Grobstein

Jerusalem القُدس יְרוּשָׁלַיִם

Abraham, in accordance with God's command, undertook to sacrifice his son Isaac (the akeidah), on Mount Moriah (later chosen by King David for his altar, and by King Solomon for his Temple), but when an angel of the Lord interceded, Abraham substituted a burnt offering, a ram, for his son.

In 1004BC, King David conquered the small Jebusite city of Salem. He fortified it and renamed it The City of David, and established it as the capital of the first united Jewish kingdom. David's city was actually located on a southeastern ridge, south of the Temple Mount.

King David was succeeded by his son Solomon, whose reign (ca. 961-922 BC) was marked by great prosperity. Solomon built many public edifices, the most celebrated of which was the First Temple. The concentration of religious ritual at the Temple made Jerusalem a place of pilgrimage and an important commercial center.

The city served as the capital of the united kingdom (Judah and Israel) for only two generations.

In the early 1970s, Professor Nahman Avigad unearthed part of the city wall from the period of King Hezekiah (end of the 8th century BC). The city's population had increased before Hezekiah ascended the throne, and Jerusalem expanded to the slopes of Mount Zion. When the Assyrian army approached, the king fortified the city and wall in the newly built areas. The archaeological dig found that houses which had stood on the planned route of the wall were demolished and their stones used to reinforce the wall.

In 722 BC, its centrality was restored by the conquest and destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians.

In 586 BC, the city succumbed to the Babylonians. At the order of their king, Nebuchadnezzar, the city was torched, the Temple razed, and the people taken into exile.

Jerusalem under Ptolemaic Egypt, then passed to the Seleucid Syrians. Hellenistic culture, an amalgam of Greek and early eastern cultures, grew dominant under the Seleucids. Antiochus IV (175-163 BC) declared Jerusalem a Greek "polis", Antiochia of Jerusalem.

In 168 BC, the Hasmonean חשמונאים revolt, led by Judah Maccabee, broke out. Jerusalem was liberated and the Temple was purified and restored as the people's spiritual center. Some 20 years later, Simon the Maccabee defeated the Hellenistic Jews, and ushered in an 80-year period of Jewish political independence in Jerusalem.

During the first generation of Hasmonean rule Jerusalem was still a small city, but subsequently, under John Hyrcanus (Yohanan Girhan, reigned: 134BC-104BC) and Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai), Jerusalem expanded westward to encompass the Upper City (site of the present-day Jewish and Armenian Quarters).

In 37 BC, Herod Antipater was brought to power under Roman patronage.

The platform on which Solomon built his Temple encompassed Mount Moriah and became known as Har haBeit, or the Temple Mount. This structure was enlarged when the Second Temple was rebuilt by Herod הוֹרְדוֹס abandoned after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, and restored when the Dome of the Rock مسجد قبة الصخرة (Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah) was built in 691 AD.

During Herod's reign (37-4 BC), Jerusalem grew northward. Monumental building projects included the Second Wall, the expansive and magnificent Temple Mount, the Antonia Fortress andthe Citadel (today's Tower of David). Numerous palaces as well as public buildings, such as markets, a theater and a hippodrome, enhanced the city.

Following Herod's death, a revolt broke out, formented by the Zealots, who entered Jerusalem in 66 AD, and held the city until the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av תשעה באב in 70 AD, when Jerusalem fell to the Roman legions under the command of Titus. The Romans ransacked the city, and in 135 AD, the Emperor Hadrian declared a new city on the site of Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina.

By order of the Emperor Constantine and under the auspices of his mother, the Empress Helena the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Resurrection were built, as well asthe church on Mount Zion, known as the "Mother of Churches", which commemorated the site of the Last Supper and the"Dormition" of Mary.

In 614 AD, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, massacring thousands of inhabitants. Many churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, were destroyed and others were damaged.

In 620 AD, the Emperor Heraclius restored Byzantine rule, but within a decade, in 638 AD, Jerusalem surrendered again, this time to the forces of the Muslim Arabs.

The Arab conquest of Jerusalem was bloodless. The Patriarch Sophronios surrendered the city to Omar, the commander of the Arab forces, and in returnn he was granted a writ of privileges which guaranteed the right of Christians to maintain their holy places and pursue their customs unhindered.

During the first century of Islamic rule in Jerusalem, the Umayyad ruled in the country. Abd Al-Malik ibn Al Marwan, a leading caliph of the dynasty, built the Dome of the Rock, inaugurated in 691 as one of the two symbols of Jerusalem in the eyes of Muslims.

The Omayyad Dynasty was wiped out and succeeded by the Abbasids, who transferred their capital from nearby Damascus to distant Baghdad and imposed a fanatical regime that was a far cry from the enlightened government of the Umayyads.

In 1869, Mark Twain visited Jerusalem, and wrote in Innocent Abroad, ""Perched on its eternal hills," white and domed and solid, massed together and hooped with high gray walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun." "So Small!" he remarked, ". . . why, it was no larger than an American village of four thousand inhabitants . . ."

And: "The thoughts Jerusalem suggests are full of poetry, sublimity and more than all, dignity." Having entered the gates and wandered through the streets, he observed, ". . . Jerusalem is mournful and dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live here."

After visiting the Holy places, he left Jerusalem and concluded that ". . . all that will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem . . . a memory which money could not buy from us."

David also fortified the city walls. Excavations from 1978 to 1985 by the late Professor Yigal Shiloh, unearthed remnants of a large number of buildings, mainly from the First Temple period. The most prominent feature is a stepped structure made of stone which probably served as a support for the fortress of David and the kings of Judah. The "Miloh" that David built may have been a group of stone walls between which was earth and stone infill, and stones, and which formed the terraces upon which the houses of the fortress-city were built.