Jerusalem

Alexander Hospice

Muristan

Musical life

Jerusalem is home to the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and has a music academy, among other things.

Getting here

By plane
Jerusalem's own airport, Atarot Airport (also Kalandia Airport), has been closed since the second Intifada, which began in 2000; previously it was the starting and destination point for domestic flights. Today, the city can only be reached via Israel's most important airport, Ben Gurion Airport, which is located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem near Lod on Route 1.

For a long time, the connection from the airport to Jerusalem was not easy to manage by public transport. The situation that the bus journey from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem could only be managed with complicated changes and lugging luggage has since changed fundamentally. Bus line 485 of the Afikim bus company now connects Jerusalem with the airport every hour, around the clock, but not on Shabbat. The journey takes 70 minutes, and stops at Terminals 1 and 3 at Ben Gurion Airport and several stops in Jerusalem, one of which is at the central bus station and the Jerusalem Light Rail.

The old connection with the shuttle bus line 5, which runs from the bus level (exit on level 2) within the airport and changing at the "El Al Junction" to a bus in the direction of Jerusalem (including line 947) - stop on the right, heading south is still possible. The ticket purchased from the bus driver at the airport is valid for the entire route and costs 22 NIS (all information as of 03/2016).

With the start of regular service of the new express train connection between the Ben Gurion airport station and the Jerusalem "Yitzchak Navon Train Station", most of the traffic will probably shift to the train.

An alternative to public transport - especially on Shabbat, when public transport is at a standstill - are shared taxis, the so-called "Sheruts". They are more expensive than public transport, but cheaper than a real taxi. They are usually minibuses that leave the airport when all seats are full; in Jerusalem you can be taken to a desired point in the city. The shared taxi costs 64 shekels (16 €, March 2016).

By train
Since 2019, the new high-speed rail connection between the newly built underground Yitzchak Navon Train Station in the center of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv has started with a stop at Ben Gurion Airport.

Israel Railways trains continue to run every 2 hours between Tel Aviv and the old Jerusalem-Malha station on the southwestern outskirts of the city every day except on the Sabbath, with one change in Bet Shemesh; journey time approx. 100 minutes, price for a single trip 20 NIS (as of 2018). The route, which was planned under Ottoman rule, winds through the valleys of the Judean hills and is therefore very scenic.

By bus
There are minibuses from Tel Aviv that cost around 20 shekels. There are also regular buses between the Central Bus Stations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, costing around 15 shekels. The journey takes around an hour in both cases.

The bus station (the tram stop "Central Station") is in a shopping center diagonally opposite the train station. Tickets and departures on the 2nd floor. Lockers in the basement for 10/20 shekels per 2 hours. Toilets on the ground floor for a fee.

Connections to the West Bank run from the two bus stations in East Jerusalem, for example to Ramallah. With a Central European passport, exiting and re-entering the West Bank or the Palestinian autonomous area is usually possible; checks are carried out upon re-entry and can result in time-consuming questioning. Israeli citizens with an Israeli passport are prohibited from traveling to an autonomous area in Region A.

There is also no direct bus connection from Amman in Jordan. The journey by minibus, regular bus and another minibus plus the wait at the border to enter the country can be exhausting. When leaving Jordan (the closest crossing is the King Hussein Bridge) you have to pay 8 JD, the minibus to the Israeli border (Allenby) costs 3 JD, and the minibus from Allenby to Jerusalem (Damascus Gate) costs 38 shekels. However, it only runs until 1 p.m.; after that you have to take a taxi (approx. 200 shekels). When leaving Israel for Jordan you have to pay 182 shekels (!) in Allenby.

By road
Jerusalem is on Highway 1, which runs from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea near Jericho. The journey takes 45 minutes from the airport, but the traffic usually increases the journey time considerably.

Local transport

Jerusalem is well served by public transport. Except on Shabbat, numerous green buses run by the Egged bus company operate in the city, supplemented by the Jerusalem Light Rail trams. Their website provides central, detailed English information on local transport and fares, real-time travel times, etc.

All local transport has been converted to electronic tickets. You have to buy the Rav Nav chip card, which works on a credit basis, for 5 ₪ and then top it up at the ticket machine. There are also personalized versions with a photo, but these are more interesting for season tickets. Available (also in combination): single trips, multiple trips (2, 10, 20), weekly tickets and monthly tickets. The amount is debited for a specific purpose, as you do not top up an amount indefinitely, but rather purchase trips of a specific type for a specific purpose.
When you board, hold the prepaid card to the dark gray reader at the bottom (in buses these are located near the driver). A signal tone is clearly audible and a green light flashes. Ticket checks are frequent.

There is a zone system, the outer areas (2 and 3) are each divided into blocks. Typical fares in zone 1 (interior) in 2019 for a single trip (90 minutes, bus/train transfer) are 5.90 ₪, day ticket 13.50 ₪, weekly ticket 64 ₪. Day ticket zones 1+2: 21.50 ₪. With the Jerusalem+East day ticket, for 26.50 ₪ you can get to the Dead Sea.

Checks are frequent. Fare dodging costs 180.

The area around the old town is served by various bus lines, but there is no public transport in the old town itself due to the narrow streets, but it can be easily explored on foot.

The first line of the Jerusalem tram (Jerusalem Light Rail) has been running since 2011. The tram (all barrier-free) serves the Pisgat Ze'ev (East Jerusalem) ↔ Old City ↔ Jaffa Street ↔ Central Bus Station ↔ Herzlberg/Yad Vashem axis. It is therefore also an important means of transport for tourists who want to go from the Old City to the bus station or to Yad Vashem, for example. It closes at around 3 p.m. on Fridays and there are no trips at all on Saturdays. Express bus lines 71-75 were set up to complement the Jerusalem Light Rail, and the articulated buses of the BRT - Bus Rapid Transit Lines barrier-free mostly run on their own bus lanes with electronically controlled right of way over road traffic at intervals of 6-10 minutes and allow rapid progress.

Travelers who want to use buses in Jerusalem (almost all partially barrier-free) should therefore either get up-to-date information on the transport companies' websites mentioned above or ask locally which lines go to which destinations. The routes of bus lines change frequently. On the JLR website, the Map Bus Lines map shows the bus lines departing from each stop, and wheelchair-accessible lines are shown.

If you want to get an overview of the most important sights using public transport, the red panorama bus on line 99 is a good tip. Egged offers a city tour on this line that lasts just under two hours and you can even interrupt it as often as you like with the appropriate special tickets. A total of 29 points are visited on a circular route, including the Central Bus Station, Jaffa Street (with the Machane Yehuda market), various stops along the old town, the Biblical Zoo, Yad Vashem and Mt. Herzl, as well as the Israel Museum and the Knesset.

Shopping

If you want to go shopping and stroll around Jerusalem, you can do so in the pedestrian zone on Ben Yehuda Street (about a kilometer west of the Old City, a side street of Jaffa Street). There is also a lot going on here in the evenings. The most famous market is in the Old City: the narrow market streets with their colorful displays evoke some of the magic of the Arab bazaar; many shops sell souvenirs, but also everyday items; the easiest way to reach the market streets is via the Jaffa Gate or the Damascus Gate in the Old City. Another important market is the Mahane Yehuda Market in West Jerusalem.

Souvenirs, but also food, clothes and actually almost every imaginable commodity are offered for those who like to haggle in the souk, which stretches from the Damascus Gate to the Western Wall in the Arab Quarter of the Old City. The souk in the Arab Quarter is also the place where you can shop on Shabbat, when all Jewish-owned shops are closed.

The traders on David Street have focused on Christian souvenirs and devotional items, and here too, you often have to haggle hard over the price, as most shops are open all week. The Muslim traders close their shops during Friday prayers (around 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.), while Christian traders are closed on Sundays.

Religious Jewish items can be found in the shops in the Jewish quarter on the Cardo, on Ben Yehuda Street and along Mea Shearim Street and the side streets that branch off from it; it goes without saying that the owners observe the Shabbat rest.

Food, fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, as well as dried fruit, nuts and sweets can be found at the Mahane Yehuda market between Yafo Street and Agripas Street.

Fashion, hat and jewelry shops can be found mainly in the area of ​​Yafo Street and King George Street in West Jerusalem.

Eat

There are countless places to eat in the city, from simple falafel and shwarma or kebab stalls to upscale restaurants. It should be noted that on Shabbat (i.e. from Friday evening until sunset on Saturday evening) all restaurants run by Jewish owners are closed. On Shabbat evening, people eat with their families, and travelers usually have to resort to international restaurants run by Christian or Muslim Arabs, which may observe another day of rest (see also the section on the old town).

Individual restaurants are listed in the relevant district articles.

Drinks

When Shabbat ends, the nightlife begins and people go to the city's numerous cafés.

Hotels

There are numerous accommodation options in Jerusalem, from guesthouses and apartments, backpacker hostels and pilgrim hostels to expensive star hotels. Many accommodations are quickly booked out, especially during Jewish and Christian festivals, so it makes sense to search and book early.

Information on the individual accommodations can be found in the district articles.

Learning

If you want to improve your Yiddishkeit and are not yet a Talmid Chacham ("wise student", because you never stop learning), you can, for example, visit the Yeshiva Machon Meir at 2 Hameiri Avenue, Kiryat Moshe, and take part in some shiurim (lessons). The advantage of this yeshiva is that, in addition to Hebrew, English and Russian are also the languages ​​of instruction and that there are lessons for adult beginners. There are also many other yeshivot of different religious denominations and levels of difficulty. There are also various Ulpanim (language courses in modern Hebrew) and of course the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A year abroad is offered here for Christian theology students. Jewish studies with academic text work in the Talmud and Torah can be studied at the Pardes Institute, for example. The Hebrew University offers similar courses at a higher level.

Security

In West Jerusalem and the Old City, you can move around freely, and this also applies to the tourist-relevant areas of East Jerusalem. However, you must expect that bags and ID cards will be checked when entering shopping malls or museums. This is particularly true in the area of ​​the well-secured Western Wall. There are also checkpoints on the streets when entering from the West Bank, which mainly act as a traffic obstruction.

The security measures (checkpoints, metal detectors and armed police) mean that you can feel safe in the city, but otherwise, like in any other big city, there are areas in Jerusalem that you should avoid alone, especially after dark.

Health

The medical emergency number 101 of the Israeli Magen David Adom, the Red Star of David, is valid throughout Israel to request an ambulance.

University-level hospitals with emergency treatment are

1 Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Tel.: +972-2-6777111, Fax: +972-2-6434434. located on a hilltop in the countryside to the west of the city, it was built in 1961 as a replacement for the university hospital on Mt. Scopus, which was housed in temporary buildings "in the countryside". In 2012, the 19-story Davidson Tower with 500 beds was put into operation.
The synagogue on the Ein Kerem campus is worth a visit. It was decorated by Marc Chagall in 1962 with twelve stained glass windows depicting the twelve biblical tribes of the people of Israel. The synagogue can be visited Sun - Thurs 8:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., it is closed for visits on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
2 Hadassah Mount Scopus University Hospitalinfoedit mainly serves East Jerusalem, but is open to the entire population. The Hebrew University's Mount Scopus Hospital, built between 1934 and 1939, served the city's population until it became an enclave in Arab East Jerusalem in 1948 during the War of Independence and had to be evacuated after an attack on a supply convoy. It was not until after the Six-Day War that the area returned to Israeli control and in 1975 hospital operations resumed in what is now the 300-bed facility.

Other

The official languages ​​are Hebrew and Arabic. Most locals speak English, and you can often get by with Russian. The people are generally very friendly and will help you (whether you are Israeli or Palestinian) wherever they can, regardless of the language you are communicating in. Unfortunately, there are still a few Israelis (including younger ones) who, after realizing that you are German, forget their English language skills, even if they have previously spoken English with other tourists, and only respond in Hebrew or another non-English language.

Name

The city has historically had various names. In Egyptian condemnation texts from the 19th and 18th centuries BC, the letter sequence Ꜣw-šꜢ-m-m first appears as the name of this city. It was probably pronounced (j or u)ruschalimum. In the Amarna letters from the 14th century BC, ú-ru-sa-lim is documented, in the Assyrian annals of Sennacherib, who besieged the city in the 8th century BC, ur-sa-li-im-mu. The most common and oldest form in Hebrew and Aramaic is yrwšlm, jeruschalem, along with a short form yršlm and an even shorter šlm, schalem.

The meaning of the name is probably "foundation (yru) of [the god] Shalim" or possibly "palace/city (ūru) of Shalim". Shalim was the Canaanite deity of the twilight, possibly the patron of the city. The still popular interpretation of the name as "city of peace (šalom)" given by the rabbis is a folk etymology. According to this, the short form of the city name Salem (שלם šhālêm) (Gen 14:18 EU) is related to the Hebrew word shalom (שלום = "peace, salvation"). The Hebrew name Jerushalajim, which is common today, is a ceremonial dual form and only came into use in the time of the Second Temple. This form was later established by the Masoretes as a biblical reading.

Poetic and religious titles such as the biblical name Zion or Holy City refer to Jerusalem as the city of the one, only God, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims worship.

History

Early period

The oldest traces of human settlement in the current urban area that have been found so far are ceramic archaeological finds from the Copper Age (around 4500–3150 BC) in rock pockets on the southeast hill. A cave with burials above the Gihon spring and two wide-space houses on the eastern slope of the southeast hill are known from the Early Bronze Age I-II (3150–2650 BC). This is then apparently followed by a settlement gap from the Early Bronze Age III to the Middle Bronze Age I. In the Middle Bronze Age IIA (2000–1750 BC), the fortified city settlement of Uruschalimum/Urusalim was built on the southeast hill. The Gihon spring was surrounded by a wall and given a basin; the Warren Tunnel system was also built during this period.

The Amarna letters from the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) show that the city governor Abdi-Hepa of Urusalim was involved in conflicts with Apiru and other city governors.

In the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, there are details about the early days of the city of Jerusalem. There is often no extra-biblical confirmation for these, including archaeological ones, and they only came into being in the form handed down today centuries after the events described. According to Judges 1:21 and Joshua 15:63, the city belonged to the Jebusites at the time of the conquest and the judges Lut (around 1400–1000 BC), in whose neighborhood the Israelites from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah settled. The place was also called Jebus at that time; the Israelites called it a Jebusite city or "city of strangers" (Judg. 19:10 ff.). According to Jos 10 and Jos 18:16, their kings formed war coalitions with other opponents of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. According to Judges 1:8, the tribe of Judah conquered and destroyed the city as a prelude to the conquest of Canaan. This statement contradicts Judges 1:21, according to which the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites but continued to live peacefully alongside them, and 2 Samuel 5:6 ff., according to which King David was the first to conquer Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Judges 1:8 is therefore considered an ahistorical editorial note that was added later.

According to 1 Samuel 16 ff., David only conquered Jerusalem after he had deposed his predecessor King Saul, defeated the neighboring peoples of the Amalekites and Philistines, and was then recognized as their king by the Israelite tribes who were not involved (2 Samuel 5:1-5). He is said to have then established his seat of government around 1000 BCE. AD from Hebron to Jerusalem, which lay roughly halfway between the north and south of Israel and to which no Israelite tribe had previously laid claim. From then on, he called the city the "City of David". In this way, he made Jerusalem the capital of his empire. By moving the Ark of the Covenant, which had accompanied the Israelites' earlier campaigns as a movable YHWH throne, there, the city also became the religious center of his empire. At that time, the city center was south of today's old town in the Hinnom Valley, and the site of the later temple was on a hill north of the city at that time.

Time of the first temple

According to 1 Kings 8, David's son Solomon (around 969-930) built a palace and the first temple for YHWH, which David had planned. After Solomon's death (the year of his death is assumed to be 926 BC) and the division of the kingdom into the states of Judah (south) and Israel (north), Jerusalem became the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. ​​In the northern kingdom of Israel, the Jerusalem temple cult was rejected: under the Omrides, Israel, with its center in Samaria, was economically and militarily superior to the southern kingdom. It can be assumed that at this time the unique claim of Jerusalem as the outstanding or even the only political and spiritual center of the Israelites, which was later asserted in the Bible, had not yet been implemented.

Queen Athaliah (845-840) is said to have introduced the Baal cult in the temple. Under King Ahaz (741-725), Assyrian gods were perhaps also worshipped. According to the biblical account, it was only Hezekiah (725–697) who rededicated the temple to YHWH, secured the city with walls and its water supply through the Hezekiah Tunnel. It is assumed that streams of refugees from the northern kingdom of Israel after its destruction by the Neo-Assyrians (722/720) led to a flourishing of the city of Jerusalem and an expansion to the west. Josiah (638–609) centralized cult in his kingdom: from then on, the Temple of Jerusalem was the only legitimate place of worship of the god YHWH.

Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Jerusalem for the first time in 597 and again in 586 BC; the first time he took the Jewish upper class into captivity (Babylonian exile) and installed Zedekiah as a vassal king. After his break with the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar had the city of Jerusalem conquered in 586 BC. AD, he destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and led the remnants of the ruling class, including Zedekiah, into exile.

Second Temple Period

After the capture of Babylon, the Persian King Cyrus II issued the Cyrus Decree in 538 BC, allowing the Jews exiled there to return home and rebuild their temple, which took several decades. Jerusalem was the capital of the Persian province of Yehud. "In terms of architectural history, this period in Jerusalem can only be documented very sparsely by the remains of walls, a gate system and small finds." (Max Küchler)

Under the rule of the Ptolemies and later the Seleucids, Jerusalem and the surrounding area was a temple state ruled by the Jewish high priest. In 169 BC, Antiochus IV conquered Jerusalem and plundered the temple. In 168, General Apollonius conquered the city again, demolished the walls and built a castle (Akra) to control the inhabitants. A wrestling school and an ephebeion, only attested in literature, are new buildings that represent the conflict-ridden Hellenization of the upper class. A cult of Zeus Olympios (identified with YHWH) was introduced in the temple. Roman pressure on the Seleucids enabled their subjects in Judea to successfully fight for freedom and establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. Under Simon Maccabeus (143/2–135/4), "the yoke of the Gentiles was removed from Israel" (1 Macc 13:41). The Akra, a symbol of Seleucid control, fell in 141. After the invasion of Antiochus VII, Jerusalem had to capitulate and the tops of the walls were torn down. However, internal Syrian conflicts enabled the fight for independence to continue, and the fortress of Baris was built north of the temple. During the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, king and high priest in one person (103–76), the Hasmonean state reached the peak of its power. At the same time as Rome expanded in the Levant, the power of the Hasmoneans also waned. In 63 BC, Pompey conquered Jerusalem and visited the temple without destroying it. Jerusalem then declined to a tributary district capital with an aristocratic government.

Hasmonean Jerusalem was characterized by a series of construction projects:
Expansion of the temple district to the south and connection of it to the upper city by a bridge. In this upper city, the priestly aristocracy built luxurious residential houses;
Expansion of the urban area to the west and development of the entire southwest hill ("upper market") as a result of the increase in population;
Construction of the city wall (1st and 2nd wall, the latter on the line of the Suq Chan ez-Zeit road);
The first burial sites of Jerusalem's aristocratic families are built in the Kidron Valley.

Under the reign of Herod, who ruled over Judea as a Roman client king from 30 BC to 4 BC, Jerusalem was expanded into a Jewish metropolis and at the same time into a Hellenistic-Roman royal city. Of his major buildings, the Herodian Temple was the most ambitious project. The large temple platform, which could also be used as a forum, dominated the cityscape and was connected to the residential areas in the south and west by monumental stairs and bridges. "The dominant religious center in the east of the city corresponded to the royal palace in the west with its three-tower fortress and the magnificent mausoleum on the west side of the Hinnom Valley." This metropolis and its temple were destroyed by Titus in 70 AD at the end of the Jewish War, and the Jewish population was killed, enslaved or expelled.

Under Rome and Byzantium

On the site of the city of Jerusalem, which was destroyed in 70, there was a military camp of the Legio X Fretensis and probably also a small civilian settlement (craftsmen, traders, innkeepers).

Hadrian visited the place in 130 as part of a trip through the eastern provinces of the empire and founded a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem, which he named Aelia Capitolina, with Aelius being Hadrian's middle name and Capitolina referring to the Roman Capitol Hill, the center of worship of the Roman main god Jupiter. This naming shows the close connection between the ruler cult and the Jupiter or Zeus cult, which was typical of Hadrian's reign. In fact, construction work was already underway when Hadrian carried out this founding act. In itself, the founding of the colony was a benevolent gesture (the inhabitants received Roman citizenship and the associated benefits) and was possibly welcomed by an assimilated part of the population. For large parts of the Jewish population, however, the construction of a pagan city with associated temples and public buildings on the site of Jerusalem was unacceptable and gave rise to the Bar Kochba revolt. This escalated from the internal Jewish conflict between supporters and opponents of the rapprochement with Roman-Hellenistic culture.

Although the rebels were never able to control Aelia Capitolina, the area surrounding the city was the core area of ​​the revolt. Roman warfare devastated this area so much that it did not recover until late antiquity, and this affected the development of the city, which fell short of Hadrian's expectations. Ancient Christian authors testify that Hadrian banned Jews from entering the city under threat of the death penalty. Although such a ban is not mentioned by Cassius Dio, the most important source of information on the Bar Kochba revolt, nor by rabbinical literature, it is considered historically probable. Aelia Capitolina had no city walls; however, the entrances were architecturally highlighted by gates (the Ecce Homo Arch is part of one of these gates). The economic center of Aelia was in what is now the Christian quarter, and this is also where the main sanctuaries were located, including the Temple of Jupiter. The destroyed Herodian Temple, on the other hand, remained as a ruin outside the city. It was possibly intended to be included in a future expansion of the city, but this did not happen due to the aftermath of the Bar Kochba revolt. Actual government buildings were lacking, as the provincial capital was not here, but in Caesarea Maritima. The main axes of Aelia Capitolina can still be seen today in the street network of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Under Emperor Constantine and his successors, Jerusalem was converted into a Christian city. The change in the cityscape occurred in several phases and in connection with dogmatic developments:
After the First Council of Nicaea (325), the Anastasis ("Church of the Holy Sepulchre") was built on the site of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Eleona Church on the Mount of Olives on the site of his ascension;
After the First Council of Constantinople (381), the southwest hill was equipped with Christian memorial sites (including the Church of Hagia Sion as the "Mother of all Churches");
In connection with the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), holy sites were built in the Kidron Valley and on the Mount of Olives, which were dedicated to the life of Mary or the Passion of Christ.

Jerusalem experienced an economic boom due to the streams of Christian pilgrims. Since the Legio X Fretensis had meanwhile been relocated to Eilat/Aqaba, the southern part of the city was available for new development. The Madaba map (6th century, see photo) gives a detailed picture of Byzantine Jerusalem: on the left you can see the Gate of St. Stephen (today Damascus Gate) and behind it on the city side a square with a column, from which two streets lined with colonnades branch off. The central street that divides the city into two halves is the Cardo Maximus (today Suq Chan ez-Zeit, in extension Suq al-Aṭṭarin), in the middle is the Anastasis (Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Above runs the Cardo Secundus (today Tariq al-Wad), from which the Decumanus branches off, leading to the East Gate (today Lion Gate).

Under the Sassanids

The Sassanid ruler Chosrau II invaded Palestine around 613 during the Roman-Persian War (602–628). The Palestinian Jews welcomed the Sassanids as liberators and revolted against Byzantium. In July 614, the Sassanids conquered Jerusalem (destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of Hagia Sion, the Church of Nea Maria and the Rotunda of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives) and transferred the administration of Jerusalem to the Jewish population until 617, but then back to the Christian population. The exact events cannot be reconstructed due to the difficulty of obtaining sources; what is striking is the religious hatred between the two population groups, probably prepared by Christian anti-Jewish legislation. The only evidence is a Christian mass grave at the Mamillate Pond. According to Antiochus Strategios, the Christian population that had survived the capture of the city was selected: the young people and craftsmen were deported to Persia, the rest were killed in the Mamilla Ponds; a Byzantine chapel later commemorated these dead. Among those deported was Zacharias, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The unrest may have been connected with the murder of the Jewish militia leader and Messiah candidate Nehemiah ben Huschiel, under whom plans for a new temple to be built after the Persian conquest, and possibly even for the restoration of the sacrificial cult, may have been made. In any case, the Sassanids initially allowed the Jews to settle in Judea and Jerusalem again. In 617/18, however, the Sassanids again banned Jews from entering Jerusalem, possibly because of ongoing problems with rebellious groups or as a result of a strategic reorientation of the Sassanid conquest policy, which again sought a stronger reliance on Byzantium.

In 629, Jerusalem fell back to Byzantium after the victory of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius. Despite imperial promises, there were new massacres, this time by Greeks against Jews. As a result of renovations by Persian and Byzantine clients, the destruction of 614 was repaired when the army of Caliph Omar took Jerusalem.

Under the Umayyads

During the Islamic conquest of the Levant, armies of Islam, which had been founded a few years earlier, reached Palestine. In 637, an Arab army under the general Abū ʿUbaida ibn al-Jarrāh besieged the city on behalf of the Caliph Umar and was able to take it after six months when the Byzantine defenders surrendered. The Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius (560–638) had been assured that the Christian population of the city would be allowed to leave, even though only a few actually did so. Jerusalem was administered by Islamic governors and Christian patriarchs; the Jewish population was allowed to return to the city. They built their own quarter around the western wall of the Temple Mount, which existed until 1099. The turning point in the cityscape, however, was not the year of the Islamic conquest, but the severe earthquake of 748/749.

In the first century of Islamic rule, Jerusalem was controlled by the Umayyad dynasty, which had been the Islamic governors of Syria since 639 and, in the turmoil following the death of the first Umayyad caliph Uthman, founded the hereditary caliphate with the caliph Muʿāwiya I, who was proclaimed in Damascus in 660. Muʿāwiya moved the caliph's residence to the Syrian capital Damascus. Under his successors from the Umayyad branch of the Marwanids, the focus of the Umayyad Empire finally shifted to Syria and Palestine around 680.

Jerusalem was transformed into an Islamic city: for the first time since the destruction in 70, the walls of the temple complex were repaired and the Herodian temple platform was claimed for Islam. In a first phase, Islamic construction incorporated Jewish-Christian traditions of Solomon's Temple, of the foundation stone of the world (ʾeven schetijah), of the paradisiacal place of fertility and the divine presence (Shechina), which, however, were pushed into the background by a genuinely Islamic tradition as early as the first century after the completion of the Dome of the Rock (around 692): the brief allusion in Sura 17:1 to a nighttime journey by the Prophet Mohammed from the "holy mosque" in Mecca to a "distant mosque" and the prophet's vision of heaven (Miʿrādsch) alluded to in Sura 17:1 determined the Muslim reception of the Temple Mount from then on. There is also evidence that in al-Malik's time, Islamic rites were performed on the rock that otherwise only take place at the Kaaba in Mecca. Abd al-Malik thus created a religious counterweight in Jerusalem to the Meccan Caliphate under ʿAbdallāh ibn az-Zubair, with whom he was in civil war.

Under the Abbasids

In 750, the Umayyads were overthrown and ousted by the Abbasids, who were considered to be more religiously ascetic. The only Umayyad prince to survive the fall of his house, Abd ar-Rahman, fled to North Africa via Jerusalem and established the independent Emirate of Córdoba in Al-Andalus in 755. In the following two centuries, Jerusalem was ruled by Abbasid governors. During this period, phases of explicitly anti-Christian and anti-Jewish policies alternated with phases of tolerance towards Jewish and Christian residents and pilgrims. As part of the exchange of ambassadors between the Carolingians, the Abbasids and the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, mediated by Jewish long-distance traders, Charlemagne was recognized by the Muslim ruler Harun al-Rashid as the formal protector of the Christian holy sites at the beginning of the 9th century, according to the testimony of Frankish chroniclers, which can be seen as an affront to Byzantium. In the last years of Harun al-Rashid's life, at least 406 monks and nuns lived in Jerusalem, including almost 60 from Western Europe, the rest from Byzantium.

Caliph al-Ma'mūn visited Syria in 831. He donated two new gates to the Temple Mount, but also had the gold removed from the dome of the Dome of the Rock, which remained lead gray until the 1960s. A copper coin from the time of his caliphate (813–833) bears the inscription al-fils bi’l-Quds (coin of the sanctuary), with al-Quds (sanctuary) referring to the Dome of the Rock. This is where the Arabic name al-Quds for Jerusalem comes from, which is first attested here. Islamic coin minting in Jerusalem ceased after this, and coins were not minted in Jerusalem again until the Crusader period.

The rest of the 9th century is marked by a decline in Abbasid control over Palestine and thus also Jerusalem. In 841–842, the farmers and Bedouins of Palestine rebelled against the government in Baghdad; this must also have affected Jerusalem, but due to a lack of sources, nothing more is known about this. In 848, Ahmad ibn Tulun incorporated Palestine into his Egyptian dominion. Starting with the Battle of Yarkon in 885, Palestine became a battlefield between Abbasid and Egyptian armies. The caliphs of that time, especially al-Muktafi and al-Muqtadir, showed particular interest in Jerusalem, which is documented by their building inscriptions. In the middle of the 10th century, the Byzantine Empire tried to exploit the weakness of the Abbasids and, with the support of the Christian population of Jerusalem and various Bedouin tribes, especially the Ṭayʾ, to bring Palestine back under its rule. On the eve of the Fatimid conquest, Jerusalem was ruled by the governors of the Egyptian Ikhshidids; in 966, the governor supported the persecution of Christians in the city (despite the central government's ban); the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church on Mount Zion, among others, were plundered and burned down. Jewish residents are said to have also participated in this.

Under the Fatimids

In the following year, 967, the Qarmatians brought Palestine under their control and, allied with the Arabs, fought with the Fatimids. Meanwhile, in 969 the Byzantine army had taken control of Aleppo and, under the generals and later emperors Nikephoros Phokas and John Tzimiskes, advanced further south, apparently with the aim of Jerusalem. The Byzantines allied themselves with the Qarmatians and local Arab and Bedouin actors; this alliance opposed the Fatimids when they took control of Palestine from Egypt. The years from 973 to 978 were marked by heavy fighting, with the Byzantines organizing persecutions of Jews in Jerusalem through their allies, apparently in anticipation of converting Jerusalem back into a Christian-dominated city. While the Fatimids were apparently vehemently opposed by the population in Palestine, the situation was different in Jerusalem; here they had the support of the Jewish, but also the Muslim inhabitants. Before the beginning of the Fatimid period, the southern city wall had been rebuilt to its current course, meaning that the southwest hill was now outside the city. On the one hand, the Fatimids supported the establishment of a Jewish university (yeshiva) in Jerusalem, which thus became the center of Jewish scholarship for the first time since 70 AD. On the other hand, a discriminatory dress code was introduced in 973, according to which Jews had to wear a belt (zunnār) as a symbol (ġiyār); after this requirement was no longer observed for a while, the Caliph al-Hakim renewed it.

The Fatimids gradually consolidated their rule; it was not until 983 that they achieved a decisive victory over the Ṭayʾ Bedouins, and a Byzantine delegation in Egypt managed to have the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which had been damaged in 966, repaired. A ten-year peace was concluded between Byzantium and the Fatimid Empire, and after it expired in 998, it was extended for a further decade. In 999, al-Hakim ascended to the throne, and despite the treaty (hudna), tensions with the Byzantines increased. The reasons are unclear, but Byzantium may have supported insurgents in Egypt and Palestine. In addition, there was reluctance among Muslims in Egypt to allow Jews and Christians to hold administrative offices. All of this led to persecution of Christians from 1003 onwards, culminating in the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on September 28, 1009 (or 1008). The Patriarch of Jerusalem at that time was Orestes, the uncle of al-Hakim (brother of his mother, who was a Christian). Orestes had been able to give his office increasing political weight as a result of the treaties between Byzantium and Cairo. Every year streams of Christian pilgrims came to Jerusalem to witness the Easter celebrations. In response to the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there were two uprisings against al-Hakim by the Bedouin tribes allied with the Christians of Jerusalem, from 1011 to 1014 and from 1024 to 1029. Mufarrij, Emir of the Ṭayʾ Bedouins and temporarily de facto ruler of Palestine, appointed Theophilos as Patriarch of Jerusalem (1012) and promised him the reconstruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is obvious that Byzantine diplomacy was involved in the background. To avoid being murdered by the Ṭayʾ, some Jerusalem Jews were baptized by Theophilos. After the death of al-Hakim (1021), the second Bedouin uprising took place under Mufarrij's son and successor Ḥassān. He demanded that the Caliph make him ruler of Jerusalem and Nabulus and had connections to the Fatimid court. The Fatimid army arrived in Palestine in 1025, but did not achieve the decisive victory until 1029. The Jews in Jerusalem, clear supporters of the Fatimids, had been practically plundered by the rebels allied with the Christians during the years of the uprising and had become completely impoverished.

After the defeat of the Bedouins, peace returned to Jerusalem. The sources do not report much, except for a severe earthquake in 1033 that caused structural damage. The Fatimid caliphs had the Dome of the Rock restored, while the Jewish community repaired damage to the Temple wall (Western Wall) and its synagogue. In the 11th century, the presence of the Latin Church in Palestine and Egypt increased. Through their trade contacts and good relations with the Fatimid court, the Amalfitans managed to restore or establish new Christian buildings in Jerusalem (in the Muristan: St. John's Hospital, Santa Maria Latina). According to the chronicler William of Tyre, Caliph al-Mustanṣir decided to have the city walls and towers of Jerusalem repaired; the costs were imposed on the impoverished population. Emperor Constantine IX agreed to cover the costs for the Christian Jerusalemites on the condition that a walled Christian quarter would be created in which only Christians would live. The Caliph gave his consent. The work was completed in 1063.

Under the Seljuks

In 1073, the Fatimid governor surrendered Jerusalem without a fight to Sunni Turkmen, led by Emir Atsiz ibn Uwak of Damascus. However, they only managed to hold out for three years, then the population of the city rose up while Atsiz was busy fighting against Fatimid troops and took the Turkmen families hostage. Atsiz promised the Jerusalemites "peace and security" (aman) upon his return, but did not keep his promise: around 3,000 citizens were killed, including the Qādī and other members of the upper class. In August 1098, the Fatimids under the command of the vizier al-Afdal again advanced against Jerusalem and, with the help of modern war machines, recaptured the city after a siege lasting over 40 days, damaging the city walls.

Crusades and Mamluk period

Only a few months later, the Crusaders stood before Jerusalem and began to besiege the city. Since they did not have heavy military equipment or siege towers, or even enough horses, and the Fatimid commander Iftikhar ad-Daula had only just repaired and renewed the city walls after the damage of the previous year, their situation initially seemed rather unpromising. In addition, Oriental Christians capable of fighting had been expelled from the city by the Fatimid military leaders in advance because they feared that they might sympathize with the Crusaders.

After the Crusader army had managed to build three siege towers with freshly delivered wood, the Crusaders conquered the "holy city" of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 under Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse. After the Crusaders had overcome the outer walls and entered the city, according to the latest findings, around 3,000 of the city's inhabitants were killed. The sources used in the past on the consequences of the conquest for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which assumed a much higher number of victims, have been called into question in recent research. On the one hand, most Christian sources are based on the Gesta Francorum, which, however, should not be seen as an eyewitness report, but as a medieval epic in the style of the Song of Roland. On the other hand, the first Muslim sources (the best known is Ibn al-Athīr's "Complete History") were not written until the 1150s, decades after the conquest of Jerusalem. The historical credibility of the descriptions of the capture of Jerusalem, which are full of bloodthirsty brutality, is therefore also doubtful. In many cases, the exaggeration is obvious, for example in the description of the eyewitness Raymond of Aguilers (who based his report on the Gesta Francorum):

"In all the streets and in all the squares, piles of severed heads, hands and legs could be seen. People walked over the corpses and horse carcasses. But I have so far described only the lesser horrors […] if I describe what I actually saw, you would not believe me […] So it is enough to report that in the Temple of Solomon and the Colonnade, crusaders rode in blood up to their knees and the bridles of their horses.”

From the exaggerations of both Christian and Muslim sources, one can conclude that in the Middle Ages the idea of ​​the brutality of the crusaders was a subject of manipulation and exaggeration on both sides of the conflict.

After the conquest of Jerusalem, the crusaders founded the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and built up an imperial administration. The ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Holy Land was in the hands of Latin bishops with the re-establishment of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and was reorganized; however, this structure remained a parallel organization in which only the Roman Catholics participated, while the native Christian population retained its Oriental and Orthodox church organizations. They were often disadvantaged in day-to-day administrative life. At this time, the religious orders of knights were also founded in Jerusalem, particularly the Knights of St. John (named after the pilgrim hospital where the order had originally begun as a brotherhood of nurses) and the Knights Templar (named after their headquarters in a wing of the first royal palace of the Crusaders, housed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount). The Teutonic Order did not gain a foothold in the Holy Land until the end of the 12th century.

After the devastating defeat of the Christian knights in the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin (Arabic Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayub), who had overthrown the Fatimids and established the rule of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt, Palestine and Syria as Sultan of Egypt, succeeded in conquering Jerusalem after a short siege. After the city was taken, he had the golden cross erected by the crusaders on the dome of the Dome of the Rock (which had served as the main church for the crusaders alongside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and was called Templum Domini by them) and the marble cladding of the rock and the altar removed. Even after the "loss" of Jerusalem (from the perspective of Christianity), Jerusalem remained the "center of the world" in the European worldview. This was also reflected in the maps of high and late medieval maps such as the Ebstorf world map.

During the Third Crusade, the English King Richard the Lionheart planned to recapture Jerusalem after his success in the Siege of Acre (1189–1191) and the reoccupation of most of the coastal cities, but did not carry out the campaign because it was militarily hopeless. From then on, Acre was the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. During the Crusade of Damietta in Egypt, the Ayyubid ruler of Syria al-Muʿazzam had the city fortifications of Jerusalem torn down except for the Tower of David and the surrounding castles demolished in the spring of 1219 because they feared that they would be handed over to the Crusaders and did not want to leave them a defensible city. From then until the construction of the modern city wall under the Ottomans (1537–1540), Jerusalem remained unfortified for around 300 years.

Jerusalem briefly came into the possession of the Crusaders again in 1229 when Emperor Frederick II won the city without military action through negotiations with the Ayyubid Sultan al-Kamil against the resistance of his enemy Pope Gregory IX and proclaimed himself King of Jerusalem, but only stayed in the Holy Land for a few months. He based his rule primarily on the Teutonic Order, which was loyal to him, while the other knightly orders and the local crusader nobility were split into a papal and an imperial party. After his return to Italy, Jerusalem was under the administration of various crusader bailiffs until it was unexpectedly conquered by marauding Egyptian mercenaries in 1244.

In August 1244, Khorezmian mercenaries, without express orders from the Egyptian Sultan as-Salih, conquered the poorly defended city and plundered it. After the defeat of the Crusaders and their Syrian allies in the Battle of La Forbie two months later, a Christian reconquest was out of the question. In 1260, the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt was overthrown by the Mamluk general and subsequent Sultan Baibars, who had defeated the Mongols for the first time in the Battle of ʿAin Dschālūt and repelled their invasion of Syria and the Middle East, and then brought all of Syria and Palestine under Egyptian rule. In 1291, the Mamluk Sultan Kalil expelled the last Crusaders from Palestine after the conquest of Acre. Jerusalem, which at the time had fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and no political significance, remained under Egyptian-Mamluk administration until the Ottoman conquest at the beginning of the 16th century.

While under Ayyubid and Christian administration in the 13th century it made little difference in practice for the residents and especially for pilgrims who was in power in the city, under Mamluk rule only Muslims were considered full citizens. Christians and Jews had to identify themselves through their clothing. As followers of a religion of the book, they were allowed to practice their religion, but were legally discriminated against in almost all areas of life and had to pay an additional tax. Nevertheless, in the 14th and 15th centuries there continued to be a Christian and a Jewish quarter in the city and the stream of Christian pilgrims by no means stopped. A detailed description of a late medieval pilgrimage to Jerusalem is contained in the travel report of the Zurich Dominican Felix Faber, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1483 and visited the holy sites.

Under the Ottomans (1516–1917)

In 1516, the Ottoman army under the leadership of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520) defeated the Mamluks in Syria. Egypt and Arabia were subsequently conquered by the Ottomans. Jerusalem became the administrative seat of an Ottoman sanjak (administrative district). The first decades of Turkish rule brought Jerusalem a significant upturn.

After 1535, Sultan Süleyman I (1496–1566) had the city's fortifications rebuilt in a partially modified line, as they can be seen today. These walls gave the old town its current structure. The much too large new walls around the holy symbolic site were intended to make the new rule clear. Jerusalem subsequently gained much more importance. The Ottoman administration was divided in its attitude towards Jews and Christians and vacillated between tyranny and tolerance.

The impoverished Jews and Christians lived mainly from the pilgrim trade. The ownership of the holy sites in Jerusalem was a vital source of income because of the alms that came with them. For this reason, there were sometimes bitter, sometimes violent conflicts between the churches over individual ownership rights. European states opened consulates in Jerusalem, first the United Kingdom in 1839, then Prussia in 1842, the following year France, which claimed to protect Catholics in the Orient, and in 1858 Russia also opened one, thereby strengthening its claim, made in 1774, to be the protector of Orthodox Christians.

From the second half of the 19th century, i.e. before the immigration (Alijot) influenced by Zionism from 1882, more and more Jews came to the city and the first residential areas were founded outside the city walls (starting with Moses Montefiore's Mishkenot Scha'ananim/later Yemin Moshe (1857/1860), followed by Mahane Yisrael (1867), Nahalat Shiv'a (1869), Me'a Sche'arim (1874), Even Yisrael (1875), Mishkenot Yisrael (1875), Shimon HaZadiq (1876), Beit David (1877) and Beit Ya'aqov (1877)). By 1880, about half of Jerusalem's approximately 30,000 inhabitants were Jewish.

In 1892, the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway line reached the city, giving it the first modern transport connection. The first film footage was shot in Jerusalem in 1897. On December 9, 1917, British troops under General Edmund Allenby marched into the city after the Ottoman governor had surrendered it on the orders of the leadership of the Ottoman armed forces. The surrender without a fight was intended to prevent possible damage to the historical sites from any fighting around or within the city.

British Mandate period

After the First World War, Jerusalem was placed under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and became the seat of the High Commissioner and the British Mandate administration. During this period, Jerusalem developed to an outstanding extent (establishment of the Hebrew University, construction of the King David Hotel, etc.), and the cityscape regulations of that time remain in force to this day. Sir Ronald Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem, issued a law according to which the houses in the capital of the Mandate may only be built of Jerusalem stone.

In April 1920, an Arab pogrom against the Jewish population of Jerusalem lasted several days. The Nabi Musa riots left six people dead and over 200 wounded. In 1929, riots broke out in Palestine over the conflict over the Western Wall (Wailing Wall), in which Arab Muslims attacked and killed Jewish civilians and destroyed buildings, including synagogues.

UN Partition Plan

Since the beginning of the Middle East conflict, Jerusalem was one of the central points of contention. Representatives of Jewish and Arab population groups claimed the city, or at least parts of it, as the capital of Israel and Palestine respectively. Therefore, the UN Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947 envisaged the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state and the placing of Jerusalem under international administration. The city was to be governed as a corpus separatum by the UN through a trusteeship council and a governor. The local legislature was to be a council elected by the city's residents according to the rules of proportional representation. The UN reserved the right of veto against its decisions - as long as they affected the status of the city. The city was to be demilitarized, neutral and protected by a police force recruited from foreign troops. It was to be part of a common trading area that citizens of both states could enter and live in. This was to ensure equal access to the holy sites of the three world religions.

On November 29, 1947, more than two thirds of the UN General Assembly adopted this plan with Resolution 181. This was followed by Resolutions 194 of December 11, 1948 and 303 of December 9, 1949. However, the partition plan was never implemented: the Arab states viewed it as an unreasonable renunciation of part of the "Dar al Islam". Until 1952, the United Nations tried several times to clarify the status of Jerusalem, but without success.

War of Independence

The Israeli Declaration of Independence of May 14, 1948 did not mention Jerusalem, but promised that Israel would protect the holy sites of all religions. The following day, the Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attacked Israel with the aim of destroying the newly founded Jewish state. During the Israeli War of Independence, the Israeli armed forces conquered large areas of the country, but lost the Jewish quarter of the Old City and East Jerusalem to the Arab Legion of Transjordan. The city therefore remained divided into Israeli West Jerusalem and Transjordanian East Jerusalem until 1967, whose Jewish population was expelled. The Jewish quarter in the Old City was destroyed and Jews were no longer allowed to access the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.

In 1948, the Israeli Defense Minister issued a decree that Israeli law would apply in the west of the city, as in any part of Palestine that he declared to be held by Israeli troops. On December 13, 1949, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared Jerusalem to be an inseparable part of Israel and its eternal capital before the Knesset. The parliament confirmed this position.

Declaration on the Capital of Israel

On January 4, 1950, Israel declared the city its capital. The final status of Jerusalem is to be determined in the context of final status negotiations. As a result, Jerusalem is still not uniformly and internationally recognized as the sole capital of Israel. King Abdullah ibn Husain I of Jordan then annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem conquered by his troops. Only Pakistan recognized this, Great Britain only recognized the annexation of the West Bank.

Since 1952, the international community de facto accepted the application of Israeli law in West Jerusalem. The demand to internationalize the city seemed increasingly incompatible with reality and was therefore no longer raised by the UN over time. The Israeli position is that the west of the city was without sovereignty after Great Britain withdrew from its former mandate in 1948, and that Israel acquired legal sovereignty over the area in an act of self-defense against the attacking Arab armies. The Israeli government's position that Jerusalem as a whole is a legal part of Israel and its capital is still shared by only a few states.

Six-Day War and the consequences

In the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israeli army's strategy was originally purely defensive. Israel wanted to keep Jordan out of the war, even after the Jordanian military began shelling West Jerusalem on the morning of June 5. It was only after Jordan had captured the neutral headquarters of the United Nations that it decided to act. Over the next three days, first the UN headquarters, then the Jordanian military base on Giv'at HaTahmoschet ("Ammunition Hill") and finally the Old City were captured. In order to protect mosques and churches, the Israeli armed forces refrained from using heavy weapons and accepted considerable losses: of a total of around 800 Israeli war deaths, 183 fell in Jerusalem. For the first time since the founding of the state, Jews were now able to pray at the Western Wall. Unlike the Arab side in 1949, Israel did not deny Muslims access to its holy sites, but placed the Temple Mount under an autonomous Muslim administration (Waqf).

After the end of the war, the Knesset passed the Law and Administration Ordinance law, which allowed the government to extend Israeli law, Israel's jurisdiction and administration to all areas of the former Mandate. At the same time, the Municipal Administration Ordinance was amended, making it possible to extend Jerusalem's administrative boundaries to the east of the city. The city's area was expanded considerably in the south, east and north, in the north to the border of Ramallah, including Qalandia Airport (see map). However, certain legal arrangements were made in favor of the city's Arab residents, which are laid down in the Legal and Administrative Matters (Regulation) Law of 1970. The city's Arab citizens did not automatically become Israelis either, but they were allowed to acquire Israeli citizenship quite easily, although few made use of this option. Israel's Foreign Minister Abba Eban then stated in a July 1967 letter to the UN Secretary-General that Israel had not annexed East Jerusalem, but had only integrated it administratively. Nevertheless, this move was criticized by UN institutions. UN Security Council Resolution 242 does not explicitly mention Jerusalem.

The Israeli government's position is that neither Jordan nor any other state other than Israel has ever been granted sovereignty over the city. Jordan took control of Jerusalem in 1948 in an act of aggression, whereas Israel acted in self-defense in 1967 and can therefore assert better claims. The Israeli position is that General Assembly Resolution 181 is not valid as a non-binding document under international law and was never relevant due to Arab rejection, which is why Jerusalem has become obsolete as a separate entity under international trusteeship (corpus separatum). Furthermore, there is no international treaty to this effect, nor is the status of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum customary international law.

With regard to the holy sites, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law in 1967, which guarantees free access to them and their protection from desecration. Invoking this law, the Israeli police prevent nationalist-religious Jews such as those organized in the Nationalist Groups Association from holding public services on the Temple Mount in order to ensure public order and security.

Settlement construction

The largest Jewish settlement near Jerusalem is the satellite town of Ma'ale Adummim, founded in 1975, with 37,670 inhabitants (as of the end of 2016).

To make room for the security fence east of Jerusalem, some previously inhabited houses were demolished.

In 2012, the Israeli government started new settlement projects in the residential area of ​​Gilo, located in the southwest of Jerusalem. The plan is to build 940 apartments in Gilo.

Camp David Accords

Jerusalem was excluded from the Camp David Accords of 1978. In the accompanying letters to the host of Camp David, President of the United States Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin declared on behalf of Israel that Jerusalem was the indivisible capital of Israel. Sadat declared that "Arab Jerusalem is an integral part of the West Bank" and should be "under Arab sovereignty." At the same time, however, he advocated handing over certain functions of the city to a joint council. In this sense, the city should be undivided, wrote Sadat.

Jerusalem Law

The Jerusalem Law of July 30, 1980 combined both parts of the city and some surrounding communities and declared the city to be the inseparable capital of Israel. The Palestinian side sees this as a major obstacle on the road to peace. The United Nations Security Council declared the Jerusalem Law null and void (UN Resolution 478 of August 20, 1980). The resolution calls on all states whose embassies were based in Jerusalem to withdraw them from Jerusalem.

At that time, 13 of 45 states had their embassies in Jerusalem: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, the Netherlands, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela. All other embassies were based in Tel Aviv. All 13 affected states followed the resolution. In 1982, two states, Costa Rica and El Salvador, moved their embassies back to Jerusalem, but in late summer 2006 they reversed this decision and moved their embassies back to Tel Aviv. There are consulates general of Greece, Great Britain, France and the USA in Jerusalem.

Declaration of the capital of Palestine

In 1988, Jordan gave up its claim to sovereignty over the West Bank and thus also over East Jerusalem. In the same year, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) proclaimed the State of Palestine and declared Jerusalem its capital, which at the time was pure fiction - although this declaration of independence was recognized by many Arab states. In international law, in addition to the declaration of a state, four conditions must be met for a state to be created: There must be a national territory and a national people over whom there is effective government and control. In addition, the new state must have the ability to enter into international relations. The PLO was at this point far from exercising effective control over any part of the disputed territories.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

In the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government, which Israel and the PLO signed on September 13, 1993, Palestinian self-government, as enshrined in two forms for the West Bank (Areas A and Areas B), was not specified for any part of Jerusalem. The final status of the city is to be determined in a final agreement as part of the Oslo peace process. The Declaration of Principles allows Palestinian citizens of Jerusalem to participate in the elections for the Palestinian Authority following an agreement between the two sides.

On August 9, 2001, a suicide attack in the Sbarro pizzeria killed 16 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and injured 130 others. On December 1, 2001, three attacks, two of which were on Ben Yehuda Street, killed ten people and injured more than 180, some of them critically.

In a suicide attack at the Jaffa/King George Street intersection, carried out by 28-year-old Palestinian Wafa Idris - the first by a woman - on January 27, 2002, an Israeli was killed and more than 150 people were injured. In another terrorist attack on March 2, 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least nine people in the Beit Israel district and injured at least 40, some seriously. The bomb on the body of the terrorist, who was disguised as an Orthodox Jew, exploded in the district inhabited by ultra-Orthodox Jews as they returned home from the synagogues on Shabbat. According to Israeli radio, the Palestinian residents of Ramallah cheered in the streets after the attack.

In another suicide attack by a Palestinian in a cafe in the Jerusalem district of Rehavia on March 9, 2002, eleven Israelis were killed and 54 injured, 10 of them seriously. The attacker detonated an explosive charge that completely destroyed the cafe. The victims are: Limor Ben-Shoham 27, Nir Borochov 22, Danit Dagan 25, Livnat Dvash 28, Tali Eliyahu 26, Dan Emunei 23, Uri Felix 25, Natanel Kochavi 31, Baruch Lerner 29, Orit Ozerov 28 and Avraham Haim Rahamim 29. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

On March 21, 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in downtown Jerusalem, killing three people and injuring more than 60 people, some seriously. The victims were Yitzhak Cohen and the Shemesh couple from Pisgat Ze’ev. Tzipi, who was five months pregnant, and Gad Shemesh left behind two children (aged 7 and 3).

On April 12, 2002, another suicide attack by a Palestinian woman from the Al-Aqsa Brigades in Jerusalem left six dead and around 60 injured, including seven seriously. The attacker blew herself up at a bus stop where a regular bus was parked, not far from the Mahane Yehuda market.

On October 21, 2014, a member of Hamas deliberately drove his car into a group of people who had just gotten off at the “Ammunition Hill” stop. Eight people were injured. The three-month-old baby Haya later died of her injuries.

On the evening of October 29, 2014, a Palestinian attacker fired four shots at Jehuda Glick while driving past on a motorcycle in the street, critically injuring him.

On November 18, 2014, two Arab residents of Jerusalem entered a synagogue in the Har Nof district in western Jerusalem. They were armed with an axe, a knife and a gun. They killed four praying Jews, Moshe Twersky (59), Calman Levine (55), Arye Kopinsky (43) and Avraham Schmuel Goldberg (68), and injured seven, three of them seriously. A police officer who happened to notice the commotion in the synagogue on his way to work intervened with a colleague. In the ensuing exchange of fire, they killed the attackers and also sustained injuries. The Druze police officer Sidan Saif later succumbed to his injuries. The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council condemned the attack on November 20, 2014.

In two terrorist attacks on October 13, 2015, three Israelis were murdered and another 20 people were injured, six of them seriously. In one case, two attackers attacked passengers in a bus with firearms and knives. In the other case, an attacker drove his car into a group of people waiting at a bus stop and then attacked passers-by with a knife. On December 9, 2016, a 39-year-old Arab living in the Silwan district killed two people at a train station by shooting from a moving car. At least six other people were injured. The radical Islamic Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

In an attack on January 8, 2017 in the Armon Hanaziv district, three women and one man, all of officer or cadet rank, were killed. Other officers and cadets were injured when a Palestinian driver deliberately drove a truck into a group of soldiers.

On June 16, 2017, 23-year-old border policewoman Hadas Malka was so seriously injured by a Palestinian terrorist while on duty that she died in hospital shortly afterwards.

On the evening of January 27, 2023, a 21-year-old Palestinian attacker shot seven people and injured three others in front of a synagogue in the East Jerusalem settlement of Neve Yaakov. He himself was killed by police while fleeing. Government circles have announced a tough crackdown, including the relaxation of Israeli gun laws to protect civilians.

Recognition as capital by individual states and relocation of embassies

The Israeli government's position that Jerusalem as a whole is a legitimate part of Israel and its capital is shared by only a very few countries internationally. In 1995, the US Congress decided to move the US embassy to Jerusalem because Israel - like all states - has the right to choose its own capital. However, this decision was not initially implemented.

On April 7, 2017, Russia was the first state in the world to recognize West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On Jerusalem Day (May 24) 2017, the Parliament of the Czech Republic recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Czech President Miloš Zeman criticized the European Union's stance on the Jerusalem issue as "cowardly."

On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the USA. He subsequently announced the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The left-wing Meretz party, the Joint List and some Israeli diplomats opposed the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem. On December 6, 2017, Hungary vetoed an intended joint EU condemnation of Trump's plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On December 10, 2017, French diplomat Marc Pierini stated that the EU was no longer united on the Jerusalem issue. Some Eastern European states had "sympathy for Israel's position" on the issue of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and were considering following the US president. At the instigation of Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Antanas Linkevičius, who is "friends" with Benjamin Netanyahu, a meeting of EU foreign ministers was held, which Netanyahu attended. It was the first time in 22 years that an Israeli prime minister had visited the EU. Linkevičius stated that the EU should play a more active role in the Middle East conflict, adding: "But that is impossible without direct contact." In response to this statement, heads of state and government from over 20 Islamic countries (including Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, Somalia, as well as the King of Jordan and the Emirs of Qatar and Kuwait) met at a special summit in Istanbul on December 13, 2017. At the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which was initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, they declared that they would recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated that he no longer recognized the United States as a mediator in the Middle East conflict and that he would seek full UN membership for Palestine.

After a resolution in the Security Council failed due to the US veto against the votes of all other 14 council members, Turkey, as acting chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), introduced a draft resolution to the United Nations General Assembly with the aim of negotiating the final status of the city in accordance with relevant UN resolutions. A large majority of 128 states voted in favour of resolution A/RES/ES-10/19 on December 21, 2017; 35 states abstained, 21 were absent, and nine voted against, including Israel and the USA. A few days later, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced that he would also have his country's embassy moved to Jerusalem. Guatemala was one of the nine states that voted against the resolution, thereby siding with the USA. Trump had threatened to cut financial aid if other countries voted against the USA. In March 2019, Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă announced the intention to move Romania's embassy to Jerusalem. In September 2020, Serbia and Kosovo announced that they would establish their embassies in Israel in Jerusalem.

On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel on May 14, 2018, the United States Embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Two days later, Guatemala also moved its embassy to Jerusalem. Paraguay followed as the third state on May 21, 2018. Under the new President Mario Abdo Benítez, Paraguay moved its embassy back to Tel Aviv in September 2018.

In December 2018, the Australian government formally recognized West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In March 2021, the Republic of Kosovo opened its embassy in Jerusalem, and on June 24, 2021, Honduras followed as the fourth state.

The diplomatic missions of most countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg, are still in Tel Aviv.

Temple Mount

The Temple Mount is under the control of the Islamic Waqf, and archaeological excavations are not possible there. In recent years, the Waqf has set up a new mosque in the so-called Stables of Solomon, which was met with Israeli opposition because of the possible destruction of the remains of the two ancient Jewish temples. However, the building work under Herod the Great is likely to have led to a large-scale removal of earlier traces. Likewise, the destruction of the Herodian Temple, the construction of a Roman sanctuary and finally the Islamic construction since the 7th century are likely to have left only a few older remains.

Geography

Location

Jerusalem lies on the southern foothills of a plateau in the Judean Mountains, which include the Mount of Olives in the east and Mount Scopus in the northeast. The Old City is approximately 760 m above sea level. Jerusalem is surrounded by numerous dry valleys. The Kidron Valley, to the east of the Old City, lies between the city proper and the Mount of Olives. Along the south side of the Old City is the steep Gehinnom gorge, which has been equated with hell in eschatological ideas since biblical times.

West Jerusalem, with an area of ​​38 km², was conquered by Israel in 1948 and its affiliation to Israeli territory is recognized under international law. A further 17 km² of Israeli suburbs were incorporated over time. The part of Jerusalem that Transjordan conquered in 1948 and that Israel occupied and annexed in 1967 consists of East Jerusalem (with the Old City), which is comparatively small at 6 km², and 64 km² of incorporated areas in the West Bank.

As everywhere in the Middle East, water supply in Jerusalem has always been difficult to maintain, as evidenced by a complicated network of aqueducts (e.g. Qanat as-Sabil), tunnels, ponds (e.g. the Pools of Solomon and the Pool of Siloam) and cisterns that have been found here. Over the course of several millennia, the Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley at the foot of the Temple Mount remained Jerusalem's main source of fresh water.

Jerusalem is located 60 km east of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and the Mediterranean Sea. To the east of the city, about 35 km away, lies the Dead Sea. Other cities and settlements in the vicinity are Bethlehem and Bait Jala in the south, Abu Dis and Ma'ale Adummim in the east, and Ramallah and Giv'at Zeev in the north.

Climate

The Mount of Olives not only protects Jerusalem from the desert wind from the east - the moist air from the Mediterranean to the west also rains down on the city. In Palestine, westerly winds prevail, with the mountains to windward, so the amount of rain increases inland towards the mountains and decreases again over the Jordan Valley. This rain shadow effect causes annual rainfall from Jerusalem to drop from 600 mm to around 100 mm in the Jordan Valley. In winter, the mountains cool down and easterly winds towards the warmer Mediterranean become more frequent. In summer, the westerly winds also become drier and carry hardly any clouds, but are cool and refreshing. The sea breeze usually reaches Jerusalem after 2 p.m., having asserted itself against the dry land, and usually keeps the city pleasantly cool all night long (except for a decrease around sunset). If the sea breeze does not reach Jerusalem or does not come, the nights are hot and there is a lack of dew and freshness - and when the east wind from the desert also reaches the city, it brings dust and a burnt smell and scorches everything (about every fifth summer day). In winter, this east wind is cold and cutting. In Jerusalem, there is a clearly defined rainy season in the winter months, from around October 14 to May 6, outside of which there is hardly any precipitation - and in summer there are around 60 cloudless days, which often start foggy, however, as the strong early dew condenses. Spring rain predominates in the mountains, and autumn rain on the coast, which is why Jerusalem has a relatively cool spring and a fairly warm autumn.

Population

Population development

In 1979, 50,000 Jews were already living in East Jerusalem, and in 1993, there were already 160,000. In 2012, 497,000 Jewish Israelis lived in Jerusalem, of which more than 200,000 lived in occupied Palestinian territory. The proportion of Jewish residents in all of Jerusalem in 2015 was 63%, the Muslim proportion was 35% and the Christian proportion was 2%.

Religions

Holy city for Jews, Christians and Muslims

Jerusalem is considered a holy city by Christians, Jews and Muslims. For all three Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem is important as the place of activity of various patriarchs, prophets, priests, kings and saints such as Abraham, Melchizedek, David, Solomon, Zechariah, Jesus of Nazareth and others. The statistical yearbook of Jerusalem lists 1204 synagogues, 158 churches and 73 mosques in the city area. Places such as the Temple Mount have always been controversial and the cause of conflict.

Since the 10th century BC, Jerusalem has been holy to the Jews as the site of the Jewish temple first built under King Solomon. The city is mentioned 632 times in the Tanakh. Jerusalem is repeatedly at the centre of the biblical God's announcements of salvation and judgment, especially in the prophets Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and the Psalms.

Examples
“Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the midst of the nations and the countries around it. Ez 5:5 EU”
“And you shall know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion on my holy mountain. Joel 4:17 EU”
“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. Ps 137:5 EU”

The Bible presents both the city of Jerusalem and the land and people of Israel as God’s special property. Significant here is the literary depiction of Jerusalem as a foundling raised by God (Ezekiel 16), as well as God’s promises to the city in the Psalms, which are formulated like marriage vows. Today, the Wailing Wall, the western wall surrounding the Temple complex, is a holy place for Jews, only the Temple Mount itself surpasses it in importance. Around the world, the Torah shrine of synagogues is traditionally located on the wall facing Jerusalem. The location of the Torah shrine in the synagogues located in Jerusalem is based on the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple. As described in the Mishnah and codified in the Shulchan Aruch, daily prayers in Judaism are performed in the direction of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Jerusalem is the most important of the four holy cities in Judaism, along with Hebron, Tiberias and Safed.

Jerusalem is holy to Christians because it is the site of the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jerusalem is mentioned over 100 times in the New Testament; according to the Bible, Jesus was brought to the city shortly after his birth, here he drove out sacrificial animal traders and money changers from the temple, and here the Last Supper took place. Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried just outside the city. The probable location today is within the city walls.

In contrast to the Jewish and Christian Bibles, the Koran does not mention Jerusalem by name even once, but the city is traditionally considered the third holiest in Islam (after Mecca and Medina). Before prayers were directed towards the Kaaba in Mecca, Jerusalem was the place of prayer for a short time during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. The question of the direction of prayer was raised in connection with the construction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, since its location on the Temple Mount depends on the direction in which Muhammad faced during prayer. Muslims believe that the Prophet traveled on a nighttime journey on the horse Buraq from Mecca to a distant "place of worship" (al-aqsa), where he ascended to heaven to meet other prophets of Islam. The location of this sanctuary is not explicitly mentioned, but in Sunni Islam it is traditionally identified with the Dome of the Rock. At the time of the Syrian Umayyad caliphs, who particularly promoted the rock sanctuary on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, Islamic literature on the "advantages of Jerusalem" emerged, which spread in the 10th and 11th centuries and underlined the city's importance for Islam, which was initially only recognized locally.

Denominations

There are a large number of religions and religious movements in Jerusalem. The most important religious group in the city is Judaism. Ultra-Orthodox non-Zionist Jews and Orthodox Zionist Jews are more strongly represented in the city than in other parts of Israel. There is also a Druze community. Sunnis, Shiites and Alawites are represented in Islam. Christianity in Jerusalem includes Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Georgian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Old Catholics, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Armenians and Ethiopians.

Economy and infrastructure

Economic structure

The economic life of the city of Jerusalem is based largely on its religious and cultural significance and its function as an administrative center. The service sector is accordingly well developed. Many residents of Jerusalem are employed in state and municipal administration and in education. Manufacturing, on the other hand, plays a rather subordinate role. The city's industrial companies produce glass, metal and leather goods, printed matter, shoes and cigarettes, among other things. The manufacturing companies are mainly located in the outer districts of Jerusalem. However, tourism is by far the most important economic factor, as the Old City is a major destination for tourists.

The development of the Jewish-Israeli and the Arab-Palestinian parts of the city is very different: although the Palestinians make up a third of the city's population, they only benefit from a tenth of the expenditure on public services, which has a significant impact on the city's infrastructure.

The city is home to around 180 high-tech companies with around 12,000 employees.

Traffic

Because of its mountainous location, Jerusalem is located away from Israel's most important traffic flows, which mainly flow in the coastal plain and the strip of land behind it. Within the city, the road layout has to adapt to the hilly landscape.

Public transport by bus and train is suspended from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening due to Shabbat.

Road traffic

The central road connection in Jerusalem is the main national road A1, which takes you to Tel Aviv-Jaffa in around an hour. There are expressways in other directions. Particularly noteworthy is the road to the Dead Sea (H1), which drops 1,200 meters on its way through the West Bank. The city area is criss-crossed by multi-lane motorways (H16, , R386 or R417), which are often connected to the main roads via junctions without any intersections.

Bus transport

The public transport connection is primarily provided by the cooperative bus company Egged.

Rail transport

The Israeli railways have long been of secondary importance. The historic, mountainous railway line to Tel Aviv via Beit Shemesh has been renovated since July 1998, and after a seven-year interruption, trains to Jerusalem have been running again since April 2005 until 2021. The travel times on this route are not attractive compared to the road, and the two Jerusalem train stations that are still in operation (Biblical Zoo and Malcha) are several kilometers from the city center in the south of the city. The historic former terminus of the line, Jerusalem Station, which is closer to the city, is no longer served. Jerusalem-Malcha Station is the terminus of the line and has received a new, very modern facility.

In 2001, construction work began on a new line between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which was planned to have a maximum speed of 160 km/h. This shortens the travel time to 30 minutes. The line, whose construction had been criticized because it briefly runs through the West Bank in two places, was opened in September 2018, initially in sections between Jerusalem and Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. The new terminus Yitzhak Navon is located underground near Jerusalem's central bus station.

Since December 22, 2019, the high-speed train has been running between Tel Aviv (HaHagana station) and Jerusalem (Yitzhak Navon station) with a stop at Ben Gurion Airport. The train currently runs every 30 minutes, and will run every 20 minutes in the future. Additional stations in Tel Aviv were added in 2020 (haSchalom and Savidor Merkaz).

Light rail

The Jerusalem light rail was built by the companies Alstom and Connex and opened on August 19, 2011. It currently consists of one line (L1) between Pisgat Ze'ev and Herzlberg with a length of 13.8 kilometers and 23 stops. The landmark of the route is the 118-meter-high suspension bridge called the "white harp" built by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It was inaugurated on June 25, 2008 and is reserved for the light rail and pedestrians.

Inner-city traffic

The most important inner-city street is Jaffa Street. It leads from the Jaffa Gate to the central bus station and is an important shopping street in West Jerusalem. Several pedestrian zones branch off from it, including Ben Yehuda Street.

The Jerusalem light rail was the first tram line in Jerusalem to go into operation on August 19, 2011 with 14 trains and a 12-minute frequency. The first test runs for this line took place on February 24, 2010. The line was supposed to go into operation in 2010, but the date was postponed due to the slow progress of construction.

It is currently not possible to predict to what extent a network expansion, for example through a new light rail line between the two university campuses on Mount Scopus and in Givat Ram, will be implemented.

Air traffic

To the north of the city is Atarot Airport, which was only intended for domestic flights and has been closed since 2001. Israel's international airport is Ben Gurion Airport, around 60 kilometers to the northwest.

Education

The well-known educational institutions in the city include:
well-known universities, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, opened in 1918, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, founded in 1933 by Emil Hauser as a conservatory, the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz, and the Palestinian al-Quds University
numerous religious teaching and research institutes, including the École Biblique et Archéologique Française, opened in 1890, the German Evangelical Institute for the Study of Antiquities of the Holy Land, founded in 1898 and opened in 1902, the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, founded in 1900, the Jerusalem Institute of the Görres Society, founded in 1908, the Pontifical Biblical Institute, founded in 1927, and the Institute of Jewish Religion, opened in 1963. The Jerusalem Theological Study Year has existed since 1973 at the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion.
the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, founded in 1959
important libraries such as the Israel National Library, the Gulbenkian Library and the library of the Jeshurun ​​Synagogue with its large collection of Judaica
the Zionist Central Archives
the Jerusalem College of Technology (Lev Academic Center, JCT)
the Planetarium