Jerusalem

Jerusalem(in Hebrew, сרוווהלה Yerushaláyim (?·i)in Arabic, القُدس al-Quds (?·i)) is a city of the Near East, located in the mountains of Judea, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Dead Sea. The Israelis had erected it as the capital of the State of Israel, while the State of Palestine claimed its eastern part as its own capital. The oldest settlements in Jerusalem date from V millennium B.C. and is one of the oldest cities in the world. Jerusalem has a profound religious meaning for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The old city of Jerusalem was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.

The status of the eastern part of the city, conquered in 1967 by Israel, is disputed, since it is in this sector —usually referred to as East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem, which includes the Old City— that the State of Palestine intends to Establish your capital. Israel disputes the Palestinian claims and, after the Six Day War, considers the city as a unified whole and a single municipality, declaring it its "eternal and indivisible" capital through the Jerusalem Law in 1980. This annexation has provoked a wide rejection in the international community, materialized in resolution 478 of the UN Security Council, which considered it contrary to International Law, and as a sign of protest against this unilateral act, the Member States of the United Nations ended up transferring their embassies to Tel Aviv, as requested by the resolution.

Jerusalem was the seat of an Amorite kingdom under Egyptian hegemony during the Amarna period, the principal city of a Canaanite people (the Jebusites according to the Biblical account), conquered by the Hebrews in the X a. C. and capital of the kings of Judah since at least the IX century BC. C. The Bible adds that it was once the seat of the kings of the united Kingdom of Israel. Conquered by the Babylonians, it was the capital of the Judean region during Persian, Lagid and Seleucid rule. Conquered by the Maccabees, Hasmonean kings ruled from it until Pompey's capture of the city in 63 BC. C. Since then it was the religious capital of the Roman province of Judea. After the First Jewish-Roman War, it was razed to the ground by the Roman general and future Emperor Titus, and rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina by Emperor Hadrian, the region being renamed Syria-Palestine.

After the triumph of Christianity, it was the seat of the homonymous Christian patriarchate under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire, framed in the region of Palaestina Prima. In the VII century, the province of Jund Filastin fell to the Muslim caliphs, although it would be conquered by the Muslim caliphs. Crusaders in 1099 and the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem would be formed around it. Reconquered by Saladin, it was held for several centuries by the Mamluks and, from 1517, by the Ottoman Empire. In 1874, Jerusalem and its area of influence they formed a special administrative district: the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate under the direct control of the Sultan. In 1917, with the Ottoman defeat by the Allies in World War I, it came under the British Mandate for Palestine. With the partition of Palestine, the UN provided for an international city statute for Jerusalem, which did not come to fruition. During the 1948 war, its western sector came under Israeli control and its eastern sector, including the old city, under Jordanian rule. In 1967, Israel conquered the eastern area, proclaiming the reunited city as its capital, although the latter move has never received international recognition.

Toponymy

The precise origin of the Hebrew name (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם Yerushalayim) is uncertain, and scholars offer differing interpretations. The cuneiform form, attested in the El Amarna Letters, employs a Sumerian element 𒌷 (^URU) and the Akkadian complement S-L-M, i.e. salim, in the forms: ú-ru-sa-lim and ú-ru-ša₁₀-lim. The sumerogram URU must read in Akkadian y^erû, meaning "city", according to Hamilton, thus Uru-salim, means: "founded by Shalim, god associated with dusk and the evening star in the etymological sense of "culmination" of the day, "sunset", "rest" and "peace".

This etymology is reinforced by the Hebrew form of the name, related to yeru (ירו), (house) and shalem or shalom (שלם', peace), so Jerusalem would literally mean "house of peace". The Talmud and Christian tradition consider that the ancient name of the city is Salem, as it appears in chapter 14 of the book of Genesis.

The other name of the city, prior to its conquest by David, was Jebus. Poetically it was called Zion, after one of its hills, or Ariel.

The Arabic name is Al-Quds (القدس), which means the sacred, or more rarely Bayt al-Maqdes (بيت المقدس), House of the Sacred. The State of Israel frequently uses as its designation in Arabic the archaic name in Koranic Arabic Urshalim (أورشليم), which is also the name used by Christian Arabs in the Bible and in their religious writings, but which hardly It is used in the spoken language and very little in informal writing; they also use the mixed form Urshalim Al-Quds (أورشليم القدس).

The name in Spanish for the inhabitant of Jerusalem is jerosolimitano or hierosolimitano.

History

Antiquity

Stone staggered structure in Ophel, has been dated to 900 B.C., in the Iron Age.

Ceramic evidence indicates the occupation of Ophel, within present-day Jerusalem, as early as the Copper Age, around IV millennium BC. C., with evidence of permanent settlement in the first centuries of the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000-2800 BCE). Ann Killebrew demonstrated that Jerusalem was a large, walled city in the MB IIB and IA IIC stages (between 1800-1550 and 720-586 BCE); during the Late Bronze Age and Ages IA I and IIA/B Jerusalem was an unwalled and relatively insignificant town.

The earliest writings that refer to the city are those grouped together in the Execration Texts of Berlin and Brussels (c. XIX century BCE, which refer to a city called Roshlamem or Rosh-ramen) and in the Amarna Letters (c. 17th century XIV BC, refer to Urusalem "city of peace").

Some archaeologists, including Kathleen Kenyon, believe that Jerusalem was a city founded by a West Semitic people, with organized settlements around the century. XXVI a. C.

Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein believes that Jerusalem in the X century B.C. C. was of reduced extension. The rest of Judah of the same period was made up of only about twenty small towns and a few thousand inhabitants, most of them shepherds. Intensive excavations from the Bronze and Iron Ages in the 1970s and 1980s led by Yigal Shiloh of the Hebrew University have been conducted in Jerusalem in the area called the City of David, but surprisingly, as David Ussishkin, an archaeologist, points out from Tel Aviv University, fieldwork conducted there and in other parts of Biblical Jerusalem has yielded no evidence that that sector of the city was occupied in the X a. Archaeological surveys reveal that Judah remained until the time of David and Solomon, and even later, "a country relatively devoid of permanent population, highly isolated and highly marginal, with no major urban centers and no hierarchy. net of villages, towns and cities".

Archaeology demonstrates a dramatic growth of Jerusalem sometime in the first half of the VIII century BCE. C. It went from being a small settlement to a city of up to 0.6 km², the reason for this was the fall of the Kingdom of Israel at the hands of the Assyrian Empire while its inhabitants fled to the south, in the Kingdom of Judah, including Bethel, in Jerusalem.

Judah later experienced different stages of foreign domination, first under the influence of the Assyrians, who subjected the kingdom of Judah to the payment of tribute, and then directly by the Babylonians (597-546 BC) who took and razed the city, deposing Zedekiah as the last king, banishing the ruling class to Babylon, and destroying the Temple in July 587 B.C. C., henceforth Judah would be an Assyrian province.

In the year 539 B.C. C. the Persian king Cyrus II the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire and allowed the return of the deported Jewish communities to the province of Judah; They returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the city and the Temple. The construction of the Second Temple finished in the year 516 c. C., during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the first.

Shortly after 485 B.C. C. Jerusalem was besieged, conquered, and largely destroyed by a coalition of neighboring states. Around the year 445 B.C. C., the Achaemenid emperor Artaxerxes I issued a decree allowing the reconstruction of the city and its walls. Jerusalem regained its role as the capital of Judah and the center of Jewish worship.

In 332 B.C. C. Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and the city was not destroyed. Upon Alexander's death, Judah (or Judea) and Jerusalem passed into the hands of the Ptolemaic dynasty under the reign of Ptolemy I. In the year 198, the Seleucid Empire took control of the city led by Antiochus III. However, the attempt by the Seleucids to Hellenize Jerusalem came to an end with the triumph of the rebellion of the Maccabees, led by Mattathias and his five sons against Antiochus IV Epiphanes. With the takeover of the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem would become the capital of his kingdom and would experience a period of relative independence, although it would be conquered, along with the entire kingdom, by Pompey's Roman troops in 60 BC. C. after defeating the remains of the Seleucid Empire. Jerusalem suffered the siege and the Roman conquest, with its annexation to the Roman Republic. However, shortly after the Roman conquest came a Parthian invasion in support of a rival claimant to the Hasmonean throne, and out of the struggle between the pro-Roman and Propartan forces would emerge an Idumean leader named Herod. When Rome prevailed in the dispute with the Parthians, it installed Herod as king of a client state. Herod I the Great restored and beautified the city by building walls, towers and palaces, as well as expanding the Temple, propping up the courtyard with stone blocks weighing more than 100 tons. Under his mandate, the surface of the Temple doubled, of which a part called the Wailing Wall, of great importance in the Jewish religion, still stands.

Shortly after Herod's death, in AD 6. C., Rome assumed direct control of what came to be called the Province of Judea, although the Herodian dynasty continued to serve the Empire as client kings of neighboring territories until 96 B.C. C. From the year 33 d. approximately there was a growing Christian church in Jerusalem, where the so-called Council of Jerusalem was held around the year 49 d. c.

In the year 66 the first Judeo-Roman war took place, which led to the siege and capture of the city by Titus in the year 70, which led to the devastation of a large part of the city and the destruction of the city. second destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. The contemporary historian Flavio Josefo described the destruction of the city stating that "the city was so methodically razed by those who demolished it to its foundations that nothing was left in it that could persuade the visitor that it had ever been a place." inhabited". Hadrian's project to rebuild it as a fully Roman city (Aelia Capitolina) triggered the Bar Kochba rebellion between 132 and 135, which, once crushed, launched the Jewish diaspora. After his victory against the Jews, the Roman Emperor Hadrian united the Province of Judea with several neighboring territories and renamed it Syria Palestine. The city of Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina and rebuilt in the style of a Roman city, and Jews were barred from the city on pain of death, with the exception of one day a year, the Tisha B'Av. These measures, which were also applied to Christian Jews, tended to secularize the city and were maintained well into the VIIth century, although Christians won their exemption from the ban on entering Jerusalem as soon as Constantine I, the first Roman emperor of Christian beliefs, ordered the construction of Christian temples in the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 326. The only remains of burials during the period of Byzantine control of the city are Christian, which seems to suggest that the city was exclusively inhabited by Christians while it was ruled by Constantinople.

In the Bible

According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem was founded by Shem and Eber, ancestors of Abraham. According to the biblical account, Melchizedek (righteous king) was the king of Salem, priest of God, and presented bread and wine to Abraham, who was a nomadic Aramaic, and blessed him and Abraham in turn gave him a tithe; Salem is identified with Jerusalem; the Jebusites controlled the city (Jebus) by the 11th century BCE. C., when David conquered it.

According to tradition, around the year 1004 B.C. C. King David of Israel conquered Jerusalem by means of a contingent sent through an underground spring, and made it the capital of his kingdom. David renamed it Ir David "City of David", his relics are located southwest of the current Old City, on the so-called Ophel Hill in the Silwan neighborhood. This site was discovered and excavated by the Palestine Exploration Fund between 1923 and 1925. Kathleen Kenyon's discovery of Jebusite and Davidic walls from ancient Jerusalem, as well as more recent excavations of the so-called "great rock structure", tend to be interpreted by some archaeologists as confirmations of Biblical texts about David's conquest of the Jebusite city.

Reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon.

His son Solomon extended the city, expanding the walls and building in a few years the Temple of Jerusalem, destined to contain the Ark of the Covenant and the Laws that, according to the Tanaj (Old Testament), Yahveh granted Moses in two stone tablets on Mount Sinai. This would be the only temple that would allow the Hebrew religious law consecrated to the Yahvist cult, apparently there was another temple on Elephantine Island, in the middle course of the Nile River, founded around 650 BC. by an emigrated Jewish community before the reign of Josiah (640-609 BC).

Middle Ages

The fate of Jerusalem continued to be linked to successive conquests and conflicts, forming part of the Byzantine Empire, within which it was one of the five most important doctrinal religious sites of Christianity, along with Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. In the middle of the IV century, Jerusalem was included in a new province called Palaestina Prima, with its capital at Caesarea and resulting from the division of the former Syria-Palestine.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 elevated the bishop of Jerusalem to the rank of patriarch, along with Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. However, Byzantine policy meant that Jerusalem simply passed from the Syrian jurisdiction of Antioch to the Greek authorities of Constantinople. For centuries, the Greek clergy dominated the Jerusalem church. Meanwhile, the Roman church never accepted the pentarchy and instead claimed primacy. On the other hand, the ancient notion of the primacy of the Church of Jerusalem was preserved in several texts, such as the early medieval list known as the Limits of the Five Patriarchates (Greek: Γνώσις και επίγνωσις των πατριαρχών θρό).

In 614 the Sasanian Empire conquered the city with a firm 21-day siege. Byzantine chronicles tell that the Sassanids and the Jews fighting with them massacred tens of thousands of Christians in the city, many of them in the Mamilla reservoir, and destroyed its monuments and churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This episode in Jerusalem's history has generated much debate among historians. The Sassanids would rule the city until 629, when the Byzantine troops of Emperor Heraclius recaptured it.

Medieval Mapmundi (1485) with Jerusalem as the center of the world.

Byzantine Jerusalem was conquered by the Arab armies of Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638. Among Muslims in the early days of Islam it was known as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("Temple City"), which referred only to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "...was known as Iliya, in reference to the Roman name assigned to the city after its conquest in 70ː Aelia Capitolina". The Temple Mount became known as al-Haram al-Sharif ("The Noble Sanctuary"), while the city around it was called Bayt al-Maqdis, and somewhat later as al-Quds al-Sharif ("The Holy, Noble One"). Islam's relationship with Jerusalem began in the year one of the Hijra (623), when Muslims were told to face the city when performing their daily prayers and, according to Muslim tradition, Muhammad's night journey took place. and his ascent to heaven. Thirteen years later, the kiblah (direction towards which Muslims pray) changed to Mecca. After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638, Jews were allowed to remain in the city. On the other hand, the orthodox caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, assuring him that the Christian population and holy places would be under the protection of the Muslim rulers. According to Arab-Christian tradition, when Caliph Umar was brought to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest places for Christians, he refused to pray so that the Muslims would not demand the conversion of the church into a mosque. He prayed outside the church, right on the spot where the Mosque of Omar stands today. The Gallic bishop Arculf, who lived in the city between 679 and 688, described the Mosque of Omar as a rectangular wooden structure built on ruins that could accommodate 3,000 worshippers.

From the early days of the Arab conquest and until the seizure of the region by the Seljuk Turks, Jerusalem was located from an administrative point of view in the Country of Sham (or region of Syria) and, more specifically, in the Jund Filastin (military district of Palestine). In the late 7th century century, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of a shrine on the Temple Mount, known to this day as the Dome of the Rock. Two of the most distinguished inhabitants of Jerusalem during the X century were the geographer Al-Muqaddasi and doctor Al-Tamimi. The first of these wrote that Abd al-Malik built the building on the Temple Mount to rival the grandeur of the monumental churches in Jerusalem. In 710 the Al-Aqsa Mosque was completed.

Over the next four hundred years the importance of Jerusalem declined as different Arab powers vied for control. Jerusalem was conquered in 1073 by the Seljuk Turkish commander Atsız. On his death, the Seljuk prince Tutush I handed over the city to another Seljuk commander, Artuk Bey. When he died in 1091, his sons Sökmen and Ilghazi ruled the city until 1098, when it was recaptured by the Fatimids.

Jerusalem Site (1099)

A messianic Karaite movement calling for a return to Jerusalem took place at the start of the new millennium, causing a "Golden Age" of Karaite studies there which ended the Crusades. In 1095 Pope Urban II preached at the Council of Clermont the First Crusade, aimed at recapturing Jerusalem from the Muslims. In 1099, the Fatimid ruler expelled the Christian population from Jerusalem before the city was conquered by French nobleman Godfrey of Bouillon, who massacred most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants after storming the fortress. The crusaders created the Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled by Godfrey's brother, Baldwin I. Since Jerusalem was practically depopulated, a repopulation process took place shortly after the constitution of the new kingdom, with the arrival of Greek, Bulgarian, Hungarian settlers Georgians, Armenians, Syrians, Egyptians, Nestorians, Maronites and Copts, among others. With this massive emigration, an attempt was made to block the return of Muslims and Jews who had survived the massacre. The northeastern quarter was repopulated with Orthodox Christians from Transjordan. As a result of the conflict, the population of Jerusalem fell in 1099 to 30,000.

Following the disaster at the Horns of Hattin in 1187, the sultan of Egypt and Syria, Saladin, recaptured Jerusalem and allowed Jews and Muslims to settle in the city again. Under the terms of the Crusader surrender, some 60 000 francs were expelled from Jerusalem once their ransom was paid. Orthodox Christians were allowed to stay. Under Saladin's Ayyubid dynasty, large sums of money were invested in the construction of houses, markets, public baths and hostels for pilgrims, as well as the establishment of religious donations. However, for most of the 13th century century, the city's importance declined due to its loss of strategic value. and the interim struggles of the Ayyubids.

Jerusalem passed peacefully into Christian hands as a result of the 1229 treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt al-Kamil, which ended the Sixth Crusade. The Ayyubids retained control of the Muslim holy sites and some Arab sources suggest that Frederick II was not allowed to restore the city's fortifications.

In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by Kherezmite Tatars, who decimated the city's Christian population and expelled the Jews. The Kherezmites were in turn expelled by the Ayyubids in 1247. Continued conflicts led to a rapid decline the population of Jerusalem, and when Nahmanides visited it in 1267 he found only two Jewish families out of a total population of 2,000, 300 of whom were Christians and the rest Muslims. Between 1260 and 1517, Jerusalem was dominated by the Mamluks Although numerous clashes took place between them on the one hand and the Crusaders and the Mongols on the other. The region also suffered from numerous earthquakes and even the Black Death. The Order of the Holy Sepulcher was responsible for maintaining a small Christian population in the city.

Ottoman Period

The citadel of David and the Ottoman walls.

In 1517, Jerusalem became part of the Ottoman Empire along with the rest of Palestine. The city enjoyed a prosperous period of renewal and peace under Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1538, the wall that today surrounds the Old City was built; It has an approximate extension of 4.5 km. and its height varies between 5 and 15 m., with a thickness of up to 3 m. The wall has 43 towers and eleven gates; seven are open and four remain sealed.^{[citation needed]}. The four main gates of the city are the Jaffa Gate, the Damascus Gate, the Lions Gate and the Zion Gate; all were built according to the four cardinal points, and are directed towards the main cities of the region. The Golden Gate is called in Hebrew and Arabic the "Gate of Mercy," and according to Jewish tradition, through this gate the Messiah will enter Jerusalem; the other three sealed entrances make up the so-called Hulda Gate.

Throughout much of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem remained a provincial center of great religious importance that did not benefit from the main trade route between Damascus and Cairo. The English Reference Book "Modern history or the present state of all nations", written in 1744, asserted that "Jerusalem is still recognized as the capital of Palestine, however much it has fallen from its former splendor" The Ottomans brought with them many innovations, and among the first signs of modernization for the city were the introduction of modern postal systems run by the various consulates and regular stagecoach and carriage services. In the mid-century XIX, the Ottomans built the first paved road between Jaffa and Jerusalem, while the railway reached the city around 1892.

When the Egyptian Mehmet Ali conquered the city in 1831, diplomatic missions and consulates began to settle in Jerusalem. In 1836, Ibrahim Pasha allowed the Jews of Jerusalem to restore four major synagogues, including the Hurva Synagogue. During the peasant revolt that rocked Palestine, Qasim al-Ahmad led his forces from Nablus and attacked Jerusalem aided by the Abu Gosh clan., and entered the city on May 31, 1834. The Christians and Jews of the city suffered various attacks. Ibrahim's Egyptian army defeated Qasim's forces in Jerusalem the following month.

Although the Ottomans re-established control of the city in 1840, many Egyptian Muslims remained in Jerusalem, and Jews from Algiers and other parts of North Africa began to settle in the city in increasing numbers. During the 1840s and In 1850, the great international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine seeking increased protection for the area's religious minorities, a dispute carried out mainly by the consular representatives present in Jerusalem. According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was of 16,410 inhabitants, of whom 7,120 were Jews, 5,000 Muslims and 3,390 Christians, in addition to 800 Turkish and 100 European soldiers. The number of Christian pilgrims grew under Ottoman control and the city's population doubled by Easter.

The Damascus Gate around 1900.

In the 1860s, new neighborhoods began to develop outside the walls of the Old City to accommodate pilgrims and to alleviate the significant overcrowding and poor sanitation facilities within the city. The Russian Complex and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860; the latter was erected thanks to the donation of the philanthropist Moisés Montefiori, who financed the construction in the area of seven windmills —only two remain today—, to encourage residents to leave the walls and join the new neighborhoods. In the following years and decades Mahane Israel (1868), Nahalat Shiv'a (1869), the German Colony (1872), Beit David (1873), Mea Shearim (1874), Shimon HaZadiq (1876), Beit Ya'aqov (1877), Abu Tor (1880s), the Swedish-American Colony (1882), Yemin Moshe (1891), and Mamilla and Wadi al-Joz around the turn of the century. In 1867, an American missionary noted that the approximate population of Jerusalem was "above" of the 15,000 inhabitants, with between 4,000 and 5,000 Jews and 6,000 Muslims. Every year, 5,000 to 6,000 Russian Christian pilgrims arrived. In 1874, Jerusalem became the center of a special administrative district called the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate, independent of the Syrian Valiat and under the direct authority of Istanbul.

British Mandate of Palestine

In 1917 British armies in Egypt, led by General Edmund Allenby, advanced up the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and captured the city after overcoming strong Ottoman resistance during the Sinai and Palestine campaign of World War I World War.

After this conflict ended, with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations granted the territories of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq to the United Kingdom as a mandate. The British authorities were faced with a series of problems stemming from the recent Ottoman presence in the city. On January 27, 1914, the Jerusalem city council and a Greek businessman named Euripides Mavromatis signed a series of agreements for the supply of water and electricity and the construction of a tram network, all through concessions made by the Ottoman authorities. When the British took control, these works had not yet started and the British authorities refused to recognize the validity of the agreement. Mavromatis claimed that the Auja Concession, signed by the British with Rutenberg in 1921, coincided with his own and therefore had been deprived of his legal rights. The Mavromatis concession went ahead despite numerous attempts by the British authorities to abolish it, and covered both Jerusalem and nearby towns (for example, Bethlehem) within a 20 kilometer radius around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The British were unable to quell the growing hostilities between the Jewish and Arab civilian populations. Jewish paramilitary groups opposed the British regime, since they demanded an independent Jewish state and the free entry of Jewish refugees from Europe, persecuted by Nazi Germany. For their part, the Arab population protested both against the presence of British troops, whom they considered a colonial power, and against the increasing arrival of Jewish immigrants, something that sometimes led to violent protests (such as the pogrom of Jerusalem in 1920) or even in armed uprisings, the most representative of these being the Arab revolt in Palestine that took place between 1936 and 1939.

The population of Jerusalem skyrocketed in the period between 1922 and 1948, from around 52,000 to a total of 165,000, of whom approximately two-thirds were Jews and one-third were Arabs (both Muslim and Christians). Under British rule, new green suburbs were built to the north and west of the city, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus was founded in 1925, with the inaugural class taught in German by Albert Einstein.^{[citation required]}

Tensions between the British and the Jews increased after the end of World War II, as the collaboration between the Jews and the British in the fight against the Nazis ended, and as the British restrictions on Jewish immigration, established in the &# 34;White Paper". On July 22, 1946, the Irgun, led by Menájem Begin, attacked the south wing of the Hotel Rey David, where the base of the British Secretariat, headquarters of the military command and the Criminal Investigation Division (special section of the police) were located.. The attack left 91 dead, 17 of them Jews, in one of the largest attacks that occurred during the British Mandate for Palestine.

Division and reunification

Jordanian Artillery, desolating the city of Jerusalem, between January and May 1948.

The territory of the British Mandate of Palestine was subjected to a partition approved by the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947, in which two States were established, one Arab and the other Jewish, leaving the city of Jerusalem internationalized. The resolution stated: "The city of Jerusalem will be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and will be administered by the United Nations". It specified that the city of Jerusalem would include the Jerusalem municipality and the cities and towns on its periphery, with the easternmost being Abu Dis, the southernmost Bethlehem, the westernmost Ein Karim (including the built-up area of Motsa), and the northernmost Shufat. to last ten years, after which a referendum would be held among its inhabitants that would decide the future status of the city. The proposal was approved by the Jewish authorities but rejected both by the Arab population of Palestine and by the leaders of the surrounding Arab countries., starting the next day a civil war.

From mid-January 1948, the approximately 100,000 Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem (both west and east) were subjected to an intense siege by Arab troops. Amidst the fighting, the British administration left Palestine on May 15, 1948, the date the British Mandate expired and one day after David Ben Gurion read Israel's Declaration of Independence at the Tel Aviv Museum. The next day the neighboring Arab countries began the invasion of the State of Israel, thus beginning the Israeli War of Independence or the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

Hotel Semiramis after the attack of the Haganah in January 1948.

In contravention of a UN resolution, which kept the city out of the fledgling Jewish and Arab states, Israel took control of a part of the city that would become known as West Jerusalem, as well as much of the territory that it had been assigned to the Arab state; for its part, Jordan seized control of what would become known as East Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, most of which was also to become part of the Arab state. The war caused the displacement of the Arab and Jewish inhabitants of the city. The 2,000 inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were expelled en masse when the Arab Legion occupied it on May 28, 1948. The Jordanian commander who led the operation reported to his superiors: "For the first time in 1000 years there is not a single Jew left in the Jewish quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the return of Jews here impossible". Two days later, the Hurva Synagogue, originally built in 1701, was blown up by the Jordanian Arab Legion. For their part, the Arab inhabitants from Katamon, Talbiya and the German Colony were expelled from their homes. By the time the fighting ended, Israel had control over 12 of Jerusalem's 15 Arab residential neighborhoods. A minimum of approximately 30,000 Jerusalemites became refugees.

The military effort to keep the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem open, to prevent the city's Jewish neighborhoods from falling into Jordanian hands, took several months of intense fighting, and was one of the most deadly in the country. Israel throughout its history. The partition planned by the UN was never carried out in real terms, due to the civil war and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war during which Jerusalem was occupied by Jordanian and Israeli troops, taking the former with the old city and the the latter with modern neighborhoods. The conflict left the city divided in two, until its reunification after the Six Day War.

In November 1948, a no man's land was established between the military positions of both armies. Moshe Dayan, commander of the Israeli forces in Jerusalem, met his Jordanian counterpart Abdullah el-Tell in a deserted house in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Musrara and mapped their positions: the Israeli position with a red line and the Jordanian position. with a green line. The 1949 Arab-Israeli armistice was established on the basis of the demarcation line, called the Green Line, set by the military advance of both parties. It left the western part on the Israeli side, while the eastern part remained in the hands of Jordan, including the Old City, but with the exception of an Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus, where the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital were located, institutions that suspended their activities in that area until after the Six Day War. Barbed wire and concrete barriers were erected through the center of the city, passing near Jaffa Gate (in the western part of the walled Old City), and a border crossing was established at Mandelbaum Gate, a little further to the north. There were frequent skirmishes that threatened the ceasefire without ever breaking it. Among the agreements that constitute the armistice, resolution 303 of the UN General Assembly of December 9, 1949 reaffirmed the international status of Jerusalem as defined by resolution 181 of 1947, a status that remains in force for the UN in today.

An Arab Legionnaire on the ruins of the Hurva synagogue, destroyed in early June 1948.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jerusalem was officially declared its capital. Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1950, bringing it under Jordanian law, and in 1953 declared it a "second capital" of Jordan. The Israeli capital of Jerusalem was not recognized by any country in the world, and the Jordanian annexation was only recognized by the United Kingdom and Pakistan on the basis of the de facto situation, although some scholars doubt that the latter recognition took place. After gaining control of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Jordanian administration maintained and renovated Muslim holy sites but, contrary to armistice agreements, denied Jews access to them. their holy places, many of which were destroyed or desecrated. Regarding Christian holy places, Jordan allowed very limited access to the faithful; these restrictions led a part of the Christian population to leave the city. During the nineteen-year Arab administration, a third of the buildings in the Jewish quarter were destroyed by the Jordanians. All but one of the fifty-three houses of Jewish worship that existed in the Old City were destroyed. Synagogues were destroyed or looted and their interiors stripped to be used as chicken coops or stables.

In 1948, before the creation of the State of Israel, the New City covered an area of 19.3 km², compared to 0.8 km² for the Old City. Arab ownership in it was 40%, Jewish 26.12% and Christian communities 12.86%. Government and municipality properties were 2.9%, while the rest (17.12%) were streets, highways and railways. As a result of the armistice that followed the 1948 war, 84% of the modern city became part of the state of Israel. In those little more than 16 km², Arab ownership was 33.69% compared to 30% Jewish ownership.^{[citation required]}

On the first day of the Six-Day War, the Jordanian army attacked West Jerusalem with mortar fire. Israel's response was immediate, and in just 48 hours, its army crushed the Arab phalanxes, conquering the eastern part of the city and its surroundings. On June 7, he entered the Old City.

Planning and rebuilding

As soon as the war ended, the Israeli state redefined the limits of Jerusalem, annexing the 6.5 km² of the Old City and 64.5 km² of land that belonged to 28 towns in the municipalities of Bethlehem and Ramallah, in West Bank.

From June 10 to June 12, 1967, the Moroccan Quarter of the Old City was destroyed to create an esplanade at the foot of the Wailing Wall to accommodate the many expected Jewish pilgrims. which it occupied was annexed to the Jewish Quarter, thus beginning the new planning of the neighborhood. The mayor of West Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, gave three hours to the inhabitants (about 650 people, 100 families) to take their belongings and to vacate their homes before they were demolished. On June 29, the mayor of East Jerusalem, Ruhi al-Khatib, was ousted. In April 1968, nine months later, the Israeli Treasury Ministry offered compensation of 200 dinars to the displaced families, which was rejected by them.

In the years following the 1967 war, some 6,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs were evicted from the Jewish Quarter in order to rebuild the area. Residence in this neighborhood was prohibited to non-Jews.

Starting in 1967, the Jerusalem metropolitan area expanded considerably, particularly in the northeast and southeast of the city. 35% of the annexed land in East Jerusalem was officially confiscated for the construction of Jewish settlements or colonies, lands that are considered as fiscal lands by the government of Israel. At the same time, 13% of these lands were granted to the Palestinian inhabitants. As of 2011, 15 new Jewish cities were built in the East Jerusalem metropolitan area, equipped with the necessary infrastructure and connected to central and western Jerusalem by roads reserved for settlers, or by the new Jerusalem tram, inaugurated in 2011.

In 2000, at the second Camp David meetings, Yasser Arafat rejected a peace proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Barak that included making the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem the capital of the new state. The proposed site was Abu Dis, a suburb of East Jerusalem that would have been renamed Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem. The Palestinians would hold the Muslim and Christian quarters under their sovereignty and maintain control part of their holy places. In return, the Temple Mount or Mosque Mount would have remained under Israeli sovereignty, with its religious custody entrusted to the Palestinians, and the Palestinians would have had to cede 9% of the West Bank to Israel.

In East Jerusalem is the Old City, with the main religious sites of Christianity and Judaism —the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the Christians and the Wailing Wall, the only remains of the Second Temple of Jerusalem of the Jews—, and the Temple Mount or Esplanade of the Mosques, also a sacred place for Muslims, located behind the wall in the place where Solomon's Temple once stood, with the Dome of the Rock as one of the prominent places of religion Islamic, for being considered the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The Old City is divided into four neighborhoods, from largest to smallest, the Muslim Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter.

The city is home to nearly half a million Jewish residents, 180,000 of whom are settlers in the East Jerusalem settlements. ^{[citation needed]} The city's Arab inhabitants number 300,000, the vast majority of whom refused at the time of Israel's annexation of their territory to accept Israeli citizenship in exchange for swearing allegiance to the Jewish state,^{[citation needed]} indicating the majority refusal to accept Israeli sovereignty in the city. Today they live with the status of permanent residents, which does not guarantee them the same rights as if they had Israeli citizenship.^{[citation required]}

The status of Jerusalem remains one of the key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Capital of Israel

The Knéset, the parliament of Israel.

On December 5, 1949, the then Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel, and since then all the branches of the Israeli Government - executive, legislative and judicial - have been located there, such as the residence of the President and Prime Minister of Israel, as well as the Knesset, the Supreme Court and other government institutions.

As a result of the 1949 armistice following the Israeli War of Independence, the city was divided between Israel and Jordan, with capital status then only affecting the western part of the city, which was administered by Israel. On his part King Abdullah I of Jordan formally annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank to the rest of his kingdom in 1950.

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel conquered the eastern sector of the city—so-called East Jerusalem—from Jordan, annexing it to the rest of the municipality. On July 30, 1980, Israel included both eastern and western parts in its national legislation, proclaiming it as its "eternal and indivisible capital" through the Jerusalem Law.

In August 1980, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 478, declaring the Jerusalem Law null and void and advising its member states to locate their embassies in Tel Aviv as a measure of punishment for annexation. Most, with the exception of the Netherlands and twelve Latin American countries, had already moved their embassies to Tel Aviv before the resolution was passed. The last to adopt this measure were Costa Rica and El Salvador: the first announced the transfer of headquarters on August 16, 2006 and the second did so on August 25, 2006. Paraguay and Bolivia maintain theirs in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion. As for the United States, its Congress passed a law in 1995 declaring that "Jerusalem shall be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the US Embassy in Israel shall be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999."

In a September 30, 2002 press release, the White House clarified some points in the "Foreign Relations Authorizations Act, Fiscal Year 2003" (HR 1646), section 214. This communication reports that the position regarding Jerusalem has not changed since section 214 of Law 1646 is an undue interference by Congress against the constitutional authority of the president, the only one authorized to manage relations exteriors of the United States. The declaration of the Congress can only be taken as a suggestion and not an order since only the president of the United States can define the position of the United States, only the president can speak on behalf of the nation regarding its international relations and only the president can clarify the terms in which the rights of other States are recognized.

On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, making the United States the first country to recognize Jerusalem as the capital, although Russia recognizes West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Trump added that the State Department would begin the process of transferring the United States embassy to Jerusalem. The recognition came in fulfillment of a promise from his electoral campaign. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later clarified that the President's statement "indicated no end state for Jerusalem" and "it was very clear that the final status, including the borders, would be left to the two parties to negotiate and decide." Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was rejected by the majority of world leaders. In addition, the decision sparked protests in several Muslim countries, especially in the Palestinian territories. The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, declared that "the two-state solution has come to an end." 34;. However, Trump's announcement was well received in Israel. Minutes after Trump's speech ended, the Jerusalem municipality lit up the walls of the Old City with the flags of Israel and the United States, as a sign of appreciation. "This is a historic day," declared the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who described as "fair and courageous" Trump's decision. Netanyahu assured that the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel does not contradict the desire to achieve peace and promised to "work for peace" with all its neighbors, "including Palestinians". On May 14, 2018, the US embassy in Israel inaugurated its new headquarters in Jerusalem, provoking demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. Days later, Guatemala decided to internationally recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel, moving its embassy.

On December 21, 2017, the United Nations General Assembly approved by a large majority (128 countries in favor, 35 abstentions and 9 against) Resolution A/ES-10/L.22 in which it reiterates that all decisions and acts seeking to change the character, status or demographic composition of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be revoked in compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions. It also urges all States to refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem and demands that all States comply with Security Council resolutions relating to the Holy City of Jerusalem and not recognize acts or measures that contravene the provided in those resolutions.

Sometimes some media outlets point to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, instead of Jerusalem. This is the case of The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review or El País, which does not admit “that Jerusalem is mentioned as the capital of Israel, although this does not lead to being able to write that Tel Aviv is so." About a claim case filed by Honest Reporting against the newspaper The Guardian for citing Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, a UK complaints commission stated that while "it is accurate to say that Israel regards Jerusalem as its capital, this is not recognized by numerous countries and nations that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel and whose embassies are located in Tel Aviv.". Therefore, the Commission considers that the newspaper has the right to refer to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel. Honest Reporting found the decision insulting, noting that it is possible to cite "Jerusalem as 'Israel's disputed capital', but not claim that Tel Aviv is 'any more than Haifa, Manchester or New York”. In fact, the United Nations Organization still considers Tel Aviv the capital of Israel, given that at the time Israel was accepted as a member of this organization, on May 11, 1949, Tel Aviv was the official capital of Israel, and remained so when resolution 303 was passed, which established that Jerusalem be placed "under a permanent international regime." From the point of view of the UN, the status of Jerusalem is, still today, that of a corpus separatum.

Economy

Jerusalem Technological Park

Technological park in Har Hotzvim

Centro Comercial Malha

Since ancient times, Jerusalem's economy depended almost exclusively on pilgrims since it is located far from the main ports of the region; Jaffa and Gaza. Since the capture of the city, the Israeli government considered that the economy of Jerusalem could not depend on its historical and religious significance.

During the British Mandate, a law was established requiring all buildings to be constructed in Meleke to preserve the city's unique aesthetic and historical character. Complementing this architecture, which is still in effect, is a disincentive to industry heavy in Jerusalem; only about 2.2% of Jerusalem's land is zoned for "industries and infrastructure." By comparison, the percentage of land in Tel Aviv zoned for industries and infrastructure is twice as high, and in Haifa, seven times as high. Since the capture of Jerusalem and its declaration as the capital of Israel, the Israeli government has been the largest investor in the Jerusalem economy, offering subsidies and incentives for new business initiatives and start-ups. At the same time, since most of the State institutions are located in this city, an important part of the economic activity takes place around the public and institutional sector, with the government itself generating a large number of jobs in the local market.

Only 8.5% of the Jerusalem District workforce is employed in the manufacturing sector, which is half the national average (15.8%). Higher than the average percentage are those employed in education (17.9% vs. 12.7%); health and wellness (12.6% vs. 10.7%); community and social service (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, an increasing number of high-tech companies are moving to Jerusalem, with 12,000 jobs in 2006. North Jerusalem's Har Hotzvim industrial park is the home to some of Israel's largest corporations, including Intel, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and ECI Telecom. Expansion plans for the industrial park call for a hundred new businesses, a fire station, and a school, covering an area of Template:Unit (130 acres).

Although many statistics indicate economic growth in the city since 1967, East Jerusalem has lagged far behind the development of West Jerusalem. However, the percentage of families with employed persons is higher for families Arabs (76.1%) than for Jewish families (66.8%). The unemployment rate in Jerusalem (8.3%) is slightly better than the national average (9.0%), although the civilian labor force is estimated to be less than half of all people aged 15 and over - falls below the comparison to that of Tel Aviv (58.0%) and Haifa (52.4%).

Poverty in the city has grown considerably in recent years; between 2001 and 2007, the number of people below the poverty line grew by 40%. In 2006, the monthly per capita income of a worker in Jerusalem was 5,940 new shekels (NIS) (US$1,410), NIS 1,350 less than that received by a worker in Tel Aviv.

Holy places for Christianity, Islam and Judaism

The Temple Mount, site of the Wall of Laments and the Dome of the Rock, sanctuaries for Judaism and Islam, respectively.

In the 20th century, the religious historical framework of the city continues to be the main attraction for foreign visitors, who they visit especially the Old City and the Wailing Wall, Jerusalem is considered a holy city by the three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For Judaism, it is there where King David established the capital of the Kingdom of Israel and the settlement place of the Ark of the Covenant, and where his son Solomon built the Temple, where prayers should be directed; for Christianity it is there where Jesus preached, was crucified and rose again; It is also the third holy city of Islam, where for Muslims the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and to which the first Muslims looked when they prayed, before going on to face Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

Since Israel took control of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, it enjoys full religious freedom for all denominations, as well as throughout the country. In November 2010, the State Department of The United States, in the section dedicated to Israel and the Occupied Territories of its annual report on religious freedom in the world, affirms that although the Israeli government supports the free practice of religions, there is legal and state discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox branches of Judaism, as well as impediments and restrictions on access to holy places for adherents of religions other than Jewish, a fact that the report has been denouncing for several years.

The report states that while the 1967 Holy Places Protection Law is applicable to all religions present in the country and throughout Jerusalem, the protection regulations only apply to Jewish holy places as they the government and the 1967 law do not recognize those of other religions as official holy places.

According to Christianity

Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

• Church of the Holy Sepulchre: There is Calvary where Jesus was crucified, as well as the "Sepulchre of the Savior". It is the most holy place of Christianity.
• Cenacle: Room on the high floor where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper, where he appeared to the apostles and where they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
• Basilica of the Nations or of the agony: Located on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus spent his last moments before being arrested.
• Church of the Dominus Flevit: From there, Jesus contemplated the holy city and wept for it (episode known as Flevit super illam in Latin) on Palm Sunday.
• Our Father Church: Where Jesus taught that prayer to the disciples.
• Saint Peter in Gallicantu: Church that recalls the place where the house of Caiaphas was where Jesus was judged and where he was denied by Saint Peter.
• Litostrotes: Pavimento of the ancient Antonia Fortress of the Romans where Jesus was crowned with thorns and outraged by the Roman soldiers.
• Via Dolorosa: Way that Jesus followed with the cross from the Antonia Fortress to Calvary. In it are marked the seasons, the last being in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.
• Abbey of Hagia Mary or of the Dormition: Remember the place where according to the Christian tradition the sleeping of the Virgin took place, surrounded by the apostles. In her crypt is an image of the Virgin Yacente.
• Church of Santa Ana: Where, according to the Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary was born.
• Ascension Building: Place from which Jesus went up to heaven.

According to Islam

The Dome of the Rock.

• The Dome of the Rock: located in the center of the Temple Mount, is a sanctuary—not a mosque—built between the years 687 and 691 by the ninth caliph, Abd al-Malik, around the rock in which Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac. According to the Islamic tradition (Sura 17 of the Quran), in a dream of Mohammed that relates "from the Holy Mosque to the Far Mosque", not to mention any city, ascended to the throne of Allah in the course of a night trip to the city from Medina. However, following the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, it is believed that this changed the meaning of that sacred place by that of Jerusalem to strengthen the political domination of Islam over the land of Judea.^{[chuckles]required]}
• The Al-Aqsa Mosque: located at the southern end of the Mosque Explanade, was built a few years after the Dome of the Rock (705) and rebuilt several times later. It is the most important Muslim temple in Jerusalem.^{[chuckles]required]}
• The Explanation of the Mosques: Call Al-Haram ash-Sharif in Arabic ("Noble Sanctuary" in Spanish), its enclosure houses the two previous monuments. It is the third sacred place of Islam after Mecca and Medina. The set is a waqf, a Muslim asset managed by Muslim administrators (to whom also referred as Waqf) from the centuryVIIand placed under the supervision of the Government of Jordan since the signing of the peace treaty in 1994.

According to Judaism

Jewish faithful praying before the Wall of Lamentations.

Hejal of a synagogue in Jerusalem. Israeli stamp, 1953. Hebrew inscription: "in joy and joy, and in festive solemnities" (Zechariah 8:19).

Jerusalem is the holiest of Judaism's cities, as well as the spiritual epicenter of the Jewish people since the 10th century to. C., when the site was chosen by King David for the location of the Holy Temple. In 1840 the Jewish community constituted the largest religious group in the city and from 1880 onwards it formed the majority within it.

The city of Jerusalem is in a special category in Jewish religious law. Specifically, Jews outside of Jerusalem pray in their direction, and Ma'aser Sheni, Revai, and First Fruits are to be consumed in Jerusalem. Any expansion of the city for these purposes must be approved by the Sanhedrin. When the Temple in Jerusalem was erected, Jerusalem observed the special laws regarding the four species on Sukkot, and the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

Jerusalem has long been incorporated into Jewish religious consciousness. The Jewish people have studied King David's struggle to conquer Jerusalem and his desire to build the Jewish temple, as described in the Book of Samuel and the Book of Psalms. Many of King David's wishes for Jerusalem have been adapted into popular prayers and songs.

Jerusalem appears in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem as well as Land of Israel) appears 154 times. In Judaism it is considered the written Law, the basis of the Oral Law (the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch) studied, practiced and treasured by the Jewish people and Judaism for three millennia. The Talmud elaborates on the Jewish connection to the city.

The Wailing Wall is the most important place for Jews. Last remnant of the Jewish temple built by Herod on the ruins of Solomon's temple. It comprises the Western Wall, the main section of the Wall, located in the Jewish neighborhood of the Old City; and the Little Wall, an extension of the Western Wall, located in an Arab neighborhood, is a place of prayer for Jews of different streams. The Temple was built on the spot where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

The Temple Mount (where today is the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque) is considered the most sacred place, since it was the Sancta Sanctorum, where the Tablets of the Law were housed During the early Middle Ages the area in front of the Wailing Wall was used as a garbage dump, which is why the Gate near the Wall is called "Dung Gate or Dung Gate". XVI, Sultan Suleiman II discovered the location of the Wall and had the area cleared.

Culture

Although Jerusalem is primarily recognized for its religious significance, the city is also home to many artistic and cultural venues. The Israel Museum, the largest and most important cultural body of the State of Israel, ranking high among the world's leading art and archeology museums, attracts almost one million visitors per year, of which approximately one third of them are tourists. The 80,000 m² complex is comprised of ten archaeology, fine arts, and Jewish art and culture wings, housing encyclopedic collections, including works dating from prehistoric times to the present, and featuring the series largest collection in the world of Biblical and Holy Land archeology pieces. The museum has a large garden with outdoor sculptures, and a scale model of the Second Temple.

The institution has ten wings or museums:

Facade of the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum.

• Rockefeller Archaeological Museum; located in East Jerusalem, on the other side of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, is the first archaeological museum in the Middle East. It was created under the British Mandate, and opened in 1938. The building was built ex profeso and houses an extraordinary collection of antiques discovered in the excavations made from the beginning of the Mandate. It is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It is an extension of the archaeology department of the Museum of Israel since 1967, when it became dependent on the Authority of Antiquities of Israel.
• Edmond and Lily Safra Museum of Fine Arts; this museum contains collections of works of art from all ages and culture, including: European art, modern art, contemporary art, Israeli art, African art, Oceania art, Asian and American art; in photography, design and architecture, and engravings and drawings.

The Book Sanctuary houses the Dead Sea Rolls.

• Ala de Arqueología Samuel y Saidye Bronfman; a permanent exhibition of the Museum of Israel dedicated to the archaeology of the ancient Land of Israel, with some 6000 findings that reveal the daily lives of the peoples of the region from the Stone Age to the end of the Ottoman period. In this wing there are also thematic galleries dedicated to the elaboration of ancient Hebrew writing, the history of coins, and the manufacture of glass over time.
• Wing for Jewish Arts and Life, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel; a sample of religious and secular material of Jewish communities around the world, from the Middle Ages to the present. Five main themes are presented in their galleries: "The rhythm of life: birth, marriage, death"; "Reviews of writings"; "The Way of the synagogue: Holiness and beauty"; "The cycle of the Jewish year"; " wardrobe and jewellery."
• Ala Ruth de la Juventud para la Educación Artística; where temporary exhibitions are held and an extensive programme of artistic education is implemented, it is visited by 100,000 children a year.
• Art Gallery Bella and Harry Wexner; a space for temporary exhibitions located in the heart of the museum and has 930 m2 divided into three equal spaces, to accommodate up to three exhibitions simultaneously.
• Wing of the Book Sanctuarycreated for the protection, custody and permanent display of the Dead Sea Rolls, discovered in the mid-centuryXX. in the Cuevas de Qumran, near the Dead Sea.
• Second Temple Model; open to the public in 1966, is a popular attraction and educational site for both Israelis and tourists alike. This 50:1 scale miniature and covering a surface of 4200 m2, evokes the ancient Jerusalem in its apogee, meticulously recreating its topography and architectural character in the year 66, the year in which the Jewish revolt broke out against the Romans, which led to the destruction of the Second Temple and the city in the year 70.
• Billy Rose Arts Garden; created by the prominent American sculptor and landscaper of Japanese origin Isamu Noguchi, conceiving a unique concept of garden gathering the elements of the landscape of Israel and the zen-style Japanese garden. About fifty works of contemporary sculptors from Europe, the United States and Israel are placed in such a way that we can follow the development of modern sculpture since the end of the centuryXIX until today.
• Art Gallery Ticho House; located in the centre of Jerusalem, houses the paintings of Anna Ticho and the collections of Judaica of her husband, an ophthalmologist, who opened the first ophthalmological clinic in Jerusalem in this building in 1912. In this art gallery there is a permanent exhibition of Anna Ticho's works as well as temporary exhibitions by other artists; the collection of Chanukah's candelabras by Dr. Avraham Ticho and a reference book library about Jerusalem art and literature. Every Friday morning there are camera music functions played by national and international artists.

Entrance to the Yad Vashem Historical Museum.

Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, houses the world's largest library of Holocaust-related information, with approximately 100,000 books and items. The complex houses a museum that investigates the genocide of the Jews through exhibits that focus on the personal stories of individuals and families who died in the Holocaust, and an art gallery featuring works by deceased artists. Yad Vashem also commemorates the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, and honors the Righteous Among the Nations. The Museum On The Seam, which explores themes of coexistence through art, is located on the road dividing east and west Jerusalem.

• L.A. Mayer Institute of Islamic Art, established in 1974, the museum houses Islamic pottery, textiles, jewellery, ceremonial objects and other Islamic cultural artifacts.

The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, founded in the 1940s, has performed around the world. Other performance venues include the International Convention Center (Binyanei HaUma) near the entrance to the city, where the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performs, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Gerard Behar Center (formerly Beit Ha'am) in downtown Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Music Center in Yemin Moshe, and the Targ Music Center in Ein Kerem.

The Israel Festival has been held annually since 1961 with performances by local and international singers, both indoors and outdoors, concerts, plays and street theater. For the last 25 years Jerusalem has been the main organizer of this event. The Jerusalem Theater in the Talbiya neighborhood hosts more than 150 concerts a year, as well as performances by theater and dance companies and artists from abroad. The Khan Theatre, located in the caravanserai opposite the Old Jerusalem Station, is the the only one in the city with a repertory theater. The station has become a venue for cultural events in recent years, as the site of Shav'ua HaSefer, a book fair annual week-long, open-air musical performances. The Jerusalem Film Festival is held every year, screening Israeli and international films.

The headquarters of the Palestinian National Theater is located in the Al Hakawati theater, the only theater in East Jerusalem. The theater produces and presents artistic, educational and entertainment shows with a particular focus on the young audience which represents the majority of the Palestinian population. He organizes training workshops and his shows tour abroad. The National Theater of Palestine cannot receive subsidies from the Palestinian Authority and refuses to request them from the Israeli government, so it develops its activities thanks to the collaboration of Arab and international governments and institutions.

The Jerusalem branch of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) is located on Al-Zahra Street in East Jerusalem. conservatory moves to its new headquarters, the Shihabi building, a historic building located on that same street and whose rehabilitation is taking place in 2011 and 2012. The Edward Said Conservatory in Jerusalem was inaugurated in 1996, and in the 2011 academic year -2012 consisted of 170 students. It houses The Jerusalem Children's Orchestra, a children's orchestra of classical European and Arabic repertoire, made up of students from the Conservatory. They receive training from the center's teachers as well as from teachers from international partner institutions, and go on short tours.

The Jerusalem branch of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music organizes the annual festival of classical Arabic music Layali Tarab fi Quds el Arab (Nights of Tarab in Arab Jerusalem), whose concerts take place over a month in Jerusalem and other cities in the Palestinian Territories.

The Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash Visual Arts Gallery, established in 2004 in East Jerusalem, is a gallery for the preservation and promotion of Palestinian art from the region. His goal is for his collection to be the core of a future national museum of Palestinian art in Jerusalem. It organizes workshops, film screenings and meetings, and its exhibitions offer samples of painting, photography, video art and installations, among other disciplines. It is an independent non-profit organization and receives support from the United Nations Development Program.

In 1974 the Jerusalem Cinematheque was founded by Lia van Lear. In 1981, new construction on the road to Hebron, near the Valley of Hinnom and the Old City, was approved for the foundation of the Israeli National Film Archive.

The Islamic Museum of Jerusalem was officially established in 1923, and moved to its current location at the south-west corner of the Mosque Mosque in 1929. It consists of three buildings with a total exhibition area of more than 1,000 m². The oldest was built by the Crusaders in the 12th century; This is followed by an old mosque from the 13th century century and a building from the Mamluk era (XIV). The museum exhibits objects and pieces from Islamic and non-Islamic periods, classified by era, region, and theme.

In 2009 Jerusalem was declared the Arab Cultural Capital, but Israel's Ministry of Internal Security prevented events from taking place in the city, alleging that "these festivities violate the agreements signed with the Palestinian authority."

Demographics

The size of Jerusalem's population and its composition has changed many times in its 5 millennium history. Since medieval times, the Old City of Jerusalem has been divided between the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters.

All population data prior to 1922 are based on estimates, often from foreign travelers or organizations, since earlier census data covered broader areas, such as the Jerusalem District. Estimates suggest that the Jewish community is the largest group in Jerusalem since at least 1876, constituting more than half of the city's population since 1893.

In December 2007 Jerusalem had a population of 747,600—64% Jewish, 32% Muslim, and 2% Christian. At the end of 2005 the population density was 5,750.40 per km². In a study published in 2000, the percentage of the city's Jewish population had decreased, which was attributed to a higher Muslim birth rate and the increasing number of Jews leaving the city. The study also found that about nine percent of the Old City's 32,488 inhabitants were Jewish.

In 2005, 1,850 new immigrants settled in Jerusalem, the majority from the United States, France, and the former Soviet Union. As for the local population, the number of leaving residents exceeds the number of new residents. In 2005, 16,000 residents left Jerusalem and 10,000 moved into the city. However, the population of Jerusalem continues to increase due to the high birth rate, especially in the Arab and Haredi Jewish communities. Consequently, the total fertility rate 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 people (1.8%), similar to Israel's national average, but the religious and ethnic composition is changing. While 31% of the Jewish population is made up of children under fifteen years of age, the figure for the Arab population is 42%. This seems to corroborate the observation that the percentage of Jews in Jerusalem has decreased by the last four decades. In 1967, Jews made up 74 percent of the population, while the number in 2006 dropped by nine percent. Possible factors include the high cost of housing, fewer job opportunities, and the increasingly most religious in the city. 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 increased. As of 2009, out of 150,100 students, 59,900 (40%) are in secular state schools, while 90,200 or 60% are in Haredi schools. This is related to the high number of children in Haredi families.

At the end of 2015, the population of the city of Jerusalem was 865,700, about 10% of the population of Israel. Of these, 542,000 (62.2% of the total) were Jews and 323,700 (37.4%) were Arabs. Within the Jewish population, 35% defined themselves as ultra-Orthodox, 24% as traditional, 19% as religious, and 21% as secular. In that year, more people left Jerusalem (18,100) than decided to move there (10,300). However, there were some 16,000 births, half of them to Arab families.

At the end of 2016, the population of Jerusalem had grown slightly to 883,000, with 63% Jews and 37% Arabs. The percentage of the city's Arab population grew by 3% between 2007 and 2016. The population of ultra-Orthodox and religious Jews has also grown in recent years, although at a lower rate than that of Arabsː 0.5% and a 0.2% respectively. In that year, the fertility rate for Jewish women in the city was established at an average of 4.28 children, slightly higher than the average of 3.23 children for Arab women.

Jerusalem. Population trafficking. 1844-2015

Minor division: 25000 inhabitants.

Criticism of the urban plan

There is criticism of efforts by the State of Israel to promote a Jewish majority in the city. These government planning policies are motivated by demographic considerations and try to limit Arab construction while promoting Jewish construction. According to a World Bank report, the number of building violations recorded between 1996 and 2000 was four times and higher average in Jewish neighborhoods, but four times fewer demolition orders were issued in West Jerusalem than in East Jerusalem; furthermore, Arabs in Jerusalem were less likely to receive building permits than Jews (less than 2% of building applications made by Palestinians are approved by the Israeli authorities), and "the authorities have far more more likely to take action against Palestinian lawbreakers than against Jews". A mid-2020 UN report calls Palestinians in East Jerusalem obtaining building permits "virtually impossible" 34;. In recent years, private Jewish foundations have received government permission to develop projects on disputed lands, such as the City of David, the archaeological park in the 96.5% Arab neighborhood of Silwan (adjacent to the City of Vieja), and at the Museum of Tolerance in the Mamilla Cemetery (next to Zion Square). Opponents view urban planning as geared towards the Judaization of Jerusalem én. According to United Nations data, a total of 190 Palestinian buildings were demolished in East Jerusalem in 2016, while another 103 suffered the same fate between January 1 and August 14, 2017.

A different criticism regarding the urban plan is that referring to the construction of the Israeli separation wall and the isolation of four neighborhoods that Israel considers part of the Jerusalem municipality, but which have been separated from the city by said wall. Some 120,000 Jerusalemites of Palestinian origin live in the neighborhoods of Ras Jamis, Ras Shehada, Dahiyat A-Salam and in the Shufat refugee camp, who are required to pass through military checkpoints to enter the city. The decision to rename thirty streets in East Jerusalem with Hebrew names has also been criticized, specifically in the neighborhoods of Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, A-Tur, Ras al-Amud and the area surrounding the Damascus Gate. The streets will be dedicated primarily to biblical figures or names that highlight the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli parliamentarian of Palestinian origin, described the measure as an "arson decision", while media outlets such as the Israeli magazine +972 associate it with a process of Judaization of Jerusalem.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification, Jerusalem has a Mediterranean climate ("Csa"), that is, temperate mid-latitudes, with hot, dry summers and wet winters. 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 75.6 °F (24.2 °C), and the summer months are usually rainless. Average annual precipitation is around 537 mm (21 in), with rainfall occurring almost entirely between October and May. Snowfall is rare, and heavy snowfall is even rarer. Jerusalem received more than 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow on December 13, 2013, which nearly brought the city to a standstill.

Jerusalem average climate parameters (1881-2007)
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	23.4	25.3	27.6	35.3	37.2	36.8	40.6	44.4	37.8	33.8	29.4	26.0	44.4
Average temperature (°C)	11.8	12.0	15.4	21.5	25.3	27.6	29.0	29.4	28.2	24.7	18.8	14.0	21.5
Average temperature (°C)	9.1	9.5	11.9	17.1	20.5	22.7	24.2	24.5	23.4	20.7	15.6	11.2	17.5
Temp. medium (°C)	6.4	6.4	8.4	12.6	15.7	17.8	19.4	19.5	18.6	16.6	12.3	8.4	13.5
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	-6.7	-2.4	-0.3	0.8	7.6	11.0	14.6	15.5	13.2	9.8	1.8	0.2	-6.7
Rains (mm)	133.2	118.3	92.7	24.5	3.6	0	0	0	0.1	16.1	81.6	115.0	585.1
Nevadas (cm)	20	25	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	59
Days of rain (≥ 1 mm)	12.9	11.7	9.6	4.4	1.3	0	0	0	0.3	3.6	7.3	10.9	62
Days of snowfall (≥ 1 mm)	2	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	7
Hours of sun	192.2	243.6	226.3	267.0	331.7	381.0	384.4	365.8	309.0	275.9	228.0	192.2	3397.1
Relative humidity (%)	61	59	52	39	35	37	40	40	40	42	48	56	45.8
Source No. 1: Israel Meteorological Service
Source No. 2: Hong Kong Observatory for data of sunshine hours

Transportation

• Jerusalem International Airport
• Jerusalem Railway Station
• Jerusalem station Yitzchak Navón
• Station of Jerusalem Malha
• Jerusalem Central Bus Station
• Light Train from Jerusalem

Jerusalem in the collective imagination

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  Map of Madaba, Byzantine mosaic, centuryVI

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  Mapmundi with Jerusalem in the center, Salterio Latino, century XIII-XV.

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  Hartmann Schedel, "Hierosolima" Liber cronicarum, Nurenberg 1493

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  Büntig, Jerusalem Map-Trebol, Hanover, 1581

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  Haggadah of Venice, Hebrew printing, 1607

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  Pésaj, miniature ascenazí manuscript, centuryXVII

Judaism

Mural with the City of Jerusalem and Hebrew Bible verses: Psalms 137:5-6 (superior); Psalms 128:5-6 (right); Isaiah 44:26 and 1 Kings 11:36 (left). Sefardí synagogue complex, Jerusalem.

Forming part of a synagogal complex located in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Yochanan Ben-Zakai Synagogue contains a wall painting with a heavenly image of Zion accompanied by four Biblical verses in Hebrew, where the notions of Zion and Jerusalem meet intimately linked:

• Psalm 137:5-6. If I will forget you, O Jerusalem, I will lose my right hand his skill. My tongue sticks to my palate, If I will not remember you; If I do not exalt Jerusalem as a preferred matter of my joy.
• Psalm 128:5-6. Bless the LORD from Zion, and see the good of Jerusalem every day of your life, and see the children of your children. Peace be upon Israel.
• Isaiah 44:26. I, who arouses the word of his servant, and fulfills the counsel of his messengers; who saith unto Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and unto the cities of Judah, They shall be rebuilt, and their ruins I will rebuild..
• 1 Kings 11:36. And to his son I will give a tribe, that my servant David may have a lamp every day before me in Jerusalem, a city which I chose to put on it my name.

Islamic

The loss of Jerusalem after the wars of 1948 and 1967 (and, especially, of the Esplanade of the Mosques) has meant its entry into the Muslim collective imagination as a place of long-awaited return. Numerous Muslim militias, associations and movements bear the name of Al-Quds or of various places in its Old City, such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque:

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  Flag of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the centre.
  Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. They are a paramilitary group linked to the Palestinian Fatah party, which governs the Palestinian National Authority; its link to the Al-Aqsa mosque is mainly cultural since, like Fatah himself, it is a lay spirit group.
• Al-Quds Brigades: They are the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, much more religiously radicalized than the former.
• Al-Quds Force: It is a special operation force of the Revolutionary Guard of Iran, responsible for much of its activity abroad, as in Iraq or Syria.
• Al-Quds Day: It is a day of vindication opened by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, and it aims to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposition to the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. It is celebrated last Friday in Ramadan in many Arab and Muslim countries, but also in Europe or Africa.
• Cohete Al-Quds 101: It is a handcrafted rocket developed and used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad quite similar to Hamas' Qassam.
• Al-Quds Al-Arabi (Jerusalem Arabic): it is a daily newspaper, based in London and owned by Palestinian expatriates. Their daily sales range from 15,000 to 50,000 copies.
• Operation Tariq al-Qods (Operation Road to Jerusalem): was an operation launched by Iranian troops to liberate the city of Bostan at the beginning of the Iran-Irak War.
• Al-Quds TV and al-Aqsa TV are the two television channels of the Hamas Palestinian party, operating from London and have correspondents in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Beirut and Damascus.
• Jund al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa War): is a Salafist jihadist organization that participated in numerous fighting during the Syrian Civil War as part of the Al-Nusra Front.
• Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (Defensors of the Holy House), also known as Ansar Jerusalem (Defensors of Jerusalem), was a jihadist militia based in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, which operated within the conflict between the Egyptian armed forces and the insurgency in Sinai.

Sister cities

• New York, United States (1993)
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Cuzco, Peru (1996)
• Ayabe, Japan (2000)
• Metepec, Mexico (2010)