Jerusalem

—Jerusalemite, adj., n.

/ji rooh"seuh leuhm, -zeuh-/, n.

a city in and the capital of Israel: an ancient holy city and a center of pilgrimage for Jews, Christians, and Muslims; divided between Israel and Jordan 1948-67; Jordanian sector annexed by Israel 1967; capital of Israel since 1950. 407,100.

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I

Hebrew Yerushalayim Arabic Al-Quds

City (pop., 1999 est.: 633,700), capital of Israel (see below).

Located in the heart of historic Palestine, it is nestled between the West Bank and Israel. The Old City is a typical, walled Middle Eastern enclosure; the modern city is an urban agglomeration of high-rises and housing complexes. It is holy to Judaism as the site of the Temple of Jerusalem, to Christianity because of its association with Jesus, and to Islam because of its connection with the Mirāj (the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to Heaven). Jewish shrines include the Western Wall; Islamic holy places include the Dome of the Rock. In 1000 BC David made it the capital of Israel. Razed by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC, it thereafter enjoyed only brief periods of independence. The Romans devastated it in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, banishing the population. From 637 it was ruled by various Muslim dynasties, except for short periods during the Crusades. Rule by the Ottoman Empire ended in 1917, and the city became the capital of the British mandate of Palestine. It was thereafter the subject of competing Zionist and Palestinian national aspirations. Israel claimed the city as its capital after the Arab-Israeli War in 1948 and took the entire city during the Six-Day War of 1967. Its status as Israel's capital has remained a point of contention: official recognition by the international community has largely been withheld pending final settlement of territorial rights.

II

(as used in expressions)

Cyril of Jerusalem Saint

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem Council of

Jerusalem Temple of

Jerusalem artichoke

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▪ Israel

Introduction

Hebrew  Yerushalayim , Arabic  Bayt al-Muqaddas  or  Al-Quds 

      ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly under the rule of the State of Israel.

      Long an object of veneration and conflict, the holy city of Jerusalem has been governed, both as a provincial town and a national capital, by an extended series of dynasties and states. In the early 20th century the city, along with all of historic Palestine, became the focus of the competing national aspirations of Zionists and Palestinian Arabs. This struggle often erupted in violence. The United Nations (UN) attempted to declare the city a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”)—and, thus, avert further conflict—but the first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, left Jerusalem divided into Israeli (west Jerusalem) and Jordanian (east Jerusalem) sectors. The following year, Israel declared the city its capital. During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jewish state occupied the Jordanian sector and shortly thereafter expanded the city boundaries—thereby annexing some areas of the West Bank previously held by the Jordanians—and extended its jurisdiction over the unified city. Although Israel's actions were repeatedly condemned by the UN and other bodies, Israel reaffirmed Jerusalem's standing as its capital by promulgating a special law in 1980. The status of the city remained a central issue in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Area 49 square miles (126 square km). Pop. (2004 est.) 693,200. (For more information on the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, see Israel; Palestine; West Bank; Arab-Israeli wars.)

Character of the city

 Jerusalem plays a central role in the spiritual and emotional perspective of the three major monotheistic religions. For Jews (Judaism) throughout the world it is the focus of age-old yearnings, a living proof of ancient grandeur and independence and a centre of national renaissance; for Christians (Christianity) it is the scene of their Saviour's agony and triumph; for Muslims (Islām) it is the goal of the Prophet Muhammad's mystic night journey and the site of one of Islam's most sacred shrines. For all three faiths it is a holy city, a centre of pilgrimage, and an object of devotion.

      Despite a rapidly changing demography, Jerusalem has retained a diverse and cosmopolitan character, particularly in the walled Old City with its Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. Arabs in traditional and modern attire; Christians, Western and Oriental, in their infinite variety of secular garb and monastic vestments; Jews in casual and Orthodox dress; and hosts of tourists combine in colourful, kaleidoscopic patterns. Synagogues, churches, mosques, and dwellings in various styles make up the city's unique architectural mosaic. Sunlight falling on the white and pink stone used for all construction gives even quite mundane buildings an aura of distinction. The scent of Oriental cooking and spices, the peal of church bells, the calls of muezzins from minarets, and the chanting of Jewish prayers at the Western (Wailing) Wall (Western Wall) all add flavour to the life of the city. The absence of vehicular traffic within most of the Old City helps preserve its special character. In recognition of its central place in the traditions and histories of numerous peoples, the Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. Yet outside the walls Jerusalem is in every sense a modern city, with its network of streets and transportation, high-rise buildings, supermarkets, businesses, schools, restaurants, and coffeehouses. The persistent mingling of Hebrew, Arabic, English, and other languages in the streets brings to mind the multicultural and political complexities of life in this revered city.

Landscape

City site

      Jerusalem stands on hills at an elevation of 2,575 feet (785 metres). The modern, unified city is the largest municipality in Israel or the West Bank and is the heart of an urban agglomeration that spills outside the city limits into adjacent areas of both jurisdictions. At the centre of the modern municipality is the Old City, a walled medieval enclosure of less than half a square mile (roughly one square km), from which the entire city has grown.

      To the east the city looks down on the Dead Sea and across the Jordan River to the arid mountains of eastern Jordan (the biblical mountains of Moab); to the west it faces the coastal plain and the Mediterranean Sea, about 35 miles (58 km) away.

Climate

      Jerusalem has a mixed subtropical, semiarid climate with warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. The average annual precipitation is about 24 inches (600 mm), and snowfalls—which in some years do not occur—are generally light. Average daily mean temperatures range from about 75 °F (24 °C) in August to about 50 °F (10 °C) in January. The hot, dry desert wind, called sharav in Hebrew (or khamsin, from the Arabic word for “fifty,” as it is said to come some 50 days per year), is fairly common in autumn and spring. Average daily humidity is about 62 percent in the daytime but may drop 30 to 40 percent under sharav conditions. Summer exposure to the sun's rays in Jerusalem is intense because of the lack of clouds and the low humidity but also because the sun reaches such a high angle (80° above the horizon) at that season.

      Jerusalem has no serious air pollution. Its elevation ensures the free mixing of surface air, and, apart from automobile exhaust, pollutant sources are few, for there is little heavy industry.

Plant and animal life

      Lying on the watershed between the relatively rainy Hare Yehuda (Hills of Judaea) and the dry Judaean desert, Jerusalem has both Mediterranean and Irano-Turanian vegetation. The various red and brown Mediterranean soils, formed by the different types of limestone chalk covering the hills, support as many as 1,000 plant species. In the spring, masses of wildflowers proliferate on slopes and wastelands.

      Jerusalem is exceptionally rich in birdlife, which includes 70 resident species and about 150 winter visitors. Those most commonly seen are the hooded crow, jay, swift (which nests in old walls and buildings), and bulbul. Large flocks of white storks overfly the city. In the winter, starlings and white wagtails roost in the thousands at various points in the metropolitan area. However, goldfinches and linnets, formerly numerous, now rarely appear. Also often observed within the city are the lesser kestrel and the Palestinian sunbird. The only venomous snake is the Palestine viper, but this is rarely seen in urban areas; the smooth lizard and common chameleon frequent gardens and the walls of houses.

City layout

      The municipal boundaries, extended by Israel in June 1967 and again in 1993, stretch from Jerusalem Airport in the north to a point almost reaching the West Bank town of Bethlehem in the south and from the ridge of Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives (Olives, Mount of) in the east to Mount Herzl, ʿEn Kerem, and the Hadassah Medical Centre of the Hebrew University (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the west.

 The Old City, which is believed to have been continuously inhabited for almost 5,000 years, forms a walled quadrilateral about 3,000 feet (900 metres) long on each side. It is dominated by the raised platform of the Temple Mount—known in Hebrew as Har Ha-Bayit, the site of the First and Second Temples (Jerusalem, Temple of), and known to Islam as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“The Noble Sanctuary”), a Muslim holy place containing the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqṣā Mosque, and other structures. The rest of the area within the walls is a typical Middle Eastern city, with its mosques and madrasahs (Muslim religious colleges); its churches, convents, hospices, and residences of high ecclesiastical dignitaries; its synagogues and yeshivas (Talmudic academies); its hidden courtyards and gardens; and its medieval vaulted triple bazaar in the centre and labyrinth of smaller souks along David Street, which leads from Jaffa Gate and the old Ottoman Citadel toward the Temple Mount.

      The first neighbourhoods outside the Old City walls, built from the 1860s onward, were scattered chiefly along the main roads from the west and northwest leading into the city. These early Jewish suburbs were paralleled by non-Jewish expansion prompted by Christian religious or nationalistic motivation. The latter included the Russian Compound on the meydan (old Turkish parade ground), near what is today the commercial heart of west Jerusalem; the German Colony, near what became the railway station; and the American Colony, north of the Damascus Gate. Some early communities, such as Mishkenot Shaʾanannim and Yemin Moshe, with its famous windmill landmark, have been reconstructed and resettled or turned into cultural centres. Others include the Bukharan Quarter; Meʾa Sheʿarim, founded by Orthodox Jews from eastern and central Europe, with its scores of small synagogues and yeshivas; and Maḥane Yehuda, with its fruit and vegetable market, inhabited mainly by Jews of North African and Oriental origin. Residential quarters established between World Wars I and II include Reḥavya in the centre, Talpiyyot in the south, and Qiryat Moshe and Bet Ha-Kerem in the west. The old campus of the Hebrew University (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) at Mount Scopus, northeast of the Old City, formed for some 20 years (1948–67) an Israeli exclave in the Jordanian sector; it was entirely rebuilt after the Six-Day War. Some Arab districts, such as Talbieh and Katamon (Gonen), whose residents fled during the fighting of 1947–48, are now Jewish neighbourhoods, and thousands of houses were built for new Jewish immigrants in districts to the west, newly incorporated into the city. Arab neighbourhoods outside the Old City include El-Sheikh (Al-Shaykh) Jarrāḥ, Wadi al-Jōz (al-Jawz), and Bayt Ḥanīnā in the north and villages such as Silwān and Bayt Ṣafāfā in the south.

      Since 1967 large new housing developments for more than 200,000 Jews have been built on the southern, eastern, and northern edges of the city, both within and beyond the extended city boundary. Their construction on territory claimed by both Israelis and Arabs gave rise to repeated confrontations and controversy. Meanwhile, construction of housing for Arabs within the city has been severely limited, which has resulted in large-scale ribbon development of Arab housing, particularly along the road leading north to Ramallah.

Housing

      There is a great variety of housing in the city. In the Old City are antiquated buildings constructed of ancient stones; 19th-century Jewish neighbourhoods, some of which have declined into slums; modern quarters with tree-lined streets; and government-built housing projects, mainly for new immigrants. The most common basic dwelling unit in the Old City consists of a complex of structures, often on different levels, built around an inner court that is entered through a narrow corridor. Since 1967 the government has taken steps to facilitate slum clearance, and the Jewish quarter in the Old City and many older neighbourhoods in the New City have been restored and gentrified for Jewish inhabitants. Average housing density is higher among Arabs (about 1.8 persons per room) than it is among Jews (about 1 person per room).

Architecture

  The outstanding characteristic of the architecture of Jerusalem is the coexistence of old and new, sacred and secular, in a variety of styles. The most conspicuous feature is the city wall erected in 1538–40 by the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (Süleyman I), largely on the foundations of earlier walls dating chiefly to the period of the Crusades but in some places to Byzantine, Herodian, and even Hasmonean times. The Old City may be entered through any of seven gates in the wall: the New, Damascus, and Herod's gates to the north, the St. Stephen's (or Lion's) Gate to the east, the Dung and Zion gates to the south, and the Jaffa Gate to the west. An eighth gate, the Golden Gate to the east, remains sealed, however, for it is through this portal that Jewish legend states that the Messiah will enter the city. The Jaffa and Damascus gates are still the main entrances. The city wall remains intact and unbroken, save for a gap (immediately next to the Jaffa Gate) that was cut by the Ottoman authorities in 1898 to facilitate the grand entrance of Emperor William II of Germany on the occasion of his visit to the city.

      On three sides of the Temple Mount, parts of the original supporting walls still stand. During the centuries when Jews were excluded from the Temple Mount, its Western Wall became Jewry's holiest shrine. Since 1967 the wall has been further exposed, and a large plaza has been cleared in front of it. The main buildings on the platform are two Islamic structures: the magnificent, gold-capped Dome of the Rock, completed in 691, and the silver-domed Al-Aqṣā Mosque, built in the early 8th century.

      The Citadel (with David's Tower) beside the Jaffa Gate, which acquired its present form in the 16th century, was created over ruins from the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, integrating large parts of Crusader structures and some Mamlūk additions. The large number of churches mainly represent two great periods of Christian architecture, the Byzantine and Crusader eras. The former is characterized by two- or three-tiered ornamental or basketlike carved capitals. The Crusader architecture reflects Romanesque styling, which features semicircular arches and barrel vaults. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Sepulchre) incorporates elements of both styles, but its facade and layout are architecturally Romanesque. The best example of the mixed style is the Church of St. Anne (its substructure is Byzantine); others are the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, which combines Romanesque with Oriental elements, and the Tomb of the Virgin, which is Romanesque in its upper part but Byzantine in its lower.

      The central part of the triple bazaar, as well as its link with the Cardo (a restored Roman-Byzantine mall), is of Crusader origin. Mamlūk constructions of the 13th to the 15th century, as well as coats of arms of Mamlūk rulers, are found along David Street and near the Gate of the Chain at the Western Wall. The constructions are characterized by “stalactite (stalactite work)” or “honeycomb” (muqarnas) ornamentation and the use of multicoloured slabs of stone. Ottoman architecture of the early 16th century continued the Mamlūk style and is represented in some structures of the Temple Mount. The rock-cut tombs east and north of the Old City exemplify architecture of the first half of the 1st millennium BCE (Tomb of Pharaoh's Daughter) and the Second Temple period (Tombs of the Kings, Tomb of Absalom, and Tomb of Zechariah). The restored Monastery of the Cross, in the heart of modern west Jerusalem, dates originally from the 5th century.

      As Jerusalem spread outside the walls, its architecture came to be characterized chiefly by iron beams and red-tiled roofs. From 1930 there was a radical change, and flat roofs and reinforced concrete faced with naturally dressed stone predominated. The arrival of a number of German Jewish architects, refugees from Nazism, reinforced the trend toward modernism. Among important buildings of the British mandate period are Government House (since 1948 the UN headquarters in the region), the King David Hotel, the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, the Jewish Agency headquarters, and the Young Men's Christian Association building in west Jerusalem. In the period between 1948 and 1967 much of the residential construction in the Israeli sector took the form of standardized, high-density apartment blocks. Since 1967 design and construction standards have improved. Buildings are seldom taller than eight stories, but since 1967 there has been a growing tendency, despite opposition, for high-rise construction. This is the case with a number of modern hotels at the western entrance to the city, and the construction of office buildings in the city centre is following the trend. All building, however, must follow a city ordinance—originally issued by Colonel (later Sir) Ronald Storrs, British governor of the city from 1917 to 1926—requiring that all buildings be faced in stone. With only a few exceptions, the ordinance has been enforced continuously since the 1920s. Outstanding modern architecture is represented by the Knesset Building, the Israel Museum, the Jerusalem Theatre, and the Hebrew Union College. More-contemporary trends are represented by the Bank of Israel, the City Hall, and the Supreme Court building. Religious buildings remain a prominent part of the urban scene. In 2000 Jerusalem contained 1,204 synagogues (including small prayer halls), 158 churches, and 73 mosques.

People

      Because Jerusalem is a holy city, uniquely revered by the three major monotheistic religions, its people have traditionally been classified according to religious affiliation. A majority of the city's residents are either secular or traditional Jews. Muslims are the most homogeneous of the communities, and the Christians—who are represented by numerous sects and churches—are the most diversified. Residential segregation is the norm, and Jews and Arabs live almost exclusively in specific districts. Among the Jews there is a further subdivision of residential districts among ultraorthodox, traditional, and secular Jews, and Armenian Christians likewise form their own enclave in the Old City.

      Muslims are the most ethnically homogeneous group, being very nearly all Arabs. The Christian community is somewhat more diverse: although the city has attracted visitors and settlers from throughout the Christian world (and Christians are by far the smallest religious group), Arabs remain the largest ethnic element among the city's Christians. Jerusalem's Jewish population is far and away the most ethnically diverse. Jews from every part of the Diaspora have settled in the city, adding to the extant Jewish community. Although the political conflict over the fate of the city and the broader region often has been shrouded in religious overtones, it has largely taken the shape of competing national aspirations—one Jewish Israeli and the other Palestinian Arab—and these two groups form the major political and demographic blocs within the modern city.

Jews (Judaism)

 Among the Jews (Jew), an important line of division is between Ashkenazim (Ashkenazi) (broadly, Jews of central and eastern European origin) and Sephardim (Sephardi) (Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin, but the term is used more generally to include North African or Oriental Jews). Of no less importance is the division between the Orthodox and the more secular-minded segments of the population. Secular, traditional, and ultraorthodox groups each constitute roughly one-third of the Jewish population. Religious controversy plays a large part in local politics, and disputes often erupt over issues such as Sabbath observance or kashruth (dietary law). Some ultraorthodox neighbourhoods are barred to traffic on the Sabbath.

      Jerusalem is the centre of Jewish religious reverence and aspiration. The most sacred spot is the Temple Mount, on which many Orthodox Jews refrain from setting foot for fear of profaning the sanctity of the site where once stood the most sacred Holy of Holies. In addition to the Western Wall—the most important centre of prayer and pilgrimage—other holy places include the reputed tomb of King David on Mount Zion (Zion), the Mount of Olives (Olives, Mount of), with its ancient Jewish cemetery, and the tombs of priestly families in the Valley of Kidron. Old synagogues and study houses in the Old City have been refurbished; particularly worthy of mention is the interconnected group of four synagogues begun in the 16th century by Jews exiled from Spain. Jerusalem is one of the world's foremost centres of rabbinic learning and contains scores of yeshivas. Notable modern religious structures include the Jerusalem Great Synagogue and the synagogue and associated institutions of the followers of the Rebbe of Belz, a Hasidic rabbi whose court is in Jerusalem.

Muslims (Islām)

      Muslims (Islāmic world) formed only a minority of the Arab population of Jerusalem in the first decade of the 20th century but by 2000 outnumbered Christians by an overwhelming margin. Almost all are Sunni Muslims. Jerusalem is revered by Muslims as the third holiest place on earth, and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (taqdīs) is viewed as an optional complement to the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Unlike the hajj, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem is undertaken individually at any time of the year. Jerusalem was also the starting point of the annual Nābī Mūsā (Prophet Moses) pilgrimage to a Muslim shrine on the road to Jericho, locally held to be the burial place of the biblical prophet. The festival, which was always timed to coincide with Easter celebrations, was at one time the largest mass pilgrimage in Palestine and played an important part of the religious ritual of Jerusalem and the surrounding area. The Nābī Mūsā pilgrimage, which was under the patronage of the Ḥusaynī family, died away in the early 1950s.

      Since 1967 Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf and the Muslim religious trusts (waqfs) have been administered by a Muslim council that does not recognize the sovereignty of Israel over east Jerusalem. The council also assumed responsibility for the Sharīʿah courts and other Muslim religious institutions that had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Council of Waqf and Muslim Affairs in Amman, Jordan. Since 1995 the Palestinian Authority (PA) has come to exercise effective control over all Muslim institutions, religious courts, and appointments to religious office in east Jerusalem.

Christians (Christianity)

 Christians constitute the smallest but most highly diversified section of the population. They number some 14,000, of whom about four-fifths are Arabs. Jerusalem is the seat of three resident patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox churches (Eastern Orthodoxy) and of many archbishops and bishops, and almost all the principal historic sects of Christendom are represented in the city in some form. The main groups are Eastern Orthodox, Monophysite, Roman Catholic, and Protestant. The major denominations, except the Protestants, share control over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Sepulchre) according to a rule—known as the “status quo”—promulgated by the Ottoman sultan in 1852.

      The Greek Orthodox church (Greece, Church of) maintains a patriarchate with jurisdiction over the entire Holy Land. Although the laity and parish clergy are mainly Arab, the patriarch, bishops, and regular clergy are almost all Greek. The patriarchate owns large tracts of valuable real estate both in Jerusalem and elsewhere. The Russian Orthodox church too owns considerable properties dating to tsarist times. The Roman Catholic church in Jerusalem, established in 1099 during the First Crusade, was dissolved when the Muslims won the city in 1244. The Franciscan order, which since 1334 has been the “Custodian of the Holy Land,” is charged with the safekeeping of Roman Catholic rights and properties in Jerusalem. The Latin patriarchate was reestablished in 1847. Of the monophysite churches, the Armenian (Armenian Apostolic Church) is the largest, its patriarchate having been established in the 6th century; other churches include the Coptic and the Abyssinian. At least 1,000 Armenians live in the city, about half of them in a compound in the Armenian quarter around the seat of the patriarchate at the Cathedral of St. James, which constitutes the largest monastic centre in the region. Smaller Christian sects with communities and institutions in Jerusalem include the Syrian Orthodox, Greek Catholic (Melchite), and Armenian Catholic churches. The small Protestant community includes Anglicans, Lutherans, and adherents of American Evangelical churches.

Demographic trends

      Estimates of Jerusalem's population during ancient times are variable and unreliable, but throughout the Ottoman period it is apparent that the city's population remained quite small, growing significantly only since the mid-19th century. Estimates based on Ottoman sources indicate that, although the overall population level fluctuated between the 16th and the early 20th century (see table (Demography of Jerusalem)), the number of Jewish residents as a proportion of the total population grew steadily. Jews had become the largest single religious group by the third quarter of the 19th century, and Christians had surpassed Muslims as a percentage of the population by 1910. Bolstered, to a large extent, by the influx of Zionist immigrants (which began in the 1880s), the Jewish population continued to grow and had become an absolute majority by the late 19th century. Jewish numerical predominance strengthened during the mandate period. By 1946 the Jewish majority was overwhelming, and in 1948—when the city was divided—a large number of Arabs, particularly Christians, fled the city (though some later returned). Between 1948 and the Six-Day War of 1967, when Jerusalem was unified under Israeli rule, the Jewish population continued to grow, albeit slowly, as immigrants settled in the western portion of the city.

      Population growth after that time was rapid. Between 1967 and 2000 the number of residents in the unified city more than doubled, although the Jewish majority fell noticeably, from roughly three-fourths of the overall population to slightly more than two-thirds. This was largely because of a high rate of natural increase among the Arab population (now mostly Muslim), whereas slower Jewish natural increase needed to be reinforced by migration—for which the two largest sources since the late 1980s have been the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. After 1967 Jews began to return to areas of east Jerusalem that had been wholly Arab since 1948. More recently, however, there has been a small net migration of Jews from Jerusalem to other parts of Israel. The average household size in Jerusalem (lower for Jews and higher for Arabs) is above the Israeli average—reflecting the large families characteristic of the Muslim and Orthodox Jewish populations of the city—but slightly lower than the West Bank average.

Economy

      A major source of livelihood in Jerusalem is government and public service employment. Since 1967, business activity and investment in the city have been stimulated by the housing boom and the ever-increasing influx of pilgrims and tourists—except in periods of high political tension, as after September 2000. Personal income for both Jews and Arabs has risen steadily. Extreme poverty is concentrated among sections of the Muslim population, particularly in the Old City, among strictly Orthodox Jews, and among Jews from Africa and Asia. Slightly fewer than half of those above age 15 were regarded as forming part of the civilian workforce in 2000; at the same time roughly one-tenth of the workforce was unemployed, a higher proportion than in Israel's coastal cities but considerably lower than adjacent areas of the West Bank. Also, in politically stable times, thousands of West Bank Arabs enter the city to work as unskilled labourers, especially in the construction industry.

Manufacturing and services

      The establishment of heavy manufacturing industries has not been encouraged, in the interest of preserving the traditional character of the city. Combined with transport and marketing difficulties, this has limited the city to a number of small industries. Modern science-based industries have developed since the 1980s, mainly in the western outskirts of the city and in some easily accessible satellite settlements. Nevertheless, the percentage of the workforce engaged in manufacturing industry remains quite small, whereas about two-thirds is engaged in services. In the late 1990s the most important enterprises were electrical and electronic equipment, wood, furniture, paper and printing, food products, metal products, textiles, clothing and footwear, and chemicals. Small workshops produce giftware, religious articles, curios, and printed fabrics. Some Arabs work in Jewish-owned enterprises, particularly in the construction and tourism sectors; virtually no Jews work in Arab-owned enterprises.

      The tourist boom stimulated the construction of first-rate hotels in the city, which receives a very large number of tourists. By 2000 there were several dozen, which hosted more than one million visitors. Nearly one-half of the city's tourists come from Europe and about one-third from the Americas. The heaviest influx is linked with the Jewish High Holidays, as well as Passover, Christmas, and Easter.

Transportation and communication

      A north-south road bisects Jerusalem in its course along the watershed between the coastal plain and the valley of the Jordan River and links the West Bank city of Nāblus to the north with the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Hebron and the Israeli city of Beersheba to the south. Another road links Jerusalem with the city of Jericho in the West Bank, about 36 miles (58 km) by road to the east, and from there it follows the Jordan River to Lake Tiberias (Galilee, Sea of) (Sea of Galilee) in the north. A further road cuts across the Judaean desert to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The east-west road from the Israeli city of Tel Aviv–Yafo (Tel Aviv–Jaffa)—which lies 58 miles (93 km) to the west of Jerusalem—intersects the holy city and the West Bank and crosses the Jordan River north of the Dead Sea, continuing to Amman, Jordan, about 60 miles (95 km) to the east. The Tel Aviv–Jerusalem stretch of this thoroughfare has been developed into a modern four-lane highway for much of its length. A newer road leads westward from Jerusalem, eventually converging on Ben-Gurion International Airport, the largest airport in Israel, in Lod.

      Road construction has increased considerably in the city since the mid-1970s, but traffic congestion remains one of the most acute problems for urban planners. Although the number of vehicles per inhabitant has increased greatly in recent years, it remains well below the Israeli average but exceeds that of the West Bank. Public transportation (mass transit) for Jewish districts in both west and east Jerusalem is provided mainly by a bus cooperative. Interurban service to Jewish-inhabited areas in Israel and the West Bank is also operated by the cooperative from the Central Bus Station near the western entrance to the city. Services to Jewish areas do not operate on the Sabbath (i.e., from shortly before sundown on Friday to shortly after sundown on Saturday) nor on important Jewish holy days. Services to Arab-inhabited districts of the city as well as to areas of the West Bank under the control of the PA are provided by privately owned companies out of a bus station near the Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem. Sheruts (shared taxis) and private taxi services operate on the Sabbath and holy days within nonreligious areas of the city and also connect Jerusalem with certain other destinations including Ben-Gurion International Airport. Separate sherut and taxi services operate from the Damascus Gate to Arab towns and cities in the West Bank.

      The single-track Yafo-Jerusalem railway, offering spectacular scenic views as it wound through the Hills of Judaea, opened in 1892. For many years it connected Jerusalem with Tel Aviv–Yafo and Haifa on the coast and with Beersheba inland. Before 1948 it was also possible to travel by rail to Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.

      Jerusalem Airport at ʿĀṭārūt (Atarot), on the northern edge of the extended city boundaries, served a limited amount of inland traffic for a time but no longer functions as a commercial passenger airport.

      Telephone service, now privatized, has greatly improved since the 1980s. The number of lines more than doubled in the final two decades of the 20th century, reaching nearly one line for every two residents. In addition, mobile phones are in widespread use. Long-distance connections, difficult to achieve until the 1980s, are now easily established. Mail service is more erratic. Apart from the central post office, the city contains numerous branch offices and a number of privately operated postal agencies. Among middle-class Jews (traditional as well as secular) and Arabs, computer literacy is widespread, and communication by e-mail is commonplace.

Administration and society

Government

      Jerusalem is governed by a Municipal Council that is composed of 31 members who are elected every four years. The council is headed by the mayor, who since 1975 has been elected by direct popular vote. Israeli Jews form the largest and most politically active section of the population. Arabs in east Jerusalem, with few exceptions, remained Jordanian citizens after 1967. Most, however, regard themselves as Palestinians by nationality. Although they have the right to vote in municipal elections, few have done so, because the majority refuse to recognize Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem. No Arab has served on the Municipal Council since 1967, although some have served on the council's staff. Arab residents of east Jerusalem were permitted to vote in the 1996 elections for the Palestinian National Council (the legislative arm of the PA). Official correspondence is issued by the municipality in both Hebrew and Arabic.

      Jerusalem is not a high-crime city—though in the 1990s car theft by mixed Arab-Jewish gangs became a serious problem, and instances of lesser crimes, including drug trafficking, petty theft, and prostitution, have been typical of those in any large city. Palestinian militants operating out of the West Bank waged intermittent bombing attacks against Jews in west Jerusalem beginning in the late 1990s. These assaults subsequently accelerated. Except during such periods of political unrest, however, all areas of the city are quite safe. Law enforcement by the Israeli police generally has been effective, though the reputation of the force has been damaged by occasional cases of corruption. The use of Israeli troops and of Border Police units in quelling political disturbances in Jerusalem—sometimes with great loss of life—has exacerbated Palestinian hostility to Israeli rule. From the mid-1990s police officers of the PA, operating out of uniform, began to exercise authority in Arab-inhabited districts of east Jerusalem. However, unlike the Palestinian population of the rest of the West Bank, which is now subject to Palestinian courts, the Arab population of Jerusalem remains subject to Israeli law and to the Israeli judicial system. The Israeli law courts hold a high reputation, even among the Palestinian population, for their integrity and impartiality.

      Jerusalem is the hub of Israel's government. It is the seat of the president, Knesset (parliament) (Knesset), ministries, and the Supreme Court of Israel. Most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, although some foreign embassies and legations were located in Jerusalem until 1980. France and the United States each maintain consulates in the eastern and western parts of the city. Diplomats living in the Tel Aviv–Yafo area go to Jerusalem to present their credentials to the president and transact business at the Foreign Ministry. The prime minister's office and many other ministries are concentrated in Kiryat Ben-Gurion, the government complex, which is flanked by the Knesset Building on one side and the Bank of Israel on the other. A new building houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry of Justice, the National Police Headquarters, and certain other government offices are located in east Jerusalem. In addition to the Supreme Court and the chief rabbinate, Jerusalem also houses the head offices of many world Jewish bodies, such as the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, as well as the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority (Yad Vashem), which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust.

      Responsibility for the city's holy places and religious communities is vested in Israel's Ministry of Religious Affairs, which has a liaison for each of the main denominations. The administration, protection, and care of holy places are in the hands of the respective religious authorities. Penalties of up to seven years' imprisonment may be inflicted for desecrating these places.

Municipal services

      Jerusalem has always depended on human ingenuity for its water supply. The underground aqueduct thought to have been built in the time of King Hezekiah (8th century BCE) is still extant, and many reservoirs and rainwater cisterns date from ancient times. Until the 1920s there was no piped supply. Rainwater was stored in cisterns, and vendors sold water in the streets. Since the 1950s the New City has been supplied from the Israeli national water grid; east Jerusalem was reconnected to the west Jerusalem system in 1967. By 2000 the water network was extensive, yet the supply was under considerable strain as reserves were being steadily depleted.

 Electricity is supplied by the national grid of an Israeli government corporation, as well as by a small diesel plant in east Jerusalem, and the city has an extensive modern sewerage system. Drainage repairs in the Christian quarter have uncovered Byzantine pavements, which have been restored. Additionally, parts of the Via Dolorosa, said to follow the path along which Jesus carried the cross to Golgotha, have been repaved to facilitate the Christian Holy Week pilgrimage.

      Municipal services of all kinds in Arab areas of the city remain significantly deficient by comparison with those in Jewish districts.

Health

      The Hadassah Medical Centre at ʿEn Kerem, one of the most advanced institutions of its kind in the world, treats patients from throughout Israel, as well as from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, as does the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. Other hospitals include Shaʿare Tzedeq, which pays special attention to the requirements of Orthodox Jews; Biqur Ḥolim; St. John's Ophthalmic Hospital; Ezrat Nashim for mental patients; Alyn for handicapped children; an Arab Muslim hospital, Al-Maqāṣid al-Khayriyyah, at Al-Ṭūr; and an Arab Christian hospital, Al-Muṭallaʿ (Augusta Victoria Hospital), on the Mount of Olives, run by Lutheran organizations that mainly care for the Arab population. A modern medical centre that also serves the Arab population was opened in 1982 at El-Sheikh Jarrāḥ in northeast Jerusalem. Also important are the Austrian Hospice inside the Old City, the French Hospital, St. Louis (for terminal cases), and the Sisters of Charity (for the handicapped). After unification of east and west Jerusalem, the Kupat Ḥolim, which is the medical insurance arm of the Histadrut (the Israeli General Federation of Labour), established several clinics in the eastern part of the city. Supplementing the regular medical facilities are the Magen David Adom and the Red Crescent (counterparts of the Red Cross), which provide additional emergency services.

      Most families belong to one of the medical insurance funds run by the Israeli labour federation and other nongovernmental bodies. Medical insurance is by law obligatory for all Israeli citizens. The municipal social welfare department takes care of social cases that are not covered by medical insurance. Municipal clinics have been established for mothers and children. Health supervision, including dental inspection and treatment, is provided in all of the city's schools. All health services are subsidized by the Israeli government.

Education

      Because of the high birth rate and the strong religious convictions of many among the population, education has always involved complex issues. The language of instruction is Hebrew in most Jewish schools and Arabic in Arab schools. English is the most common second language. Separate Jewish school systems exist for the various religious traditions. In these the curriculum concentrates much more heavily on the study of Jewish religion, history, and sacred texts. In structure and curriculum, as a rule, the government-controlled Arab schools follow the Jordanian system. While the majority of school-age children attend government schools, there are numerous private institutions maintained by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religious organizations; in the Christian schools the language of instruction is sometimes English or French. State kindergartens were introduced in east Jerusalem in 1967. Education is the single most important item in the city's budget, and the municipality is responsible for maintaining classrooms from kindergarten through high school.

      The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (opened 1925) is Israel's oldest, though no longer the largest, institution of higher learning, with an enrollment exceeding 20,000 students. It has two main campuses—at Mount Scopus in the east and at Givʿat Ram in the west, in addition to the medical school at ʿEn Kerem and the Faculty of Agriculture in Reḥovot. The old buildings on Mount Scopus have been renovated and supplemented by a new complex of buildings. Al-Quds University (1995), a Palestinian Arab institution with headquarters at Abū Dīs, just outside the city limits in the West Bank, operates partly in buildings in east Jerusalem. Other institutes of higher learning are the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (1906), the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music (1945), the Hebrew Union College (a branch of the Reform Jewish seminary founded in Cincinnati, Ohio), several teachers colleges, a Mormon university, and an Armenian seminary.

      The Jewish National and University Library (1892), with more than four million volumes in its main and dependent libraries, is Israel's largest. It holds the foremost collection of books, incunabula, and periodicals of Judaica in the world, as well as an excellent library on all fields, particularly archaeology and Oriental studies, including the history of Palestine. In addition, there are the Library of the Knesset (1949) and the State Archives (1949) and the Municipal Library and its branches. The Gulbenkian Library (1929) is one of the best Armenian libraries outside Armenia. The Khalidi Library (1900) in the Old City holds several hundred Arabic manuscripts and several thousand Arabic books. Numerous other libraries serve a variety of needs.

      Social services provide adult education, senior citizen clubs, and youth clubs among a variety of programs in both parts of the city. Community centres are focal points of educational and recreation programs in the neighbourhoods.

Cultural life

      The Israel Museum (1965), in addition to its large collection of Western and Israeli paintings, houses a comprehensive Middle Eastern archaeological collection, several important Dead Sea Scrolls and other relics (displayed in the Shrine of the Book), a notable collection of Jewish ritual art, Middle Eastern ethnological exhibits, a sculpture garden, and a youth wing. The Rockefeller Archaeological Museum (1938) concentrates on the archaeology of the Holy Land, and there is an Islamic Museum near Al-Aqṣā Mosque, as well as the L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum for Islamic Art (1974) in west Jerusalem.

      Among important scholarly research institutes in the city are the École Biblique et Archéologique Française (1890), the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum (1924), the Pontifical Biblical Institute (1909), the British School of Archaeology (founded in 1919, from 1998 operating as part of the Council for British Research in the Levant, Jerusalem), the William Foxwell Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (1900), and the Ben-Zvi Institute (1948). All of these have libraries dealing with theology and the ancient and modern history of Israel and the Middle East; some have collections of antiquities and valuable manuscripts.

      Jerusalem is not a major centre for the performing arts. Nevertheless, concerts and exhibitions, including the biennial Jerusalem Book Fair, are held at Binyane Ha-ʾUmma (the International Convention Center). The Jerusalem Theatre in west Jerusalem holds performances by visiting acting companies and is the home of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. The Jerusalem Cinematheque shows a wide variety of films in many languages.

      The Jerusalem Foundation (1966) collects funds for the preservation of the city's multireligious heritage and the embellishment of its barren areas. This foundation is responsible for creating many of Jerusalem's parks, gardens, woodlands, and forests. The largest is Jerusalem Park, designed as a greenbelt to encircle the Old City walls. There are also small gardens, playgrounds, and recreation areas dotting the city. The Biblical Zoo houses specimens of all the animals that are mentioned in the Bible.

      The English-language daily Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem Post, The) is published in Jerusalem, as is the Arabic daily Al-Quds. The major Hebrew daily newspapers, however, are all published in Tel Aviv–Yafo. The headquarters of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (television and radio) are also in Jerusalem. Radio broadcasts are mainly in Hebrew and Arabic, though some programs are also broadcast in other languages. The PA broadcasts radio and television programs from transmitters located outside the city.

      The municipality and a public lottery subsidize professional sports and facilities for the public. The main sports arena, Teddy Kollek Stadium (named for the city's longtime mayor), seats more than 20,000 spectators. The leading professional sports are football (soccer) and basketball. Beitar Jerusalem football team has won Israel's national championship several times.

Joshua Prawer Bernard M.J. Wasserstein

History

      The earliest surveys and excavations in Jerusalem were conducted in the 19th century, mainly by European Christians such as the French scholars Louis Félicien de Saulcy and Charles Clermont-Ganneau (Clermont-Ganneau, Charles) and the Englishman Sir Charles Warren, who were inspired by the wish to identify locations mentioned in the Bible. The Palestine Exploration Fund, founded in 1865, sponsored a number of excavations and topographic surveys. It was not, however, until the excavations of Kathleen Kenyon (Kenyon, Dame Kathleen) between 1961 and 1967 that the first modern, scientific archaeological (archaeology) work was conducted in the city.

      Since 1968 extensive excavations have been carried out in and around the Old City on behalf of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the Israel Exploration Society. The digs around the southern and western walls of the Temple Mount, which have reached the Herodian pavements, have revealed the steps leading to the Temple, the priests' underground entrance to the Temple, and many religious objects. There are also notable remains of public buildings alongside a main street. Remains found within the precincts of the First Wall in the Jewish quarter bear the imprint of burning and destruction during the sack of the city by the Romans in 70 CE. Religious artifacts from the period of the First Temple have been discovered, and for the first time walls of structures dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BCE have been found. One of these has been identified as the “Broad Wall” described by Nehemiah. A crucified body from Roman times, with a nail still lodged in the ankle, was discovered in a Jewish tomb at Givʿat Ha-Mivtar. Extensive excavations in the Citadel uncovered structures of the Hasmonean, Herodian, Crusader, and Mamlūk periods.

      Near the Temple Mount inside the walls, notable remains of an Umayyad palace have been found. The excavations since 1978 in the Mount Ophel and City of David area have revealed evidence of settlement dating to the 4th millennium BCE as well as of Canaanite and early Hebrew settlements, the latter with a wealth of seals, epigraphic material, and everyday utensils. A most significant discovery was the Roman and Byzantine Cardo, a street running from the vicinity of the Zion Gate through the restored Jewish quarter to its Crusader part and crossing the Old City bazaars. The street has been reconstructed using the ancient pavement, columns, and capitals. The discovery of a Crusader church, hospice, and hospital of the Teutonic Order (12th century) in the Jewish quarter and the huge expanse of wall and towers (from the Crusader and Ayyūbid periods of the 12th and 13th centuries) between the Dung Gate and the Zion Gate made a major contribution to the history of the city.

      The flurry of archaeological investigation in Jerusalem has not been without political controversy, however. In 1997 the opening of an archaeological tunnel exit along the Western Wall ignited Muslim fears that the excavations might undermine the Islamic structures on the Temple Mount, and rioting ensued. Likewise, some Jews have contended that renovations and excavations on the Temple Mount begun by the Muslim waqf in the late 1990s might endanger Jewish cultural treasures.

Joshua Prawer Bernard M.J. Wasserstein

Ancient origins of the city

      The earliest traces of human settlement in the city area, found on a hill to the southeast, are from the late Chalcolithic Period (Copper Age) and Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE). Excavations have revealed that a settlement existed on a site south of the Temple Mount, and a massive town wall was found just above the Gihon Spring, which determined the location of the ancient settlement. The name, known in its earliest form as Urusalim, is probably of western Semitic origin and apparently means “Foundation of Shalem (God).” The city and its earliest rulers, the Egyptians, are mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts (c. 1900–1800 BCE) and again in the 14th-century Tell el-Amarna (Amarna, Tell el-) correspondence, which contains a message from the city's ruler, Abdi-Kheba (Abdu-Ḥeba), requiring his sovereign's help against the invading Hapiru (Habiru, ʿApiru). A biblical narrative mentions the meeting of the Canaanite Melchizedek, said to be king of Salem (Jerusalem), with the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. A later episode in the biblical text mentions another king, Adonizedek, who headed an Amorite coalition and was vanquished by Joshua.

      According to biblical accounts, Jerusalem, on the frontier of Benjamin and Judah and inhabited by a mixed population described as Jebusites, was captured by David, founder of the joint kingdom of Israel and Judah, and the city became the Jewish kingdom's capital. This has been dated to about 1000 BCE. David's successor, King Solomon, extended the city and built his Temple on the threshing floor of Araunah (Ornan) the Jebusite. Thus Jerusalem became the place of the royal palace and the sacred site of a monotheistic religion.

      On Solomon's death the northern tribes seceded. About 930 BCE the Egyptian pharaoh Sheshonk I sacked the city, to be followed by the Philistines and Arabians in 850 and Joash of Israel in 786. After Hezekiah became king of Judah, he built new fortifications and an underground tunnel, which brought water from Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam inside the city, but he succumbed to the might of Sennacherib of Assyria, who in 701 forced payment of a heavy tribute. In 612 Assyria yielded its primacy to Babylon. Eight years later Jerusalem was despoiled, and its king was deported to Babylon. In 587/586 BCE the city and Temple were completely destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar II (Nebuchadnezzar), and the Hebrew captivity began. It ended in 538 BCE when Cyrus II (the Great) of Persia, who had overcome Babylon, permitted the Jews, led by Zerubbabel, of the Davidic house, to return to Jerusalem. The Temple was restored (515 BCE) despite Samaritan opposition, and the city became the centre of the new statehood. Its position was strengthened when Nehemiah (c. 444) restored its fortifications.

Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods

      With the coming of Alexander the Great and his victory at Issus in 333 BCE, Jerusalem fell under Greek influence. After Alexander's death, Palestine fell to the share of his marshal Ptolemy I Soter, son of Lagus, who had occupied Egypt and had made Alexandria his capital. In the year 198 BCE Jerusalem was acquired by the northern dynasty, descended from Seleucus I Nicator, another of Alexander's marshals, which ruled from Antioch (now in Turkey). The growth of Greek, pagan influence affronted the orthodox Jews, whose hostility burst into armed rebellion in 167 BCE after the Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes deliberately desecrated the Temple. The revolt was led by Mattathias, son of Hasmoneus (Hasmon), and was carried on by his son Judas (Maccabeus, Judas), known as the Maccabee (Maccabees) (Maccabeus). The Hasmoneans succeeded in expelling the Seleucids, and Jerusalem regained its position as the capital of an independent state ruled by the priestly Hasmonean Dynasty.

Roman rule

      For some time Rome had been expanding its authority in Asia, and in 63 BCE the Roman triumvir Pompey the Great captured Jerusalem. A clash with Jewish nationalism was averted for a while by the political skill of a remarkable family whose most illustrious member was Herod the Great (Herod). Herod was of Edomite descent, though of Jewish faith, and was allied through his mother with the nobility of Nabataean Petra, the wealthy Arab state that lay to the east of the Jordan River. In 40 BCE Herod, who had distinguished himself as governor of Galilee, was appointed “client” king of Judaea by the Roman Senate. He was the friend of the Roman triumvir Mark Antony (Antony, Mark) and, after the defeat of Antony by Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) at Actium in 31 BCE, of Octavian himself.

      Herod reigned for over 30 years, during which period Jerusalem reached its peak of greatness, growing in wealth and expanding even beyond the new double line of walls. The Temple Mount esplanade was artificially enlarged with supporting walls (including the Western Wall) to house Herod's greatest work, the grandly reconstructed Temple, which took more than a generation to complete. The new royal palace, occupying much of the area of the current Armenian quarter, was strengthened by immense towers that were integrated into the older Hasmonean walls, and the Temple was defended by a new citadel. An amphitheatre added to the Hellenistic character of the city. Centre of religion, goal of obligatory pilgrimage, and the seat of the ruler and of the autonomous court of the sanhedrin (Jewish Council of Elders), Jerusalem became a great metropolis of the Hellenistic Age. Herod died in 4 BCE and was succeeded by his son Herod Archelaus, who was subsequently deposed by the Romans in 6 CE and replaced by the first of a series of Roman procurators. It was under the fifth procurator, Pontius Pilate (Pilate, Pontius), that Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus Christ) was put to death.

      From 41 to 44 CE the kingdom of Herod was reconstituted for his grandson Herod Agrippa I, upon whose premature death the procurators returned. In 66 the Jews rebelled against Rome, and in 70 the city was besieged and almost wholly destroyed by the Roman forces under the future emperor Titus. The Temple (Jerusalem, Temple of), Herod's greatest achievement, was reduced to ashes. By 130 the city had been partially repopulated, and the Jews again revolted unsuccessfully against Rome from 132 to 135. Emperor Hadrian decided to plant a Roman city, Aelia Capitolina, on the site. The general layout of his town has lasted into the 21st century.

      Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem are not recorded until the 4th century. It was the conversion to Christianity of Constantine I (the Great) (Constantine I) and the famous pilgrimage (326) of his mother, St. Helena (Helena, Saint), who found the True Cross, that made possible the building of the great shrines in Jerusalem, including the Anastasis (“Resurrection”; later known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Sepulchre)), and inaugurated one of the city's most splendid and prosperous epochs. Christian glorification carried on into the 6th century when, under the emperor Justinian I, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt and many other churches, as well as monasteries and hospices, were established. In 614 this golden age was brought to an end by the Persian invasion, in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were massacred and the churches destroyed.

Early Islamic and Crusader periods

      In 638 the Muslim caliph Umar Iʿ entered Jerusalem and, according to Muslim historians, discovered the Temple Mount in utter decay and disrepair. He immediately set about repairing the site, and in 688–691 the fifth Umayyad caliph, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (Abd al-Malikʿ), built the Dome of the Rock. Despite being proclaimed a goal of Muslim pilgrimage, the city lost some of its earlier importance when the caliphate was moved from Damascus to Baghdad by the ʿAbbāsids in the mid-8th century. Jerusalem shrank in size, and the new line of walls (11th century) did not include the City of David and Zion. Both the Umayyads and their successors, the ʿAbbāsids, pursued a liberal policy toward Christians and Jews. In 969 control of the city passed to the Shīʿite Fāṭimid (Fāṭimid Dynasty) caliphs of Egypt, and in 1010 the emotionally unstable caliph al-Ḥākim (Ḥākim, al-) ordered the destruction of Christian shrines. In 1071 the Seljuq Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert (Manzikert, Battle of), displaced the Egyptians as masters of the Holy Land, and cut the pilgrim routes, thus stimulating the Crusades.

      The city was recaptured by the Fāṭimids (1098) a year before the hosts of the First Crusade besieged the city. In 1099 Crusader forces under Godfrey of Bouillon conquered Jerusalem and launched a reign of terror against Muslims and Jews. The Crusader state took its name, the kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, kingdom of), from the city, and the city regained its position as a capital. The kingdom, with its semi-independent northern principalities, stretched from the confines of modern Turkey to the Red Sea. The great Muslim sanctuaries became Christian churches, and in 1149 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, substantially as it exists today, was consecrated. Muslims and Jews were barred from living in the city. The kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when the city was taken by the renowned Ayyūbid sultan Saladin, whose successors ruled from Damascus and Cairo. Jerusalem was again in Christian hands in 1229–39 and 1240–44, when it was sacked by the Khwārezmian Turks.

Joshua Prawer Stewart Henry Perowne Bernard M.J. Wasserstein

Mamlūk and Ottoman periods

      In 1247 the holy city fell once more to Egypt, now ruled by the Mamlūks (Mamlūk). The great sanctuaries became Muslim again, and the only Christians who remained were the Greek Orthodox and other Eastern sects. In the 14th century the Franciscans began to represent Roman Catholic interests. The Jews, who had been barred from the city by the Crusaders, returned and from the mid-13th century inhabited their own quarter. The layout of the quarters now constituting the Old City was fixed in that period. The Mamlūks dotted the Temple Mount and the city with mosques, madrasahs (religious schools), and ornamental tombs.

      In 1517 the Ottoman (Ottoman Empire) sultan Selim I took the city and inaugurated a Turkish regime that lasted 400 years. The 16th century was a period of great urban development. In addition to the new walls, which still encompass the Old City, and the repaired water supply, new madrasahs and waqfs (religious endowments) and other charitable institutions multiplied. But by the end of the century the city began an economic decline that lasted until the 19th century. During that period a series of disputes between the Christian sects over rights at the holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem gradually developed into conflicts among the European powers. The Russians became the protectors of the rights of the Orthodox churches, the French and Venetians of the Latin institutions.

 In 1831 Ibrāhīm Pasha (Ibrahim Pasha), son of the Egyptian ruler Muḥammad ʿAlī, captured Jerusalem and introduced a series of far-reaching reforms, which were retained when the Turks regained the city in 1840. The Muḥammad ʿAlī crisis and the question of administering the holy places drew the Great Powers into ever-closer involvement in Jerusalem. By midcentury all of the powers had established consulates in the city. The consuls sought to extend their influence by affirming rights of protection over native non-Muslim groups, which until then had been governed under a system that accorded Muslims dominant status. Under European pressure, the Ottoman Empire promised equal rights to Christians and Jews, an arrangement that many Muslims resisted. Although a municipality was established in 1887, politics remained largely oligarchic, and most offices were monopolized by members of Muslim notable families, such as the ʿAlamīs, the Ḥusaynīs, and the Khālidīs. Meanwhile, Jewish immigration, mainly from eastern Europe, changed the city's demographic structure and the relative importance of the Old City compared with the new quarters outside the walls. This growing influx—which was by the 1880s part of a budding Zionist movement (Zionism)—further alarmed the Muslims, who were reduced to a minority of the city's population.

Modern Jerusalem

      In December 1917 British troops under Edmund Allenby (Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount) entered Jerusalem after the retreat of Ottoman forces. This opened a new era that lasted until 1948, during which Jerusalem again became a capital, this time of a territory administered by the British under a mandate from the League of Nations (Nations, League of). Arab opposition to Zionist immigration intensified in the interwar period. The Palestinian Arab nationalist movement was headed by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Ḥājj Amīn al-Ḥusaynī (Ḥusaynī, Amīn al-). The mufti used his powers as president of the Supreme Muslim Council against rivals from other notable families, particularly Rāghib al-Nashāshībī, who served as mayor of Jerusalem from 1920 to 1934. Under British rule the city developed rapidly, expanding its economy and population despite bloody confrontations between Arabs and Jews in 1920 and 1929. In 1936 the Arabs staged a general strike, which erupted into a full-scale revolt against British authority. At one stage rebels captured the Old City. The mufti, who was the chief instigator of the rebellion, fled the country. Skirmishes continued to the eve of World War II.

      During the war years (1939–45) the city enjoyed relative calm, but, toward the end of hostilities, communal violence resumed. Between 1945 and 1948 Jewish underground militants waged a campaign of bombings against British forces. In July 1946 members of one such group, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel, where British civil and military headquarters were temporarily located, with substantial loss of life. Hostilities on a large scale between Arabs and Jews broke out in 1947, and vicious atrocities were committed by both sides. In November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) decided that Palestine be partitioned between Arabs and Jews and that Jerusalem and its surrounding area, including Bethlehem, become a corpus separatum (“separate entity”) under a governor appointed by the UN. The plan, however, was never implemented. When the British high commissioner and all remaining British forces withdrew from Jerusalem on May 14, 1948, the mandate came to an end, and the State of Israel was proclaimed. In the course of the first of the Arab-Israeli wars, Israel held west Jerusalem, and Transjordan (later the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) took control of the Old City and most of east Jerusalem. Residential segregation on the basis of ethnicity became almost total, as Arabs fled from west Jerusalem and Jews from the Jewish quarter of the Old City. Political and legal disputes over the ownership of real property abandoned during the war were to continue without resolution. A cease-fire was agreed to on November 30 and an armistice was reached in April 1949, but no peace treaty was signed at that stage.

      In December 1949 Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its capital. None of the Great Powers recognized this action, however, and few of the main organs of Israel's government moved to Jerusalem until several years had passed. Until 1967 the holy city remained partitioned and disfigured by barbed wire, lookout posts, gun emplacements, and walls. From time to time firing broke out across the armistice line. The Israelis maintained an enclave on Mount Scopus, but the Hebrew University and the Hadassah hospital that were located there were unable to resume operations. Nearly all the holy places of the three religions were held by Jordan. Access to these from west Jerusalem was possible only through a single point, known as the Mandelbaum Gate; this was usually limited to foreign diplomats, though Christians (not, in general, Jews or Israeli Muslims) were permitted to visit their holy places on festivals.

      In the Six-Day War of June 1967, the Israelis captured the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Old City, from Jordan. The municipal council of east Jerusalem was dissolved, and thenceforth Israel governed the united Jerusalem within its extended municipal boundary as part of its sovereign territory—unlike the remainder of the West Bank, which Israel treated as territory under military occupation. Israel rejected UN resolutions condemning its policies in Jerusalem, and most countries sided with Palestinian Arabs in considering east Jerusalem occupied territory. Teddy Kollek (Kollek, Teddy), who served as mayor of the city from 1965 to 1993, led the effort to entrench Israeli control over east Jerusalem while urging sensitivity toward the Arab population. Kollek's light-handed approach proved successful throughout the 1970s, and communal relations between Israelis and Palestinians in the city were generally amicable. However, a Basic Law passed by the Knesset in 1980 reaffirming that the unified city would remain Israel's capital stirred considerable international controversy, and the city's status was hotly disputed between the two sides in the years that followed. New construction of Jewish housing in the city and in adjoining areas accelerated. During the first intifāḍah (Arabic: “shaking off”), a Palestinian uprising that lasted from 1987 to 1993, communal relations grew increasingly tense. These tensions were particularly exacerbated by violent clashes in Jerusalem between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in 1990.

      Following the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord of 1993, Palestinians succeeded in strengthening their autonomous institutions in the eastern part of the city. A number of Palestinian political, cultural, professional, and civic organizations became active. But the number of new Jewish neighbourhoods on the southern, eastern, and northern fringes continued to grow, angering Palestinians. By the end of the decade Jews were a majority in east Jerusalem. Although Palestinian residents of the city were permitted to vote in elections for the Palestinian National Council in 1996, Israel continued to insist that the entire city remain under its sovereignty, and it rejected Palestinian demands that east Jerusalem be made the capital of a potential Palestinian state. A wave of terrorist attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem that same year, followed by renewed clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, soured the atmosphere, and negotiations stagnated. Disagreement over the status of the city contributed to the failure of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in the summer of 2000. The outbreak of a second intifāḍah that September and further terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians in ensuing years only deepened the rift between Arabs and Jews in the city.

Bernard M.J. Wasserstein

Additional Reading

General works

A readable and sophisticated introduction to the city is Amos Elon, Jerusalem: City of Mirrors, rev. ed. (1996). The significance of Jerusalem to the three monotheistic faiths is analyzed in Lee I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1999). Newer general histories of the city are Nitza Rosovsky (ed.), City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present (1996); and Karen Armstrong, A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996). An attractive guidebook to the city and surrounding country is Jerusalem and the Holy Land (2000), published by Dorling-Kindersley. David Kroyanker, Jerusalem Architecture (1994), is a lavishly illustrated discussion of the architecture of the city since late Ottoman times.An up-to-date work on the archaeology of Jerusalem is Hillel Geva (ed.), Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, rev. and expanded ed. (2000). Other noteworthy archaeological works include Kathleen M. Kenyon, Jerusalem: Excavating 3000 Years of History (1967), and Digging Up Jerusalem (1974); Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord, trans. from Hebrew (1975); and Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple (1985).

History

Ancient, Hellenistic, and Roman periods

For ancient history, the Bible is the basic source. It may be supplemented by a good commentary such as David Noel Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vol. (1992). Next to the Bible, the main original source for ancient Jerusalem is Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote under Roman patronage at the end of the 1st century CE; the Loeb Classical Library edition, Josephus, 9 vol. (1926–65, reprinted 1998), is recommended. Of modern works, Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135), 2 vol., rev. ed. by Géza Vermès et al. (1973–87; originally published in German, 2nd ed., 1886–90), is useful. George Adam Smith, Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics, and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70, 2 vol. (1907–08, reprinted as The Topography, Economics, and Historical Geography of Jerusalem, 1975), is a comprehensive survey by a great scholar. The works of the Dominican scholars P. Hugues Vincent and F.M. Abel, especially Jérusalem: recherches de topographie, d'archéologie, et d'histoire, 2 vol. in 4 (1912–26), also remain useful. The views of early church leaders toward Jerusalem are explored in P.W.L. Walker, Holy City, Holy Places?: Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century (1990); and Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (1992).

Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamlūk, and Ottoman periods

For the early Islamic period, the most authoritative newer studies are Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634–1099 (1992); and Joshua Prawer and Haggai Ben-Shammai (eds.), The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638–1099 (1996; originally published in Hebrew, 1987).For the Crusader period, Joshua Prawer, The Crusaders' Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (1972; also published as The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1973), and Crusader Institutions (1980); Hugh Kennedy, Crusader Castles (1994); and Denys Pringle, The Churches of Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1993, reissued 1998), and Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1997), are useful. Guy Le Strange (trans.), Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500 (1890, reprinted 1975), is an exhaustive collection of early Arabic sources.The Mamlūk and Ottoman periods are covered in Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage, 2nd ed. (1999); Michael Hamilton Burgoyne and D.S. Richards, Mamluk Jerusalem: An Architectural Study (1987); Amnon Cohen, Jewish Life Under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century (1984); Dror Ze'evi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s (1996); and Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: The Old City (1984; originally published in Hebrew, 1977), and Jerusalem in the 19th Century: Emergence of the New City (1986; originally published in Hebrew, 1979). Sylvia Auld and Robert Hillenbrand (eds.), Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City, 1517–1917, 2 vol. (2000), is beautifully illustrated and contains several important scholarly articles, although it focuses almost exclusively on Muslim institutions and monuments.

Modern period

Three classic 19th-century works on Palestine are Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petraea, 3 vol. (1841, reprinted 1977); James Finn, Stirring Times; or, Records from Jerusalem Chronicles of 1853 to 1856 (1878), compiled by the widow of the author, a former British consul in the city; and Charles W. Wilson et al., The Recovery of Jerusalem: A Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land (1871), the record of the first underground survey of the ancient city.For the period of the British mandate, Ronald Storrs, Orientations (1945); and Helen Bentwich and Norman Bentwich, Mandate Memories 1918–1948 (1965), offer vivid firsthand narratives. L.G.A. Cust, The Status Quo in the Holy Places (1929, reprinted 1980), is a semiofficial codification of practices relating to the vexed question of contested rights among the Christian sects at the holy places. City planning policy in the mandate period is discussed in Henry Kendall, Jerusalem, the City Plan: Preservation and Development During the British Mandate, 1918–1948 (1948). On the 1948 war, Dov Joseph, The Faithful City: The Siege of Jerusalem, 1948 (1960), is an account by the former Israeli military governor of the city. The flight of Muslims from Arab areas in west Jerusalem is discussed in Salim Tamari (ed.), Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods and Their Fate in the War (1999). Works reflecting the Palestinian perspective of the city are Henry Cattan, Jerusalem (2000); and Ghada Karmi (ed.), Jerusalem Today (1997).Important for the history of the city since 1967 are Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (1996); Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem on Earth: People, Passions, and Politics in the Holy City (1988); David H.K. Amiran, Arie Shachar, and Israel Kimhi (eds.), Atlas of Jerusalem (1973), and Urban Geography of Jerusalem (1973), a companion volume; Menachem Klein, Jerusalem: The Contested City (2001); and Bernard Wasserstein, Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City, rev. and updated ed. (2002). The most comprehensive analysis of the declining Christian presence in Jerusalem is Daphne Tsimhoni, Christian Communities in Jerusalem and the West Bank Since 1948 (1993). For current statistics, the most authoritative source is the Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem (annual), published by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.Stewart Henry Perowne Joshua Prawer Bernard M.J. Wasserstein

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