JERUSALEM

Hebrew Yerushalayim, Arabic Bayt Al-muqaddas, or Al-quds, ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly in the possession of Israel. Since 1949 the city has been claimed by Israel as its capital. Jerusalem has been inhabited since 1800 BC and is one of the principal holy places of the three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war Jerusalem was divided between Transjordan (later Jordan), which annexed the Old City and the rest of East Jerusalem, and Israel, which held West Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was taken by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. Israel has declared Jerusalem to be its eternal and indivisible capital, and the status of the city has become a major point of contention between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbours. Jerusalem is located near the centre of Israel, about 15 miles (24 km) west of the Dead Sea and 35 miles (56 km) east of the Mediterranean Sea, in the watershed between the Mediterranean coastal plain and the Great Rift Valley of the Jordan River. The city has a mixed subtropical, semiarid climate with warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. For Jews, Jerusalem is the repository of the holiest of memories, the focus of religious reverence and nationhood; for Christians, the scene of their Saviour's agony and triumph; and for Muslims, the goal of their Prophet's mystic night journey and the site of the thirdmost sacred shrine in Islam. The city was the capital of the ancient Hebrews and of their Jewish descendants until the 1st century AD. During that century the city witnessed the ministry and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Prophet Muhammad is believed by Muslims to have ascended to heaven from a site in Jerusalem. The main source of employment in modern-day Jerusalem is government and public service (including academic and clerical professions). The city is also a centre of banking, finance, and insurance. There is little heavy industry; the dominant light industries are diamond cutting and polishing, as well as printing and publishing. Jerusalem's cultural climate is richly diverse. The Old City, still surrounded by a massive town wall from antiquity, contains Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian quarters. The Old City is dominated by the raised platform of the Herodian Temple Compound, the site of the First and Second Temples of the Hebrews and Jews; the compound includes the Islamic holy places of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its Western (Wailing) Wall is the most sacred of Jewish shrines. The Old City is distinguished by its many churches and mosques and by the ancient synagogues and study houses of the Jewish Quarter. The modern portion of Jerusalem, which spreads out from the Old City, includes residential neighbourhoods, commercial and governmental buildings, and several educational institutions. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1918) is Israel's foremost institution of higher learning. The Hadassah Medical Centre is renowned for medical research and health care. Extensive archaeological research in the region has contributed material to the Near Eastern archaeology and ethnology collections of the Israel, Rockefeller, and Islamic museums in the city. The Old City is ringed by major avenues. Access roads link Jerusalem with Tel AvivYafo and Lod Airport to the west; Nabulus and Jerusalem (International) Airport to the north; Amman, Jordan, to the east; and Beersheba, Hebron, and Bethlehem to the south. A rail line runs from Jerusalem to the coast at Tel AvivYafo. Area city, 42 square miles (109 square km). Pop. (1992 est.) 544,200. Hebrew Jerushalayim, Arabic Bayt al-Muqaddas, or al-Quds ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly in the possession of Israel. In 1949 the city was proclaimed by Israel as its capital. The Dome of the Rock (centre) and the Mount of Olives (background), Jerusalem. Jerusalem plays a central role in the spiritual and emotional perspective of the three major monotheistic religions. For Jews throughout the world, it is the focus of age-old yearnings, a living proof of ancient grandeur and independence and a centre of national renaissance; for Christians, it is the scene of their Saviour's agony and triumph; for Muslims, it is the goal of the Prophet Muhammad's mystic night journey and the site of one of Islam's most sacred shrines. For all three faiths it is a centre of pilgrimagethe Holy City, the earthly prototype of the heavenly Jerusalem. From 1948 until 1967, Jerusalem was divided into Israeli (West Jerusalem) and Jordanian (East Jerusalem) sectors, with the Israeli sector of the city becoming the capital of Israel. During the Six-Day War of June 1967, however, Israel occupied the former Jordanian sector, over which it proclaimed jurisdiction as an integral part of the unified city. Its standing as capital of the nation was reaffirmed by a special Israeli law passed in 1980. Since 1975 the unified Jerusalem has been Israel's largest city. An outstanding characteristic of Jerusalem, which covers an area of 42 square miles (109 square kilometres), is the variety of its people and culture. The Old City has Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim quarters. The Jewish quarter suffered during the 194748 fighting but since has been completely rebuilt. Its historical synagogues have been restored, and the new residential quarters, though modern, preserve some of their old Oriental atmosphere. The old Jewish neighbourhoods outside the Old City, on the other hand, reflect much of the atmosphere brought from Jewish habitats elsewhere in the Orient, as well as in eastern Europe. Similarly, many of the Christian institutions made direct copies of the architecture common to their native lands. In recognition of its central place in the traditions and histories of numerous peoples, the walled Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. Arabs in traditional and modern dress; Christians, Western and Oriental, in their infinite variety of secular and monastic vestments; Jews in fashionable and Orthodox dress; and hosts of tourists combine in colourful, kaleidoscopic patterns. Synagogues, churches, mosques, and dwellings in various styles make up the city's unique architectural mosaic. The scent of Oriental cooking and spices, the peal of church bells, the calls of muezzins from minarets, and the chanting of Jewish prayers at the Western (Wailing) Wall all add a particular tinge to the life of the city. These impressions, however, are in a large measure limited to the Old City. Outside the walls Jerusalem is in every sense a modern city with its network of streets and transportation, high-rise buildings, supermarkets, businesses, schools, and restaurants and coffeehouses. It is the persistent mingling of Hebrew, Arabic, and English in the streets that brings to mind the multicultural and political complexities of life in this revered city. Additional reading A good general account of the city is given by Teddy Kollek and Moshe Pearlman in Jerusalem, Sacred City of Mankind (1968; U.S. title, Jerusalem: A History of Forty Centuries). The best guides to Christian monuments and holy places are Eugene Hoade, Guide to the Holy Land, 11th ed. (1981), and Jerusalem and Its Environs, 5th ed. (1964). Noteworthy archaeological works include Kathleen M. Kenyon, Jerusalem: Excavating 3000 Years of History (1967), and Digging Up Jerusalem (1974); and the Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, rev. trans. from the Hebrew, vol. 2 (1976), Eng. ed. by Michael Avi-Yonah. For recent excavations and discoveries, see Nahman Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (1983; originally published in Hebrew, 1980); Yigael Yadin (ed.), Jerusalem Revealed: Archaeology in the Holy City, 19681974, trans. by R. Grafman (1975, reissued 1976); Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord, trans. from the Hebrew (1975); and Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple (1985).For ancient history the Bible is the basic source, best consulted in the modern edition known as The Jerusalem Bible (1966), prepared in Jerusalem itself by scholars long conversant with the Holy City and its monuments. It may be supplemented by a good commentary such as James Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, rev. ed. by Frederick C. Grant and H.H. Rowley (1963). Next to the Bible, the main original source for ancient Jerusalem is Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote under Roman patronage at the end of the 1st century AD; the Loeb Classical Library edition, Josephus, 9 vol. (192665, reprinted 196669), is recommended. Of modern works, see Emil Schurer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BCAD 135), 2 vol. rev. ed. by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black (197379; originally published in German, 2nd ed., 188690). George Adam Smith, Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Times to AD 70, 2 vol. (190708, reprinted 1974 in 1 vol.), is a comprehensive survey by a great scholar. The works of the great Dominican scholars Hughes Vincent and F.M. Abel, especially Jrusalem: recherches de topographie, d'archologie et d'histoire, 2 vol. in 4 (191226), should also be read. For medieval history, Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 vol. (195154, reprinted 1975), provides essential background, and each volume contains an exhaustive bibliography. See also Joshua Prawer, The Crusaders' Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (1972; U.K. title, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1973), and Crusader Institutions (1980). Guy Le Strange (trans.), Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from AD 650 to 1500 (1890, reprinted 1975), is an exhaustive collection of medieval Arabic sources. T.S.R. Boase, Castles and Churches of the Crusading Kingdom (1967), is a finely illustrated work by an outstanding scholar. Amnon Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century (1978); and Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: The Old City (1984; originally published in Hebrew, 1977), treat the Ottoman period. The beginning of modern scholarship was heralded by three books: Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea 3 vol. (1841, reprinted 1977), by the founder of scientific biblical geography; James Finn, Stirring Times; or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856, compiled by his widow (1878); and Charles W. Wilson et al., The Recovery of Jerusalem: A Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land (1871, reprinted 1872), the record of the first underground survey of the ancient city. Since then, the output of books on every aspect of Jerusalem has been unceasing. Current publications in all aspects and languages can be followed in the quarterly Kiryat Sefer. For the period of the British mandate, Albert M. Hyamson, Palestine Under the Mandate, 19201948 (1950, reprinted 1976), is the standard work. Stewart Perowne, The One Remains (1954, reissued 1955), is an eyewitness account of the succeeding period. Of particular importance to understanding modern history are Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem, the Torn City (1976; originally published in Hebrew, 1973); David H.K. Amiran, Arie Shachar, and Israel Kimhi (eds.), Atlas to Jerusalem (1973), and Urban Geography of Jerusalem (1973), a companion volume; and Joel L. Kraemer (ed.), Jerusalem: Problems and Prospects (1980). Two general histories are John Gray, A History of Jerusalem (1969), an authoritative survey by a biblical scholar; and A.L. Tibawi, Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab History (1969). The latest archaeological excavations are reported in the Israel Exploration Journal (quarterly). Studies of current problems are published by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, including Ora Ahimeir (ed.), Jerusalem: Aspects of Law, 2nd rev. ed. (1983); and David Kroyanker, Jerusalem Planning and Development, 19791982, trans. from the Hebrew (1982). Stewart Henry Perowne Joshua Prawer