Many great cities are more than just bricks, concrete and
bustling populations – they also have a mythic quality. Paris, London, New York
and Rome have this quality in spades. Perhaps the most highly symbolic city of
them all is Jerusalem, a holy city for Christians, Jews and Muslims - A City upon a Hill, Jerusalem the Golden,
Next Year in Jerusalem, the Hills and Daughters of Zion, just some of the
cloudy and fable-laden epithets attached to this famous place.
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| A Visionary Version of the New Jerusalem |
The gap between hopeful imagination and everyday reality is often wide and Christian visitors returning from Jerusalem sometimes express disappointment. They complain that the place is hot and dusty, the streets narrow and noisy, the sites underwhelming other than for the archaeologist or the seriously devout, while hawkers of all kinds add the confusion of a Levantine bazaar to the mix, not to mention the perils of terrorism and sectarian conflict. I am talking about Old Jerusalem, the devotional heart of the city, while modern Jerusalem is lively enough but lacks any great charm.
Jerusalem carries a heavy weight of turbulent history on her
broad shoulders. She is said to have been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times,
attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times. Founded in about 1500 BCE
by the Canaanite tribe, the Jebusites, it was seized in about 1000 BCE by
David, King of the Israelites. The First
Temple was erected by David’s son Solomon, making the city the capital of the
Kingdom of Judah and the centre of the Jewish religion. After much conflict and
division, this Temple was destroyed in the early 7th century by
Philistines, Arabs and Ethiopians. The Jewish kingdom was overwhelmed by the
Babylonian Empire and its leaders went into captivity there in 597 BCE though
they were allowed to return and a Second Temple was built under the auspices of
Cyrus the Great of Persia in 516 BCE.
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| The Western (Wailing) Wall |
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| The Al-Aqsa Mosque |
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| The Church of the Holy Sepulchre |
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| The Dome of the Rock |
The Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 198 BCE
and the city became a vassal state of Egypt. In 37 BCE Judea came under the
control of Rome. In 66 AD the Jews revolted and were routed by Emperor Titus
who expelled the Jews entirely from the city and destroyed the Temple. The Jews
were only allowed one annual visit to pray at the Western Wall. The Byzantine Empire cherished the city as a
Christian shrine and Constantine’s mother Helena founded the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the
supposed site of Calvary with relics of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, along
with many other churches.
The city was largely Christian until the rise of the Muslim
religion and in 650 Jerusalem fell to the Abbasid dynasty. The Muslim
population grew quickly but they were tolerant of Christians and Jews. The
later Fatimid dynasty held different views and in 1020 destroyed all the city
churches. In 1021 the Dome of the Rock
was rebuilt substantially as we see it now and in 1035 the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the 3rd most sacred site for Sunni
Islam, was completed. Persecution of Christians by Arabs inflamed the faith and
cupidity of Western Europe, the Pope called for a Crusade and the brutal
seizure of Jerusalem occurred in 1099 with a shameful massacre of Muslims and
Jews. The largely Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291 but Jerusalem
herself was recaptured by the Kurdish Saladin in 1187. Various local strongmen
asserted control. To give an idea of the flavour of Jerusalem in 1482, a highly
intolerant and partisan Dominican priest described Jerusalem thus:
"A collection of all manner of
abominations". As "abominations" he listed Saracens, Greeks, Syrians,
Jacobites, Abyssinians, Nestorians, Armenians, Gregorians, Maronites,
Turcomans, Bedouins, Assassins, a sect possibly Druzes, Mamelukes, and "the most accursed of all",
Jews. Only the Latin Christians "long
with all their hearts for Christian princes to come and subject all the country
to the authority of the Church of Rome".
After some time Jerusalem was taken over
by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 where it stayed 400 years until 1917 when the
victorious British General Allenby, disdaining a mounted entry, walked in by
the Jaffa Gate.
The Jerusalem handed to a British League
of Nations Mandate over Palestine had been in decline many years. Arab power
was in Cairo, Baghdad or Damascus, or in remote areas where oil could be found.
The city’s population was barely 20,000; it was of no strategic value and was
little more than an antiquarian curiosity. But this was to change. The Zionist
movement to revive a home for Jews attracted a trickle of Jews at first,
becoming a flood as persecution in Poland and Germany gathered pace. The
British were conscious of their duty to protect the interests of local Arabs
who became increasingly alarmed by the Jewish influx. US public opinion pressed
for shelter to be given to the refugees, though the US itself strictly limited
access to America. Commissions and plans by the bucketful reported in vain;
Palestine was polarised between Arab and Jew and violent inter-communal clashes
were frequent. The British tired of the thankless task of holding the ring and
in 1948 ingloriously scuttled. WW2 and its aftermath had seen a horde of Jewish
displaced persons and during the war the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin
al-Husseini, disgusted the West with his support for Hitler and for his hateful
vituperation against the Jews.
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| David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 |
The British left, Israel was proclaimed and the Arabs went to war against it. A furious
fight erupted in Jerusalem but the Jewish Army foiled the Arab forces from
Egypt, Syria and Transjordan. Only the Old City remained in Arab hands and when
a truce was called Israel secured for itself a narrow coastal realm hemmed in
by the Egyptian Sinai, the West Bank of the River Jordan and the Syrian Golan
Heights. The Sinai campaign in 1956, the 6-Day War of 1967 and the 1973 Yom
Kippur War saw Israel seize the Old City of Jerusalem, all the West Bank of the
Jordan, most of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Israel has been a
success militarily and as a fulfilment of the Zionist ideal. It is democratic,
largely Western in its culture and economically prosperous. It has tried to
make peace with its neighbours with mixed results with Palestinian demands
impossible to satisfy. The “international community” is mainly hostile and the
UN Security Council does not recognise Israel’s wartime gains, pending a
general settlement.
The status of Jerusalem is a highly contentious matter. Israel has
proclaimed it her capital (as has the Palestinian Authority) and confirmed
easy access to the Holy Places, subject to security considerations. It is now a
city of 809,000 inhabitants, at least two-thirds Jewish. It will now never be
surrendered by Israel to the Arabs. There is a possibility President Trump will
grant US recognition to Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, which will create a
crisis. We can only hope wisdom will temper fixed ideas and a lasting peace
settlement emerges.
Yet “Jerusalem” is not simply a matter for a guide book. It is a
transcendental notion of yearning, of aspiration and of reaching a final
destination. It can best be evoked in that sinuous passage in the Introit to Mozart’s Requiem when the soprano voice proclaims:
Te
decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
The British particularly cherish William
Blake’s vision of Jerusalem, to the
rousing music of Sir Hubert Parry:
Bring
me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.
SMD
03/02/2017
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017
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