Adin Steinsaltz

Jerusalem in this era

By the mid-nineteenth century, Jerusalem was a fragmented, impoverished Ottoman city where Jews—roughly a quarter of the population—lived in cramped quarters clustered around holy sites, sustained partly by charitable donations from diaspora communities. The modern era transformed this utterly. As European nationalism and Zionism stirred Jewish consciousness, Jerusalem became a magnet for those seeking spiritual renewal and a Jewish homeland; the 1948 founding of Israel made it a contested capital, then a divided city, then—after 1967—the heart of Israeli Jewish life. The intellectual and spiritual landscape exploded into competing worlds: ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, including those founded by disciples of the great Hasidic masters, became powerhouses of Talmudic study; secular Zionist educators and kibbutz movements articulated rival Jewish visions; Sephardic and Mizrahi traditions gained institutional voice through figures like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the revered Sephardic Chief Rabbi whose rulings shaped modern Halakha. The alleyways of the Old City's Jewish Quarter, rebuilt after 1967, now buzzed with yeshiva students; new neighborhoods sprawled across the hillsides; and libraries filled with printed Torah, Kabbalah, and centuries of responsa made Jerusalem a living archive of Jewish learning—a city of pilgrimage, politics, and endless interpretive debate.

About Jerusalem

Jerusalem, in the Judean hills, is a sacred city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the Hebrew Bible it is King David's capital and the site of Solomon's Temple; the First Temple was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE and the Second Temple, rebuilt from about 516 BCE, by Rome in 70 CE. Christians revere it as the place of Jesus's crucifixion and, in their faith, his resurrection; in Islamic tradition it is the destination of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey and the first direction of prayer, marked by the Dome of the Rock (691-92) and al-Aqsa Mosque. It was ruled in turn by Rome and Byzantium, by Muslim dynasties from 638, by Crusaders (1099-1187), Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans (1517-1917), and by Britain. Divided between Israel and Jordan from 1948 to 1967, it has since been under Israeli control. Israel regards the city as its capital; Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state; most countries do not recognize sovereignty over the whole city.

In Jerusalem at the same time

Minhat Yehuda, Zelig Reuven Bangis, Imrei Emes, Isser Zalman Meltzer, Yaakov Chaim Sofer (Kaf HaChaim), Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky

Across the traditions, in Jerusalem at the same time

• Yves CongarChristian