision, in preparation for self-government. The British administration of Palestine centered in Jerusalem. As a result, many new houses and government buildings were erected.
Jewish immigration to Jerusalem increased during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Two factors stimulated immigration. One was the increasing strength of the Zionist movement, which advocated a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The other was the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany, which had anti-Jewish policies. Many new Jewish neighborhoods, such as Rehavia and Beit Hakerem, were established, primarily in West Jerusalem.
Anti-Zionist feelings developed among the Arabs in Palestine who wanted to create an independent Arab state. By the 1930’s, severe anti-Jewish riots had broken out in Jerusalem. In 1947, the British turned over the question of Palestine’s future to the United Nations. The UN voted to end the British mandate and divide Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews. Jerusalem would be an international city under UN control.
Arabs quickly responded to the UN resolution by attacking the Jews. In May 1948, British control ended and Israel declared its independence. Arab armies invaded the new state. Jerusalem’s Old City came under heavy shelling. Many civilians were killed. By the end of 1948, Israeli soldiers held West Jerusalem, and Jordanian troops controlled East Jerusalem and the Old City. The loss of the Western Wall and other Jewish shrines bitterly disappointed the Israelis. Armistices between Israel and neighboring Arab countries ended the war in 1949.
Israel established its seat of government in West Jerusalem. For many years, however, most countries, including the United States, refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital because of the UN plan to make it an international city. These countries refused to move their embassies from Tel Aviv—Israel’s chief commercial, financial, and industrial center—to Jerusalem.
Israeli control.
War again broke out between the Arabs and Israelis in June 1967. After a brief conflict that Israelis call the Six-Day War and others call the June War or the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem. At the conclusion of the war, huge crowds of joyful Jews entered the Old City for the first time in 19 years to pray at the Western Wall. Israel extended the boundaries of Jerusalem to include the Old City, its surroundings, and nearby villages. The people of East Jerusalem were granted the same rights and responsibilities that all other Israeli residents had, and were given the opportunity to apply for Israeli citizenship.
In 1980, the Knesset passed a law restating Israel’s position that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The law also guaranteed protection for the holy places of all religions and continued free access to them.
In 2000, peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders broke down. The two sides were unable to agree on key issues, especially those involving Jerusalem. One point of dispute was how much control Palestinians should have over East Jerusalem. The two sides also disagreed over who should govern the Temple Mount. That year, a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli government erupted. It was called the second intifada (an Arabic term meaning shaking off). The first intifada had taken place from 1987 to 1993. The second intifada lasted until 2005. During the uprising, suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism targeted Jerusalem and other parts of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
In 2002, the government of Israel began constructing a barrier to separate most of the West Bank from Israel. Some of the barrier runs through East Jerusalem, separating parts of it from the rest of the city. The barrier has interfered with many Palestinians’ lives, making it the subject of political and legal debate.
In 2017, the United States officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In 2018, the U.S. Embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The future of Jerusalem
remains one of the most complex and delicate issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Palestine Liberation Organization, a political body that represents the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority, the government for many Palestinian areas, would like to establish an independent Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital. The Israeli government remains committed to keeping Jerusalem as both the Israeli capital and an undivided city.
