Trutharchivist

So. Three replies and four upvotes! Indicating at least one person upvoted without replying. Ah well. Due to my skewed judgement (and the fact I kind of want to write it), I deem that enough to try and write a ramble about the holy city of Abrahamic religions - which also happens to be my home for all 22 years of my life.

First, I'd like to add a tidbit on why I'm writing it today - this is the anniversary of the day in the Six Day War during which the Western Wall was taken by Israeli forces, commemorated to this day as Jerusalem Day. Now, Jerusalem has a long and complicated history on which I plan to elaborate a little here, so we'll get to it.

Jerusalem, then. As previously mentioned, it's considered holy for Christianity, Islam and Judaism - but no matter your stance, Judaism is obviously the oldest of the three. And since I'm a Jew, I'm probably going to tend to talk about that angle more - but I'll start with the Bible anyway, so there shouldn't be many discrepancies.

The city of Jerusalem is first mentioned by this full name in the book of Joshua - where its king is stated to create a local coalition to fight the Gibeonites, since the latters allied with the Israelites. This will probably not be considered very important to the history of the city, though - so let's go back a bit to an older mention of a similarly named city: after Abraham defeated the four northern kings who came to establish dominance over Canaan, he met someone named Malchizedek, who was king of Shalem (often transliterated as "Salem". Go figure) and a priest to "the most high G-d" - supposedly, a monotheistic priest in a world full of polytheism. According to tradition, Shalem is actually an old name for Jerusalem - it's more apparent in this transliteration, because in Hebrew there's actually another syllable in place of the latter E - the city is called Yerushalayim (the last part is pronounced like "lime"). The first part of the name is said to come from the Binding of Isaac, which is claimed to have occured on the Temple Mount - Abraham calls the place "Hashem (used here in place of G-d's name) Yir'eh", lit. "the LORD shall be seen", or something similar. Jerusalem, then, is said to be a blend of the words "Yir'eh" and "Shalem" - thus, Jerusalem. Either way, the city didn't fully get it's modern importance until the days of Kind David.

Now, some background: the city at the time was ruled by the Jebusites, gentiles of the original population of Israel. It's briefly mentioned in the story of the Levite's Concubine (the least said about it, the better), when the titular Levite refuses to stay there for the night because it's a non-Israelite city. He goes on to the Benjamite city of Gibe'ah and the rest is history. Later, the first Israelite king - Shaul (often transliterated as Saul) - will make Gibe'ah his capital - possibly due to it being a central city of his tribe, Benjamin. After King Shaul died, the tribe of Yehudah (=Judah), after which Jews are called, crowned David as king in Hebron - another important city that was in their estate, you might be already familiar with it. At first, he wasn't king over all Israel - the rest of the tribes accepted Shaul's son, Ish Boshet, as their king. To make a long story short, some people assassinated Ish Boshet, brought his head to king David and were immediately executed for treason against their king (meaning Ish Boshet. David was like that), which led to David being accepted as king over all of Israel. Up until then, Hebron served as his capital. But it was really far south from the rest of Israel, and was probably a tad over-representative of David's own tribe above all others. So, king David went to instate a new capital - Jebus, AKA Jerusalem.

Why there? Well, maybe there were historical records of the Patriarchs being there - which would be odd, because Hebron was definitely home to all the patriarchs, in addition to containing their tomb. Maybe bacause it was closer to the middle of the land. It was also right on the border between the tribes of Yehudah and Binyamin (=Benjamin), the tribes of the ruling monarch and his predecessor, respectfully. In this way (and by his marriage to Michal, Shaul's daughter), King David based a connection to the previous king. It was also not far south from the previous capital, so there's that. So King David went to Jebus, conquered it, renamed a part of it "Ir David" (lit. "David's City") and made it his capital. Later he brought the Ark of Covenant there (save me Raiders of the Lost Ark references, please), and planned on building a Temple - only to be told this would be his son's job. Which it was - King Shlomoh (Solomon) built the First Temple in Jerusalem, which stood there for 410 year, according to tradition.

A lot of things happened there, for better or worse, and this is already a bit too long, so I'll do it with long time skips: the kingdom of Israel was separated into two - most of the Jews you'll meet nowas=days come from the southern kingdom of Judea, which contained both Judah and Benjamin and had Jerusalem as a capital. The city was sieged by Assiryan armies and miraculously saved, only to fall to the Babilonians a couple of decades later. It served under them until the kingdom of Judea rebelled once too much and it was destroyed, along with the Temple in it. Fast forward 70 years - the Persian kings allow Jews to rebuild the Temple, and in the process Nechemiah also rebuilds the city walls. The Persians are conquered by Alexander the Great, who dies and the area is left between the Seleucids and Ptolemys. Not a pleasant situation, really. None of those rulers tries to destroy the Second Temple - the closest anyone came was Antiochus the 4th of the Seleucids, who tried to turn it to a Hellinistic temple (I think). Then the Hasmonean dynasty rebelled and reinstated the Temple, using Jerusalem as the Jewish capital once again. Inner fights led to the Roman Empire taking over business, and the central city of Provincia Judea was (I think) Jerusalem. That would be about the time Yeshua of Nazareth, better known as Jesus Christ, was active. I don't really know the full extent of his activities, but he acted against certain things with the Temple (which, I forgot to mention, was rebuilt completely by Herod), and for some reason some things he did aggravated the Romans, who chose to hang him on a cross, as was the traditional execution at the time. Little did they know what their empire would look like in a couple of centuries.

Yeshua was said to be active in Jerusalem and executed there, which is why the Christians consider this a holy city. They mostly don't care about the Temple (though there may be Christian sects that do care), or myriad of mentions made by the Prophets (unsurprising, considering that most of the prophets we have the books of nowadays lived around Jerusalem). Anyway, not long after Yeshua's execution (a couple of decades), the Jews in Jerusalem rebelled again... with disastrous results. The Romans laid waste to Jerusalem, and the religious Jewish center there was transferred to Yavneh.

The following years weren't kind to Jerusalem: the final Jewish independance in Israel before the modern state, founded by Shimon Bar Kokhva, couldn't liberate Jerusalem and fell two years later anyhow. The Romans renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, a temple to Jupiter was built in place of the old Temple, and Provincia Judea was renamed Provincia Syria Palaestina. It was a while before Jews returned to it. 

In a few centuries, the Roman Empire changed its official religion to Christianity. Emperor Constantine I allowed Christians to enter the city (they were previously forbidden, as were Jews), and instituted Christian holy sites in the city. During the following centuries the Jewish center in Israel was at the north, in Tiberias and Zippory - though the Talmud written in Israel was still known as the Jerusalem Talmud. It was finished way earlier than the Babilonian one - not due to the superior wisdom of the Israeli Jews, but because the Romans and Byzntians made sure to make trouble to the Jews under their role - the Babilonian Jews had the pleasure to be ruled by the Parthians, who were more sympathetic.

Fast forward, Jewish population in Israel still exists (though I'm not sure about Jerusalem) and shows some resistance to the previously accepted Jewish center in Babilon (the Romans are gone by now - though Byzantion still exists). Not long after, come Muhammed, prophet of Allah. I've never read the Quran, so I'm not sure about the details, but to my knowledge Muhammed was said to ascend to heaven via the Temple Mount, tying his donkey to the Western Wall - a supporting wall of the mount built by Herod to support his expansion of the mount, considered somewhat holy for it's closeness to the Holy of Holies - the part of the Temple where the Ark of Covenant was being held. Anyway, Muhammed founded Islam, and his people - the Arab tribes of the Arab Peninsula, said to descend from Ishmael son of Abraham - went out to conquer the land. I don't know if they targeted Israel and Jerusalem for their holiness or for being the passage to Africa - probably both.

Those events weren't to the liking of the Byzantian Empire, which was Orthodox Christian. So it called out to it's western Christian (=Catholic) allies, for a holy crusade to retake the holy sites from the heretics and heathens. Retrospectively I find it funny - Islam is partially based on Christian teachings, so they did to the Christians what the Christians did to Judaism, and the Christians reacted poorly to that. In any case, it took some time fo the Christians to actually organize such things - I believe Jerusalem was under Muslim role for a couple of centuries, though the specific Muslim sect that ruled there changed a few times. During the Muslim role Jews were allowed into Jerusalem - though honestly, a few centuries in (after a few crusades already conquered and lost the city), a Jewish rabbi named Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman (AKA Nachmanides) reported only two Jewish painters, brothers, who lived in Jerusalem. It may have been a result of the crusades - Jews tended to fare better in Muslim countries. 

Speaking of the crusades, let's go back to them. The first one, I believe, was led by Godefroy de Bouillon. There is an old Jewish legend that ties him to Rashi, a well-renown Jewish interpretor and rabbi of the time who lived in France. The legend is probably wrong, so I'm going to ignore it for now - with just a side mention that Rashi also wrote a lament on Jewish congregations that were destroyed by the Crusaders. Godeefroy was just the first of many (IIRC; I might be mistaken on him being the first) to try and take Jerusalem from the Muslims. He succeeded, temporarilly, and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem - which lost Jerusalem pretty quickly.

Following is a series of wars between Christians and Muslims over Jerusalem. This ramble is long enough as it is, and in my opinion it's pretty boring, so I'll get back to Jews in the city. I mentioned the Western Wall already; since the loss of ritual purity (not elaborating, it's a thing that exists) Jews had Halachik issues with climbing the Temple Mount, the most holy site to Judaism - the place G-d chose, as mentioned many times in Deutronomy. Thus, they holiest available Jewish site was the Western Wall - the pretty much only remaining wall from something related to the Temple (at least, remaining relatively whole. The Southern, Eastern and Northern supporting walls still exist to some extent), and the closest to its original location. So it was considered a place Jews went to for prayers. But it's not really all.

Among the well-renown Jews that went to Jerusalem are Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller who reported an existing Jewish community in the city; legends say Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (actually prior to Benjamin of Tudela) reached the city and was killed there by a Muslim horseman (dubious due to a few reasons, including the city being under Crusader role at the time); Maimonides said that he "entered the Great and Holy House and prayed there" while he was in Israel, this being assumed to be the Temple Mount; after the burning of the Talmud in Paris, Rabbi Yechiel of Paris was said to come to Israel and plan to reinstate the practice of sacrifices on the Temple mount as a first step toward the temple (some historians doubt he ever came to Israel, much less succeeded in any such endeavour); Nachmanides got there, as mentioned above, and to this day there is a synagogue named after him in the old city - supposedly built there at around the time he lived in the area. Nachmanides himself, BTW, is known to have fled Spain due to prosecutions after he won a debate against the ruling Christians. That was long before Jews were completely banished from Spain. Which just reminds me, forgive me for the lack of dates. Everything mentioned in this paragraph was during the 12th-13th century, give or take.

At this point in history, Jews were divided to Spaniards, Ashkenazi, Mizrachi etc. This is important due to another story - that of Hurvat Rabbi Yehuda He-Hasid (lit. Ruins of Rabbi Judah the Pious). It's a synagogue that was founded in Jerusalem at around the 15th century, named after a Jewish Rabbi from three ceturies before. It was an Ashkenazi synagogue, and due to various reasons and unfortunate events relating to this synagogue, during some time in the 18th century Ashkenazi Jews were forbidden from entering Jerusalem. At the time, the city was controlled by the Othoman Empire - which also built the walls currently surrounding the Old City. The Othoman Empire, BTW, accepted with open arms the Jews banished from Spain at the same time. Those of you who have sharp eyes might notice an indication here: while life in exile were bad all around, Jews were better accepted under Muslim role. It might be interesting to wonder why that is, and how is it that it turned around during the previous few centuries, but I'm digressing. From the time of the banishment of Jews from Spain in 1492 onward, there were a couple of occasions Jews went to Israel (and sometimes Jerusalem). Though for a time Safed and Tiberias contained many of the Jews in Israel, Jerusalem was still known to be the holy city (though somtimes considered one of four such cities).

During the 18th-19th centuries, the students of the BEShT (known as Chassidim; I'll get to them in my essays about Judaism at some point) and of the Gra (oh, gosh, it'll take me a while to explaain that, too. I'll get to it, really!) came to Israel, starting settlements mostly at the north - but a few of them, including one named Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref, came to Jerusalem and entered it - under the guise of Spanish Jews, because it was during the time Ashkenazi Jews were forbidden from entering the city. I peobably only mention him because his grandson founded a major settlement in Israel, and was involved in the expanding of Jerusalem outside the walls.

I also forgot to mention a Kaballic yeshivah named Bet E-l that also was in Jerusalem during the time. Honestly, I'm probably missing a lot of people. We're also getting close to the time of Zionism, so I'll just briefly mention people I know of: Moshe Montefiore was an rich Jew from England that gave financial support to Jews in Jerusalem and supported the expansion of Jerusalem: he built the first Jewish neighborhood outside the walls and added a few lines to the Western Wall (the smaller rocks on the top). Many, many important Jewsih rabbis lived in Jerusalem at this time, like Rav Kook, Reb Arye Levin, Rav Zevi Pesach Frank, Rav Zolty, Rav Meshash, Rav Sonnenfeld, Rav Elyashiv, and if I'll try to go over them all I'll never stop. So let's go back to the founding of Israel.

You see, the Zionists were mostly secular, but even they understood the historical importance of Jerusalem. As did the UN - because in their plan of dividing Israel between the Jews and the local Arabs (oh, yeah, I skipped the Brithish conquest of the area from the Othoman empire. That happened), they claimed Jerusalem as an international city. But the founders of Israel wanted it to be the capital, and Ben Gurion, who ended up being Israel's first prime minister, saw it as a high priority to have Jerusalem. Plus, at the time, it had a sizable Jewish population - for centuries, one of the city's four quarters was Jewish. But many arabs lived here too, which made the city a battlefield. To make a long story short (again), the city ended up being split into two, with the Old City being in Jordan, while the western part was mostly in Israel. The part where I currently live - coincidentally, not far from the ancient city Gibeah - was at the time mostly barren, with maybe a house here or there, and was under Jordan role. As a matter of fact, on the hill theorized to be Gibeah where the palace of Shaul was, King Hussain started building a palace for himself.

The cituation of Jewish Jerusalem wasn't very good (and probably the same in the Jordan side), considering the fact it was close to a border with enemy country. And that is how things stayed, until nineteen years later.

At 1967, the surrounding arab countries prepared to war against Israel, those being Egypt, Syria, Lebannon and later - Jordan. Those countries didn't like the existence of a Jewish country in the middle of their Muslim area. So they decided to go over it. From what I hear of the time, people in Israel were in distress: the country was young, it was attacked from all directions and didn't receive much help from other countries. The situation seemed practically hopeless, to the point of people telling dark jokes about the last person to leave the airport needing to remmeber to turn off the lights. To be gathered from that is that many people considered leaving Israel.

And then, the state of Israel struck first. They eliminated most of the air forces of the surrounding countries in one day; during the skirmishes at the north and south they not only kept their ground, but went into enemy territory - conquering the Golan Heights in the north and the Sinai Penninsula in the south. And since Jordan joined the war... well...

There were fights over Jerusalem. They were bloody, that I can tell. I've heard parts of this story quite a few times, but can't say I remember much of the details. What I can say is that a unit of paratroopers went (by foot) into the Old City via a gate named "the Lions' gate" (mistakenly, it's not really lions etched above the gate) and successfully took it back. at the 28th of Iyar, the 5727th year in the Hebrew calendar, they reached the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, proclaiming "Har HaBayit Beyadenu!" (=we have the Temple Mount).

That was the day of reunification of Jerusalem under Israel's role. Well, basically. The Temple mount was later returned to the Waqf of Al-Aqsa (a mosque at the edge of the mount, often confused with the Dome of the Rock - which is a building over a holy site, but not a mosque, that is situated where the Temple originally was), and he has some jurisdiction there ever since - Jewish pilgrimage there is limited in certain ways, but it's still technically under Jewish role. Many Jews immediately went to the Western Wall, and during the upcoming holiday of Shavuot the place was flooded. There were houses built in the area that were destroyed to create what is known today as the Western Wall Plaza.

And that has just been my latest ramble, this time about Jerusalem. Please note that farther histroical essays will be cut to parts and uploaded to my Blog (if the feature still exists when I get to it). For some reason, I did not realize how much material I planned on covering and how it'll cause me to skip a lot of points. I'll consider making essays about Jewish life during exile, the land of Israel and other random notes. Trust me when I say, unless you're a Jew who knows some history you don't really know half the meaning of some things I've mentioned. I didn't even get to the many names of Jerusalem, Prophecies about it... It's a city rich with history - like all of the Four holy cities, but actually the most of the four. Just a tidbit - the whole "four holy cities" thing isn't supposed to say there are three more cities just like Jerusalem; those are just the four biggest Jewish population centers in Israel during a certain period of history. Anyways, I should really finish now.

So, um, thank you for reading! Have an absolutely wonderful and spectacular day! Hope you're not regreting accepting this ramble...