Jerusalem
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| Jerusalem | |||
 Jerusalem, viewed from the Mount of Olives |
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| Hebrew | יְרוּשָ××œÖ·×™Ö´× (Yerushalayim) | ||
| (Standard) | Yerushalayim | ||
| Arabic | commonly القـÙدْس (Al-Quds); officially in Israel أورشليم القدس (Urshalim-Al-Quds) |
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| Name Meaning | Hebrew: (see below), Arabic: "The Holy" |
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| Government | City | ||
| District | Jerusalem | ||
| Population | 732,100[1] (2007) | ||
| Jurisdiction | 126,000 dunams (126 km²) | ||
| Mayor | Uri Lupolianski | ||
| Website | www.jerusalem.muni.il[i] | ||
Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָ××œÖ·×™Ö´× , Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القÙدس , al-Quds)[ii] is Israel's capital,[iii] seat of government, and largest city[2] in both population and area,[3] with 732,100 residents in an area of 126 square kilometers (49 sq mi).[1] Located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern tip of the Dead Sea, the city has a history that goes back as far as the 4th millennium BCE.[4] Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE.[5] The city contains a number of significant ancient Christian sites and is considered the third-holiest city in Islam.[6]
The walled area of Jerusalem, which constituted the entire city until the 1860s, is now called the Old City, and was added to the List of World Heritage Sites in danger in 1982.[7] The Old City has been traditionally divided into four quarters, although the names used today—the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters—were only introduced in the early 19th century.[8] Despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometer (0.35 square mile),[9] the Old City is home to several sites of key religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims.
Modern Jerusalem has grown up around the Old City, with its civic
and cultural hub extending westward toward the country's urban center
in Gush Dan. The Arab population is clustered in the north, east and south. Today, Jerusalem remains a bone of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem (captured in the 1967 Six-Day War) has been particularly controversial, as Palestinians view this part of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.[10][11] The status of a "united Jerusalem" as Israel's "eternal capital"[12][13] has not been officially recognized by most of the international community, and nearly all countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.[14]
Contents[hide] |
Etymology
  Jerusalem |
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- Further information: Names of Jerusalem
Although the precise origin of the name remains uncertain, the Hebrew Yerushalayim may be understood as "Heritage of Peace" — a portmanteau of yerusha (heritage) and shalom (peace), and is cognate with the name "Solomon", the king who built its first temple. [15][16] Alternatively, the second part of the portmanteau may instead be Salem (Shalem literally "whole" or "in harmony"), a city name used prior to Jerusalem[17] and seen in the first book of the Torah, Genesis.[18] Similarly, the Amarna letters call the city the Akkadian Urušalim, a cognate of the Hebrew Ir Shalem (city of Salem). Some consider a connection between the name and Shalim, the benificent deity known from Ugaritic myths as personifying dusk.[19] The ending -ayim or -im has the appearance of the Hebrew dual, leading some scholars to argue that Jerusalem represents two facets of the city, such as two hills.[20][21]
A Midrashic interpretation comes from Genesis Rabba, which explains that Abraham came to the city that was then called Shalem after rescuing Lot.[22] Upon arrival, he asked the king and high priest Melchizedek to bless him, and Melchizedek did so in the name of God (indicating that he, like Abraham, was a monotheist). According to Biblical exegesis, God immortalizes this encounter between Melchizedek and Abraham by renaming the city in honor of them: the name Yeru (derived from Yireh, the name Abraham gives to the Temple Mount) is placed in front of the contemporary name of Shalem.[22] Yeru-Shalem, meaning "The City of Shalem," or "Founded by Shalem." If used as an adjective, Shalem could mean "complete," or "without defect;" implying either "The Perfect City," or "City of the One Who is Perfect."[23]
History
Archaeological findings indicate the existence of development within present-day Jerusalem as far back as the 4th millennium BCE,[4] but the earliest written records of the city come in the Execration Texts (c. 19th century BCE) and the Amarna letters (c. 14th century BCE).[24][25] Some archaeologists, including Kathleen Kenyon, believe Jerusalem as a city was founded by West Semitic people with organized settlements from around 2600 BCE. According to tradition the city was founded by Shem and Eber, ancestors of Abraham. The Biblical account portrays the Jebusites as having control of the city, inhabiting the area around the present-day city until the late 11th century BCE when David is said to have invaded and conquered their city, Jebus, and established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah (c. 1000s BCE).[26][27][iv] Recent excavations of a large stone structure are interpreted by some archaeologists as lending credence to the biblical narrative.
Temple periods
Artist's depiction of the First Temple, according to Biblical descriptions
According to the Hebrew Bible, David reigned until 970 BCE, when his son Solomon became king of Israel.[28] Within a decade, Solomon began to build the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah inside the city. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish and Christian history as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant.[29] The next four centuries, up until the destruction of Solomon's Temple (c. 586 BCE), are known in history as the First Temple Period.[30] Upon Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the ten northern tribes split off to form the Kingdom of Israel. Under the leadership of the House of David and Solomon, Jerusalem remained the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.[31] When the Assyrians
conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened
by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. The First
Temple period ended around 586 BCE, as the Babylonians conquered Judah
and Jerusalem, and laid waste to Solomon's Temple.[31]
In 538 BCE, after fifty years of Babylonian captivity, Persian King Cyrus the Great permitted the Jews to return to Judah to rebuild Jerusalem and their holy temple. Construction of the Second Temple, was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple.[32][33] Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship. When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Hellenistic Greek control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy I. In 198 BCE, Ptolemy V lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus III. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized polis came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias the High Priest and his five sons against Antiochus Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem again as its capital.[34]
View of David's Citadel from Hinnom Valley
As Rome became stronger it installed Herod as a Jewish client king.
Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and
beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size.[35][36][28] In 6 CE, the city, as well as much of the surrounding area, came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province[37] and Herod's descendants through Agrippa II remained client kings of Judea until 96 CE. Roman rule over Jerusalem and the region began to be challenged with the first Jewish-Roman war, the Great Jewish Revolt, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. In 130 CE Hadrian attempted to Romanize the city, and renamed it Aelia Capitolina.[38] Jerusalem once again served as the capital of Judea during the three-year rebellion known as the Bar Kochba revolt.
The Romans succeeded in recapturing the city in 135 CE and as a
punitive measure Hadrian banned the Jews from entering it. Hadrian
proceeded to rename the entire Iudaea Province to Syria Palaestina after the Biblical Philistines in an attempt to thwart future rebellion and to de-Judaize Judea.[39][40]
Shifts in control
Capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, 1099 (from a medieval manuscript)
In the five centuries following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the city remained under Roman then Byzantine rule. During the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine I constructed Christian sites in Jerusalem such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the
Second Temple Period: The city covered two square kilometers (0.8 sq
mi.) and had a population of 200,000[41][39] From the days of Constantine until the Arab conquest in 638, Jews were banned from Jerusalem.[42] By the end of the 7th century, an Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik had commissioned and completed the construction of the Dome of the Rock over the Foundation Stone.[43] In the four hundred years that followed, Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.[44]
In 1099, Jerusalem was besieged by the First Crusaders, who killed most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.[45]
That would be the first of several conquests to take place over the
next four hundred years. In 1187, the city was taken from the Crusaders
by Saladin.[46] Between 1228 and 1244, it was given by Saladin's descendant al-Kamil to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Jerusalem fell again in 1244 to the Khawarizmi Turks, who were later, in 1260, replaced by the Mamelukes. In 1517, Jerusalem and its environs fell to the Ottoman Turks, who would maintain control of the city until the 20th century.[46]
This era saw the first expansion outside the Old City walls, as new
neighborhoods were established to relieve the overcrowding that had
become so prevalent. The first of these new neighborhoods included the Russian Compound and the Jewish Mishkenot Sha'ananim, both founded in 1860.[47]
Landmarks outside the walls include the Mishkenot Sha'ananim neighborhood, King David Hotel, Montefiore Windmill, and the YMCA building
In 1917 after the Battle of Jerusalem, the British Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the city.[48] The League of Nations, through its 1922 ratification of the Balfour Declaration, entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate of Palestine and help establish a Jewish state in the region.[49] The period of the Mandate saw the construction of new garden suburbs in the western and northern parts of the city[50][51] and the establishment of institutions of higher learning such as the Hebrew University, founded in 1925.[52]
State of Israel
- See also: UN General Assembly Resolution 194
As the British Mandate of Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Part III) recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a corpus separatum under the administration of the United Nations."[53] However, this plan was never implemented and at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem found itself divided between Israel and Jordan (then known as Transjordan). The ceasefire line established through the Armistice Agreement
of 1949 between Israel and Jordan, cut through the center of the city
from 1949 until 1967, during which time West Jerusalem was part of
Israel and East Jerusalem was part of Jordan. In 1949, Israel designated West Jerusalem as its capital. Contrary to the terms of the Armistice Agreement
of 1949 between Jordan and Israel, Israelis were denied access to
Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated, and only allowed
extremely limited access to Christian holy sites.[54]
Following the 1967 Six-Day War
Israel captured East Jerusalem, asserted sovereignty over the entire
city, and later in 1980 declared Jerusalem, "complete and united", to
be the capital of Israel.[55] However, East Jerusalem has been seen by the Palestinian Arabs as a possible capital of a proposed Palestinian state.[56][57]
They also refer to Security Council resolution 252, which considers
invalid expropriation of land and other actions that tend to change the
legal status of Jerusalem.[58] The status of the city and of its holy places remains disputed to this day.
Geography
Ein Karem in the hills of southwest Jerusalem
Jerusalem is situated around on the southern spur of a plateau in the Judean Mountains, which include the Mount of Olives (East) and Mount Scopus (North East). The altitude of the Old City is approximately 760 metres (2,500 ft).[59] The whole of Jerusalem is surrounded by valleys and dry riverbeds (wadis), although those to the north are less pronounced than those on the other sides.
Three of the most prominent valleys in the region, the Kidron, Hinnom, and Tyropoeon Valleys, intersect in an area just south of the Old City of Jerusalem.[60] The Kidron Valley runs just to the east of the Old City and separates the Mount of Olives from the city proper. Along the southern side of old Jerusalem is the Valley of Hinnom, a steep ravine associated in Biblical eschatology with the concept of Gehenna or hell.[61] A third valley commenced in the northwest near the present-day location of Damascus Gate, ran south-southeasterly through the center of the Old City down to the Pool of Siloam,
and divided the lower part into two hills, the Temple Mount to the
east, and the rest of the city to the west (the lower and the upper
cities described by Josephus). Today, this valley, the Tyropoeon Valley, is mostly hidden from view due to the amount of debris that has accumulated within the ravine over the past few millennia.[60]
Jerusalem is 60 kilometers (37 mi)[62] east of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea. On the opposite side of the city, approximately 35 kilometers (22 mi)[63] away, is the Dead Sea, the lowest body of water on Earth. Neighboring cities and towns include Bethlehem and Beit Jala to the south, Abu Dis and Ma'ale Adummim to the east, Maoz Zion, Motza and Mevaseret Zion to the west, and Ramallah and Giv'at Ze'ev to the north.[64][65][66]
Climate
Residing at a latitude just north of the Tropic of Cancer and located close to the Mediterranean Sea, Jerusalem is characterized by a Mediterranean climate,
with hot, dry summers, and cold and wet winters. Snowfall can occur at
least once a year. January is the coldest month of the year, with an
average high temperature of 12 °C (54 °F). July and August are the hottest months, with an average high temperature of 29 °C (84 °F).[67]
Temperatures vary widely from day to night, and Jerusalem evenings are
typically cool even in summer. The average annual precipitation is
close to 590 millimetres (23 in) although rain is rare between May and September.[67]
Most of the air pollution in Jerusalem comes from vehicular traffic, especially in East Jerusalem.[69]
Many main streets in Jerusalem were not built to accommodate such a
large volume of traffic, leading to traffic congestion and more carbon monoxide released into the air. Industrial pollution inside the city is sparse, but emissions from factories on the Israeli Mediterranean coast can travel eastward and settle over the city.[69]
Demographics
| Year | Total |
|---|---|
| 1844 | 15,510 |
| 1876 | 25,030 |
| 1896 | 45,420 |
| 1922 | 62,578 |
| 1931 | 90,053 |
| 1944 | 157,000 |
| 1948 | 165,000 |
| 1967 | 263,307 |
| 1980 | 407,100 |
| 1985 | 457,700 |
| 1990 | 524,400 |
| 1995 | 617,000 |
| 2000 | 657,500 |
| 2005 | 706,400 |
In May 2006, Jerusalem had a population of 724,000, of whom 65% were Jewish, 32% were Muslim, and 2% were Christian, and a population density of 5,750.4 inhabitants per square kilometer (14,893.5/sq mi).[3][70] In 2005, Jerusalem received 2,450 immigrants, with nearly three quarters of them arriving from the United States, France, and former members of the Soviet Union.
Within Israel, emigrants from Jerusalem outnumber immigrants to the
city. In 2005, over ten thousand Israelis migrated to Jerusalem while
over sixteen thousand left the city.[3] The population of Jerusalem, however, continues to rise due to high birth rates, especially among the Arab and Haredi Jewish communities (whose birth rates are higher than the Israeli national average). Consequently, the total fertility rate
in Jerusalem (4.02) is far higher than those of comparable cities in
the region such as Tel Aviv (1.98) and well above the national average
of 2.90. Similarly, the average size of Jerusalem's 180,000 households
is 3.8 people.[3]
In 2005, the total number of residents in Jerusalem grew by
approximately thirteen thousand (1.8%) — also well above the Israeli
national average. However, as the city has continued to grow, the
religious and ethnic composition of Jerusalem has proceeded to shift.
Although Jews account for the majority of people in Jerusalem, they
only account for thirty-one percent of the children under age fifteen.[3]
This recent data corroborates the observation that the Jewish
population of Jerusalem has been declining over the past four decades.
In 1967, the year of the Six-Day War,
Jews accounted for seventy-four percent of the population, which is
nine percent more than their share of the population in 2006.[71]
Explanations for this decline are the soaring cost of housing in
Jerusalem, the smaller job market and the growing religious character
of the city. Many young people are moving to the suburbs and coastal
cities in search of cheaper housing and the more secular lifestyle
offered by other cities.[72]
Demographics and the Jewish-Arab population split continue to play a
major role in carving the outcome of the dispute over Jerusalem. In
1998, the chairman of the Jerusalem Development Authority even proposed
expanding city limits to the west so as to include more areas heavily
populated with Jews.[73]
Local Government
The Jerusalem City Council
has thirty-one elected members, one of whom is the mayor. The mayor
serves a five-year term and appoints six deputies. The current mayor of
Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski was elected in 2003.[74]
Apart from the mayor and his deputies, City Council members receive no
salaries and work on a voluntary basis. The longest-serving Jerusalem
mayor was Teddy Kollek,
who spent twenty-eight years — six consecutive terms — in office. Most
of the meetings of the Jerusalem City Council are private, but each
month, it holds a session that is open to the public.[74]
Within the city council, religious political parties form an especially
powerful faction, accounting for the majority of its seats.[75]
Kikar Safra, Jerusalem city hall
The headquarters of the Jerusalem Municipality and the mayor's office are at Safra Square (Kikar Safra) on Jaffa Road.
The new municipal complex, comprising two modern buildings and ten
renovated historic buildings surrounding a large plaza, opened in 1993.[76] The city falls under the Jerusalem District, with Jerusalem as the district's capital.
Capital of Israel
- Further information: Positions on Jerusalem
- See also: Politics of Israel
On December 5, 1949, the State of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel's capital[13] and since then all branches of the Israeli government — legislative, judicial, and executive — have resided there.[77] At the time of the proclamation, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and thus only West Jerusalem was considered Israel's capital. Immediately after the 1967 Six-Day War, however, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, making it a de facto
part of the Israeli capital. Israel enshrined the status of the
"complete and united" Jerusalem — west and east — as its capital, in
the 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel.[55]
The Knesset Building in Jerusalem, home to the legislative branch of the Israeli government
The non-binding United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, passed on August 20, 1980,
declared that this law was "null and void and must be rescinded
forthwith." Member states were advised to withdraw their diplomatic
representation from the city as a punitive measure. Most of the
remaining countries with embassies in Jerusalem complied with the
resolution by relocating them to Tel Aviv,
where many embassies already resided prior to Resolution 478. Currently
there are no embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem,
although there are embassies in Mevasseret Zion, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and four consulates in the city itself.[78] In 1995, the United States Congress had planned to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act.[79] However, U.S. presidents, including President Bush and President Clinton, have argued that Congressional resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem are merely "advisory."[80] Israel's most prominent governmental institutions, including the Knesset,[81] the Supreme Court,[82] and the official residences of the President and Prime Minister, are located in Jerusalem.
Palestinian claims
- Further information: Positions on Jerusalem (Palestinian)
Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, Jerusalem served as the administrative capital of the British Mandate of Palestine, which included present-day Israel and Jordan.[83]
From 1949 until 1967, West Jerusalem served as Israel's capital but was
not recognized internationally as Israel's capital, because UN General Assembly Resolution 194 ruled Jerusalem an international city. As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, the whole of Jerusalem came under Israeli control. According to the Oslo Accords, the final status of Jerusalem should be determined by peaceful negotiations, as the Palestinian National Authority sees East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.[10] Orient House was the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1980s and 1990s, but is currently closed.[84]
Culture
The Shrine of the Book, housing the Dead Sea Scrolls, at the Israel Museum
Outside the Children's Memorial at Yad Vashem
Although Jerusalem is known around the world for its religious significance, the city is also home to many artistic and cultural venues. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem's premier art museum, annually attracts nearly one million visitors, with about a third coming from outside Israel.[85] The twenty-acre (8 ha)[85]
Museum complex comprises several artistic institutions that primarily
focus on archaeology, sculptures, and traditional artwork from around
the world. Among some of the Israel Museum's most notable artifacts are
the Dead Sea scrolls, discovered in the mid twentieth century in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea; they are located in the Museum's Shrine of the Book.[86]
The Youth Wing of the museum, which mounts changing exhibits and runs
an extensive art education program, is visited by 100,000 children a
year.[85] The Israel Museum also owns the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, Ticho House, and the Paley Center of Art.
The Rockefeller Museum, located in East Jerusalem, was the first
archeological museum in the Middle East. Built by the British in 1938,
it houses findings unearthed in the first half of the twentieth century.[87][88] The Ticho House, located in downtown Jerusalem, houses work by Israeli artist Anna Ticho
and the Judaica collections of her husband, an ophthalmologist, who
opened Jerusalem's first eye clinic in this building in 1912.[89]
Another prominent cultural institution in Jerusalem is Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Yad Vashem houses the world's largest[90] library of Holocaust-related information, with an estimated 100,000 books and articles.[91]
The complex contains a state-of-the-art museum that explores the
genocide of the Jews through exhibits that focus on the personal
stories of individuals and families whose lives were torn asunder, and
a gallery displaying permanent and changing exhibits of work by artists
who died in the Holocaust.[91]
Another memorial at Yad Vashem commemorates the 1.5 million Jewish
children who perished at the hands of the Nazis. Yad Vashem operates as
both a research and educational institution.
The Jerusalem Theater at night
One of the city's foremost orchestras is the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, which has been operating since the 1940s.[92] The Orchestra has held performances in cities around the world, including Vienna, Frankfurt, and New York City.[92] Within walking distance of the Old City is a cultural district which includes the Khan Theatre, the only repertoire theater in the city,[93] and the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The Jerusalem Theater, located in the Komemiyut (Talbiya) neighborhood, hosts over 150 concerts a year, as well as theater and dance companies and performing artists from overseas.[94] Other prominent facilities for the performing arts include the International Convention Center (Binyanei Ha'ooma) near the entrance to city, where the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra plays, the Gerard Behar Center in downtown Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Music Center in Yemin Moshe,[95] and the Targ Music Center in Ein Kerem. The Palestinian National Theatre, founded in 1984 and once the only center for art and culture in East Jerusalem,[96] today presents art from the Palestinian perspective.[97] The Israel Festival,[98]
featuring local and international vocal artists, concerts, plays and
street theater, has been held annually since 1961. For the past 25
years, Jerusalem has been the major organizer of this event, which
takes place in May-June, and most of the performances take place at
venues around the city.[99]
Religious significance
- Further information: Jerusalem in Judaism, Jerusalem in Christianity, Jerusalem in Islam, and Jerusalem in Mandaeism
- See also: Jerusalem syndrome and New Jerusalem
The Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism
Jerusalem plays an important role in the three monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The 2000 Statistical Yearbook of Jerusalem lists 1204 synagogues, 158 churches, and 73 mosques within the city.[100] Despite efforts to maintain peaceful religious coexistence, some sites, such as the Temple Mount, have been a continuous source of friction and controversy.
Jerusalem has been sacred to the Jews since the 10th century BCE,[5] as the site of Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple. It is mentioned in the Bible 632 times. Today, the Western Wall, a remnant of the Second Temple, is a holy site for Jews, second only to the Temple Mount itself.[101] Synagogues around the world are traditionally built with the Holy Ark facing Jerusalem,[102] and Arks within Jerusalem face the "Holy of Holies".[103] As prescribed in the Mishna and codified in the Shulchan Aruch,
daily prayers are recited while facing east, towards Jerusalem. Many
Jews have "Mizrach" plaques hung on a wall of their homes to indicate
the direction of prayer.[103][104]
The main entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Christianity reveres Jerusalem not only for its role in the Old Testament but also for its significance in the life of Jesus. According to Biblical accounts, Jesus was brought to the city of Jerusalem not long after his birth[105] and later in his life cleansed the Second Temple.[106] The Cenacle, believed to be the site of Jesus' Last Supper, is located on Mount Zion in the same building that houses the Tomb of King David.[107][108] Another prominent Christian site in Jerusalem is Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. The Gospel of John describes it as being located outside Jerusalem,[109]
but recent archaeological evidence suggests Golgotha is a short
distance from the Old City walls, within the present-day confines of
the city.[110] The land currently occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
is considered one of the top candidates for Golgotha and thus has been
a Christian pilgrimage site for the past two thousand years.[110][111][112]
