Jerusalem Travel Guide: Located in the
Judean Mountains between the
Mediterranean Sea and the
Dead Sea, Jerusalem is considered holy to the three major
Abrahamic religions: Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. It is the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the
Jewish people since the
10th century BCE, the third-holiest in
Islam and is also home to a number of significant and ancient
Christian landmarks. It is also a city with a very violent past, as it was fiercely contested between
Christianity and Islam during the brutal
Crusade era. While the city has had a large
Jewish majority since
1967, a wide range of national, religious, and socioeconomic groups are represented here. The walled area of Jerusalem, which until the late nineteenth century formed the entire city, is now called the
Old City and became a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in
1982. It consists of four ethnic and religious sections — the
Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters.
Barely one square kilometer, the Old City is home to several of Jerusalem's most important and contested religious sites including the
Western Wall and
Temple Mount for
Jews, the
Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa
Mosque for Muslims, and the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians.
Surrounding the Old City are more modern areas of Jerusalem. The civic and cultural center of modern
Israel extends from western Jerusalem toward the country's other urban areas to the west, while areas populated mostly by
Arabs can be found in the northern, eastern and southern districts.
Archaeological findings prove the existence of development within present-day Jerusalem as far back as the
4th millennium BCE, but the earliest written records of the city come in the
Execration Texts (c.
19th century BCE) and the
Amarna letters (c.
14th century BCE). According to
Biblical accounts, the Jebusites, a
Canaanite tribe, inhabited the area around the present-day city (under the name Jebus) until the late
11th century BCE. At that
point (c. 1000s
BCE), the
Israelites, led by
King David, invaded and conquered the city, expanding it southwards and establishing it as the capital of the
United Kingdom of Israel and Judah (the
United Monarchy). It was renamed at this time as
Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), a name by which it is still referred to today.
King David's reign over Jerusalem ended around 970 BCE when his son
Solomon became the new king. Biblical sources state that within a decade Solomon started to build the first of two
Holy Temples within city limits —
Solomon's Temple (or the
First Temple), a significant site in Jewish and
Christian history as the last known location of the
Ark of the Covenant. The period of the First Temple was marked by the division of the United Monarchy at the time of Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE) when the ten northern tribes, originally part of the
Monarchy, split off to form the
Kingdom of Israel. Under the leadership of the bloodline of
David and Solomon, Jerusalem continued to act as the capital of the southern par of the split, the
Kingdom of Judah.
Later, with the
Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem became the center of a Judah strengthened by the great number of
Israeli refugees
. In approximately 586 BCE, the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah including the city of Jerusalem, and the
First Temple Period came to an end.
In
538 BCE, after fifty years of
Babylonian captivity, the Jews were given permission from
Persian King Cyrus the Great to return to Judah so they could rebuild Jerusalem and construct the
Second Temple. The construction was completed in the year 516 BCE, seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple. Jerusalem regained its status as capital of Judah and center of
Jewish worship for another four centuries, with a considerable portion of that period under
Hasmonean rule. By 19 BCE, the Temple Mount was elevated and construction began on an expansion of the Second Temple under
Herod the Great, a Jewish client king under
Roman rule. In 6 CE, the city, as well as much of the surrounding area, came under direct Roman rule as the
Judea Province. Still unchallenged, the Roman rule over Jerusalem and the region came to an end with the first Jewish-Roman war, the
Great Jewish Revolt, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Jerusalem once again served as the national capital for the people of the region during the three-year rebellion known as
Bar Kokhba's revolt.
The Romans succeeded in sacking and recapturing the city in 135 CE and as a punitive measure, the Jews were banned from Jerusalem.
Enjoy your Jerusalem Travel Guide!
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- published: 06 May 2014
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