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Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE. During classical antiquity, Jerusalem was considered the center of the world, where God resided. The city of Jerusalem is given special status in Jewish religious law.
By Yehuda Shurpin. Art by Sefira Lightstone. The terms “four holy cities of Israel ” (ארבע ערי הקודש) or “four lands of life” (ארבע ארצות החיים) refer to Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. It is thus customary to add the appellation “the holy city” (עיר הקודש) to the name of each of these four cities. In this article:
- Yehuda Shurpin
The Western Wall (kotel hama'aravi), in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, is one of the holiest sites in modern Judaism. This is because it is the closest point to the original site of the Holy of Holies which is currently inaccessible to Jews.
Oct 30, 2014 · The BBC's Erica Chernofsky takes a closer look at why this city is so important to Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the three religions which trace their shared origins back to the biblical...
Aug 23, 2017 · Jerusalem is a site of major significance for the three largest monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and both Israel and Palestine have claimed Jerusalem as a capital...
Holy places: the land of Israel and Jerusalem. The land of Israel, as is evident from the biblical narratives, played a significant role in the life and thought of the Israelites. It was the promised home, for the sake of which Abraham left his birthplace; the haven toward which those escaping from Egyptian servitude moved; and the hope of the ...
While referred to a number of times in early biblical accounts from Abraham to Joshua, Jerusalem has been the central city of Judaism since the year 1000 B.C.E., when King Davidconquered this small, remote Canaanite town and made it the capital of his kingdom.
