Jerusalem History
Has any other place in history been so turbulently and so hotly contested? In the last 3,000 years (Jerusalem is marking its trimillennial in 1996), the city has been conquered and reconquered by a parade of Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Moslems and Crusaders. Its extraordinary character remains. After every conquest, the city has risen again, leaving yet another layer of archaelogical history under its stones.
We know that Jerusalem existed 4,000 years ago because the place was mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. Even in palaeolithic times, man lived here. In the Canaanite era, around the time of Abraham, the town contained a shrine to local gods.
Jerusalem first became a significant centre when David, as the Bible tells us, purchased the threshing floor on Mount Moriah and built an altar there (2 Samuel 24: 18-25), around the year 1000 BCE. Jerusalem became the political and spiritual capital of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Under the rule of David's son, King Solomon, Jerusalem became the centre of the nation. The splendid First Temple, described in great detail in the Book of Kings, was perhaps Solomon's most important achievement.
When the kingdom split in two after Solomon's death in 925 BCE, Jerusalem remained the capital of the southern kingdom, Judah. It continued to expand during the rule of King Hezekiah some 200 years later. Under threat of attack from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah built a giant rampart connecting the sections of Jerusalem to the west, and an ingenious tunnel to bring water to the city from the Gihon spring. The attack was averted, and the tunnel survives today.
But in 586 BCE, the city fell to the Babylonian forces of Nebuchadnezzar and the First Temple was destroyed. The Jews were exiled, though many soon returned to rebuild the Temple when Cyrus of the Persians succeeded the Babylonians.
Two hundred years later, a new people took over control of Jerusalem. The Greeks under the Ptolemies and later the Seleucids introduced a seductive and oppressive Hellenistic culture to Jerusalem, which triggered a successful revolt by the Jewish Hasmonaeans (Maccabees). Once again for a short time Jerusalem was in Jewish hands.
Within three generations, though, a new ruling force came to the city - the Romans, under whose rule (particularly under King Herod in 37-4 BCE) the city grew and developed. Herod rebuilt and refurbished the Temple after enlarging the Temple Mount. He constructed palaces, theatres and sophisticated water systems - all the impressive appurtenances of a successful Roman city. Its population has been estimated as a sizeable 150,000. It was shortly after this period that Jesus was crucified by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate outside the city.
Once again the Jews revolted against Roman oppression in 66 CE, an uprising which was cruelly crushed by Titus. The Temple was destroyed, and its menorah and other treasures triumphantly borne off as booty.
In 132 CE, after Emperor Hadrian attempted to rid the city, which he renamed Aelia Capitolina, of its Jews, Bar Kochba led an unsuccessful revolt.
The following centuries introduced a parade of new rulers and faiths - the Christian emperor Constantine in the 4th century; the Moslems in the 7th century; the Crusaders in the 11th century and the Ottomans in the 16th. Under the Ottoman emperor Suleiman, the city prospered and the walls were rebuilt in 1547, but from then on, it declined.
Nevertheless, the Jewish presence grew. In 1800, Jerusalem had about 1,800 Jewish inhabitants out of 9,000, a number which grew to 45,000 out of about 70,000 in 1914. As the population grew, so did expansion outside the old walls. Jews built residential neighbourhoods such as Mishkenot Sha'ananim, with its well-known windmill, and Mea She'arim; Christians built impressive churches, hostels and schools which still lend a European character to parts of the city today.
After the First World War, Jerusalem became the capital of Palestine under the British Mandate. This was a period of municipal expansion, with the construction of many Jerusalem landmarks, such as the YMCA building and the Rockefeller museum. At the same time, it was a period of Arab-Jewish disturbances and turmoil in the city. Jews in the Old City tended to retreat to the Jewish quarter, while Jewish resistance to what was seen as British anti-Zionist bias culminated in the blowing-up of British army offices in the King David Hotel.
When the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors in 1947, Jerusalem was assigned the status of an international city. The War of Independence which followed prevented that; the Old City of Jerusalem was beseiged by the Jordanians.
In May 1948, the Jewish quarter in the Old City surrendered to the Jordanian forces. The city was now partitioned into two halves, a situation which remained in force until the Six Day War in June 1967.
The war lasted only three days in Jerusalem. Israeli paratroopers surrounded and quickly occupied the whole of the Old City in a move that electrified and moved the world. The barbed wire and ugly walls were torn down. Once again, the city was one, and the Western Wall lay in Jewish hands.
Jerusalem today - A mosaic of communities
Jerusalem has been legally united since 1967, but peace lies uneasy on these ancient stones. Though the two sides coexisted reasonably well, due in large part to the efforts of Jerusalem's innovative and tolerant former mayor, Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem under Mayor Ehud Olmert remains a city of ethnically distinct and separate neighbourhoods. There are, for example, two separate downtown areas, two bus systems and even two electricity grids. Discussions on the city are to be part of ``final status'' talks between Israelis and Palestinians that are to begin in May 1996.
The city is divided between its many religious inhabitants and its secular population, and even between subgroups of religious communities.
When the Israeli government formally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 the city had a population of about 65,000 Arabs and 200,000 Jews. Today about 401,000 Jews, more than 130,000 Moslems, and about 14,000 Christians live in this thriving city. More than a million tourists add to the din and cosmopolitan atmosphere every year.
Once a dingy backwater, Jerusalem has undergone a frenzy of building since 1967, much of it exceptionally well planned by an international advisory committee of top world architects. Kollek remarked that each of these architects has two cities: his own and Jerusalem. This careful and loving planning has led to architectural marvels such as the rebuilt Jewish quarter of the Old City, with its painstakingly restored Hurvah, Ramban and Four Sephardi synagogues, the new Tower of David museum and the impressive Jerusalem Theatre, and the new Supreme Court building.
Today, many tourists feel uncomfortable in parts of the Old City, such as the Arab market, where once they circulated freely.
In spite of differences of opinion on many issues, Israelis of every political persuasion are convinced of one thing. The walls which once divided this extraordinary city must never rise again. Jerusalem must remain a free, undivided city where all faiths have unlimited access and rights to their own holy places.