As one of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem is a historically significant city that is located in ancient Judah. It is now the capital of Israel and is the holiest city of three major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The city’s history goes back to the 4th millennium B.C. and there is evidence that shows the occupation of Ophel as far back as the Copper Age, within present-day Jerusalem. The reason I chose to do Jerusalem as my city is because I am Jewish and Israeli, so not only is this city an important center to many people around the world, but it relates to my family and me personally. I have been to Israel and Jerusalem many times and even went for my Bat Mitzvah. Currently the total population of this city is around …show more content…
during the Early Bronze Age. King David conquered Jerusalem in 1000 B.C. and made it the Jewish kingdom’s capital. Around 40 years later, Solomon, his son, built the first holy Temple. In 586 B.C., the Babylonians took over Jerusalem by destroying the Temple and sending the Jews into exile. Then, around 50 years later, the Persian King Cyrus allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. After Alexander the Great took control of the city in 332 B.C., the city was conquered and ruled by different groups over the next several hundred years. During this period, the second Temple was restructured (37 B.C.), Jesus was crucified in the city of Jerusalem (30 A.D.), the Romans destroyed the second Temple (70 A.D.), Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, died and was said to have ascended from Jerusalem to heaven (632 A.D.), and many European Christians began pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Christian crusaders occupied Jerusalem and deemed the city a major religious site (1099-1187 …show more content…
The non-Jewish population has grown at a faster rate than the Jewish population since that time and at the start of 2015, Jews were only 63% of Jerusalem’s population (Rebhun 2017). Today, Jerusalem is a city of many religions and in a survey taken in 2006, “1,200 synagogues, 150 churches and 70 mosques within its boundaries” ("The Future of Jerusalem" 2015) were identified. With all this culture fixed to one location, it leaves many wondering if Jerusalem will see peace. As being such a sacred site, it is the subject of conflicting national claims of Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. It is difficult to tell where Jerusalem is headed in a political stance because the centrality of the political issues in Jerusalem derives from religious and emotional sensitivities rather than economic interests or security considerations. According to a hopeful article, “Jerusalem 2020: A vision for the future,” the city will be an urban gem in five years’ time. It will be a pilgrimage site for millions around the world and a center for the world’s most intelligent minds and most productive scholars. Jerusalem has numerous academic institutions, which are providing the world with generations of engineers, developers, entrepreneurs, and researchers. This will hopefully transform the city into a
In the novel “Holy Land” and the essay “An Ordinary Place”, both written by the same author, D.J. Waldie, have the same description about the suburb area during his childhood, but has different meaning and style of the writing. In the novel “Holy Land”, he talks about the 1940s when the suburb area was build. He said white men worked hard every day and built over five hundreds house a week. In “An Ordinary Place”, he talks about how the suburbs are like in the present, also more diversity with different ethnicity lives there now. Both novel and essay is written by the same author but they also share some similarities and differences about his experiences in the suburbs and author writing style.
all the details of the city that often fly over the heads of most and recreates
Jerusalem or Zion, is where the church of Jesus Christ got their stard. But in apostolic time a different city came to overshadow Jerusalem in some respects. The city of Antioch, capital of the Roman province of Syria.
In 586 BCE, the forces of the Babylonian Empire conquered the Jews, destroying their Temple and carrying off a proportion of the Jewish population into exile. It was during the end of the Exile, among the Jews now living in the Persian Empire, that the first
About 742 BCE the most known prophet, Isaiah comes on the scene. Now this far out guy walks the streets naked for three years telling the King not to ally with the Assyrians. He also speaks of how Jerusalem will be saved from the Assyrians. The Assyrians don’t invade Jerusalem but the Northern Kingdom is destroyed just as Amos predicted fifty years earlier.
When Jerusalem fell to the conquering Babylonians in 587 BC, most of what was important to the Hebrew people was gone. They lost their holy city, the Temple was destroyed, and the Davidic monarchy ended (Beasley 221). Following the destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadrezzar, deported most of the population to other cities, including Babylon. These exiles remained there for about fifty years until the Persian forces, under king Cyrus, took the city of Babylon in 539 BC. The Persian policies concerning captured and exiled peoples were quite different than those of the Babylonians, and because of this King Cyrus allowed the exiles to return to Jerusalem in 538 BC to rebuild the city and the Temple.
Kortenoeven, W. "What Makes the Golan so Vital for Israel?". Christians for Israel Today. Canada: 2000. .
Hebrew religion began to give rise to Judaism after the destruction of the temple and the exile of Judah in 586 BC. The term "Jew," in its biblical use, is almost exclusively postexilic. The Jewish religion of the biblical period evolved through such historical stages as the intertestamental, rabbinic, and medieval to the modern period of the nineteenth century with Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism.
However, this place of worship was not meant to last for the Israelites. In 586 BCE, the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, captured Jerusalem and set fire to the Great Temple. The Temple wasn’t the only thing destroyed. According to the article, Babylonian Exile written by Jeffrey Spitzer, “the palace and all of the houses of Jerusalem were burnt, the w...
In 40 B.C., the Roman Senate assigned Herod to be the ruler of Judea. Herod, or Herod the Great, ruled over Judea for the next 36 years. During his reign, he began various building projects including a temple in Jerusalem that would be used to worship God. The building took decades to complete, and required an enormous amount of money as well as labor. Once completed, the temple is a marvelous structure of astounding proportions.
After World War II, the United Nations handed the Jewish people a piece a land so they could live together. This land known as Israel has holy places for the Jewish religion and is surrounded by Muslim countries. Before the United Nations relinquished the land to the Jewish people it belonged to the Palestinian Muslims. This land is important to the Muslims as they consider it holy. There is a religious belief among Palestinians to regain control of East Jerusalem as part of lasting peace region. Also Palestinians are in an occupied nation with Israelis have military rule. The Palestinians have retaliated with a terrorist network to attack innocent Israeli civilians. Israelis believe they must control the Palestinians with military force to protect against terrorism.
17,440 people out of the total population of 93,000. A fire burned most of the city and
In 1095, Jerusalem was a flourishing city that was the main powerhouse for three religions; all three religions wanted complete control over the holy land. These three religions were Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and all three religions were known to use Jerusalem as a place of religious reasons. But in turn, the best part about Jerusalem was the political power it held. Pope Urban’s demand for power and Jewish Israel’s desire to control Palestinians are the factors in the political conflict over the holy land.
In 63 B.C. Roman power spread to Judea, the Jewish homeland. At the time King Herod was the ruler of Judea, he accepted Roman rule and angered many Jews by doing so. After the death of Herod many Jews revolted against Roman rule for 10 years. At this time there were two main factions of Jews, one group, the Zealots wanted to rid Judea of Roman influence. The other group was waiting for a messiah as scripture had prophetized. The Messiah, or Savior would restore the kingdom to the Jews.
The end of the Palestinian reign was experienced in 604 BCE (Ben-Tor 334). This was accompanied by the invasion of the Palestine region. The Assyrians took over the cities and towns and sold all those who remained in slavery (Gosta 519). The land was later reclaimed to form part of the then widely recognized empire known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Alexander the Great thereafter liberated Persia in order to establish a Roman province commonly known as Judea.