Old City of Jerusalem

The Old City of Jerusalem, adorned with its ancient stone structures and garnished with gray and gold-plated domes, is a mosaic of the communities that through history have viewed the city as one of the most sacred meeting points between heaven and earth. For Jews, the city’s Mount Zion was selected by God as his holy dwelling place; for Christians, it is the place of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection; and for Muslims, it is where Muhammad was taken up for his celestial encounter (Miʿrāj) with God. Jerusalem’s symbolic significance and its location along the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe have drawn people from all over the globe, and imprints from Byzantium, Persia, Armenia, and the Latin West are all evident among the edifices of the Middle Eastern city.

Layout and character

The Old City forms a walled quadrilateral about 3,000 feet (900 meters) long on each side. Its modern walls date to the reign of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66), who invested heavily in restoring the splendor of the city. The Old City may be entered through any of seven gates in the wall: the New, Damascus, and Herod’s gates to the north, the St. Stephen’s (or Lions’) Gate to the east, the Dung and Zion gates to the south, and the Jaffa Gate to the west. An eighth gate, the Golden Gate, to the east, remains sealed, however, for it is through this portal, Jewish legend states, that the messiah will enter the city. The Jaffa and Damascus gates are the main entrances.

Despite a rapidly changing demography, Jerusalem has retained a diverse and cosmopolitan character, particularly in the walled Old City, with its Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters: Muslims in traditional and modern attire; Christians, Western and Eastern, in their infinite variety of secular garb and monastic vestments; Jews in casual and Orthodox dress; and hosts of tourists combine in colorful, kaleidoscopic patterns. Synagogues, churches, mosques, and dwellings in various styles make up the city’s unique architectural mosaic. Although the four corners of the Old City are characterized by certain faith-related features in their respective quarters, they are not, in fact, strictly divided by religion, language, or ethnicity. The persistent mingling of Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, English, and other languages in the streets brings to mind the multicultural and political complexities of life in this revered city.

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Jerusalem: City layout

Sunlight falling on the white and pink stone used for all construction gives even quite mundane buildings an aura of distinction. The scent of cooking and spices, the peal of church bells, the calls of muezzins from minarets, and the chanting of Jewish prayers at the Western Wall all add flavor to the life of the city. The absence of vehicular traffic within most of the Old City helps preserve its special character. In recognition of its central place in the traditions and histories of numerous peoples, the Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981.

The Temple Mount and Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf

The Old City is dominated by the raised platform of the Temple Mount—known in Hebrew as Har Ha-Bayit, the site of the First and Second Temples, and known to Islam as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (“The Noble Sanctuary”), a Muslim holy place containing the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and other structures.

On three sides of the Temple Mount, parts of the original supporting walls still stand. During the centuries when Jews were excluded from the Temple Mount, its Western Wall became Judaism’s holiest shrine. Since 1967 the wall has been further exposed, and a large plaza has been cleared in front of it. The main buildings on the platform are two Islamic structures: the magnificent gold-capped Dome of the Rock, completed in 691–92, and the silver-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque, built in the early 8th century.

Muslim quarter

The Temple Mount, which is administered by an Islamic waqf (trust), makes the Muslim sector in the Old City’s northeast the largest of its four quarters. Apart from Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the quarter is known for its ancient souk (marketplace) as well as its abundance of restaurants and accommodations. It includes several Christian holy sites, including the Via Dolorosa, which is said to be the path along which Jesus carried the cross to Golgotha, where he was crucified.

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Christian quarter

Although Christian sites are sprinkled throughout the Old City—at the beginning of the 21st century the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem alone owned nearly a third of the land in the Old City—only the northwestern quarter is typically considered to be the Christian sector. The quarter centers on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a massive church complex that is said to encompass the sites of Jesus’ Crucifixion and burial, around which the Old City’s modern Christian residents and businesses have gravitated. The church incorporates elements of both the Byzantine and Crusader eras, mixing the two predominant architectural styles of Jerusalem’s ecclesiastical landscape, although its facade and layout are more in line with the Romanesque architecture of the Crusader era than the Byzantine era.

Armenian quarter

The Armenian quarter, located in the southwestern corner of the Old City, is the home of a small Armenian community that arrived in Jerusalem as early as the 4th century. Its most well-known architectural feature is the Cathedral of Saint James, which combines Romanesque styling with Middle Eastern elements. The church’s interior, brilliantly ornate with gilded altars as well as ceramic eggs and tilework from Kütahya (in what is now Turkey), includes an episcopal throne, set supposedly above the grave of St. James the Just, that is elaborately carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Also located within the quarter, beside the Jaffa Gate, is the Citadel (with David’s Tower), which was created over ruins from the Hasmonean and Herodian periods and acquired its present form in the 16th century, integrating large parts of Crusader structures and some Mamluk additions.

Jewish quarter

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In the southeast the Jewish quarter represents the newest and most modern part of the Old City. It stands in contrast to the run-down dwellings located there in the early 20th century, when resources devoted to developing Jewish neighborhoods were increasingly concentrated on areas outside the city walls. In 1948 the first Arab-Israeli war left the quarter in rubble and devoid of any Jewish residents. After Israel gained control of the Old City in the Six-Day War in 1967, its government set out to renovate the quarter and repopulate its Jewish community. The largely residential neighborhood, with its modern amenities and yeshivas, is complemented by museums and a large plaza that is now situated in front of the Western Wall, the only remnant of the retaining wall that surrounded the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.

Controversies and contestations

Several of the holy sites in Jerusalem are shared by religious institutions that lay competing claims to ownership. Most famously, different sections of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are administered variously by the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and three other Christian communities. Since the Ayyubid period (1187–1229) the only key to the church has been entrusted to a Muslim family in order to prevent conflict between the clerics.

In the 20th and 21st centuries the interest of many Israelis in the Temple Mount, both archaeologically and religiously, has stoked anxiety among Muslims, who have grown increasingly concerned about the potential loss of control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. In September 2000, weeks after talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders broke down over issues that included Jerusalem’s status, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount to press Israel’s sovereignty over the compound. That move was followed by demonstrations by Palestinians the next day and set off the second (“Al-Aqsa”) intifada, a Palestinian uprising that lasted until 2005. Restrictions on Palestinians’ access to the Muslim holy site have since been a recurring flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Land ownership is also a considerable point of tension in the Old City. The dispute over the political status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital, has included tensions over demographic shifts, gentrification, and displacement. In the 21st century the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic patriarchates faced public scrutiny after secretive sales of land to Jewish buyers came to light. After significant backlash from their flocks, both patriarchates claimed that they had been tricked into the land sales, and they sued to have them nullified.