Jerusalem
Salmon Ben-Jeroham (X century) says that they were allowed to pray “in the courts of the House of the Lord.” A Jewish-Spanish scientist Abraham bar-Hya (died around 1136) asserts that until the Crusaders’ capturing of Jerusalem (1099) the Jews had a synagogue and a midrash (Yeshiva) near the Temple. Midrashes of this period (Sepher Zerabubel, Pirkei Moshiah, Nistarot de Rabbi Shimon bar-Yehai) as well as records of the Cairo Geniza and other sources contain detailed descriptions of the Temple Square district, the Olive Mountain and so forth.
Although many Arabs moved to Jerusalem the majority of the city’s population was still Christian. Significance the caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty attributed to Jerusalem can be seen from the fact that the Founder of the dynasty Muawiyah I was proclaimed caliph in 661 in Jerusalem as well as from the fact that the Umayyads carried out a great construction work in the city (in particular, in the end of VII century Rock of the Dome mosque that is wrongly called Omar’s Mosque was built). The Umayyad caliphs strived to erect Moslem cult buildings in Jerusalem, which by their splendor would exceed the Christian churches of the city (such as the Church of the Sepulchre) and by doing so to attract a stream of pilgrims headed for Mecca to Jerusalem.
In 716, the caliph’s residence was moved to Ramla, and Jerusalem lost its significance as an administrative center. During anti- Umayyad tumults the last of the Caliphs of this dynasty Marwan II ordered to level Jerusalem’s walls to the ground.
The Abbasid dynasty’s dominion, whose residence was located in Baghdad, began in 750 and marked the beginning of a long recession of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the rulers of the dynasty came to Jerusalem from time to time and the city walls were restored on their command. In 800, Harun Ar Rashid gave Jerusalem’s Christian sanctuaries under the auspices of Charlemagne; it stimulated construction of Christian temples and monasteries in the city. In 878, the entire territory of the country of Israel was joined to Egyptian Sultanate; since that time and until the Ottoman conquest in 1516 (except for the period of the crusades) Jerusalem was under Egyptian rulers’ authority. The city did not play any important role in the political events in the Middle East and is rarely mentioned in chronicles; however, Arab historians tell us that rulers of Egypt were buried in Jerusalem.
According to the documents of the Cairo Geniza, Jewish population of Jerusalem at the period of Abbasids was poor and subject to numerous taxes; most of them lived on the means sent by the Jews of the Diaspora or on gifts of rich Jewish pilgrims. Religious enmity between Moslem, Christian and Jewish communities of Jerusalem repeatedly resulted in bloody clashes. So, in 938, Moslems, and in 966 Moslems and Jews made anti-Christian pogroms, plundered and burned the Church of the Sepulchre and other holy places; during the pogrom in 966, Jerusalem’s patriarch was murdered, and his body burned.
In that period from Tiberia, Jerusalem’s rival contending with Jerusalem for the role of the spiritual center of the Palestine Jews Yeshiva headed by geonims was transferred. Since the Jews’ right to pray inside the city on the Temple Square and by the city gates was gradually restricted, a piece of land on the Olive Mountain purchased by the community became their place of prayer. Numerous pilgrims who gathered here on the festival days offered significant sums for Yeshiva’s maintenance and payment of taxes Jerusalem’s community was forced to pay. Probably, since the middle of IX century karaims began to settle in Jerusalem. Having settled down in a separate district, they became very active and for thirty years even headed the Jewish community of the city and acted on its behalf before the authorities. Only in 920s Jerusalem’s Yeshiva’s head managed to deprive the karaim leaders of their official status of representatives of the Jewish community of Jerusalem at the court of caliph in Baghdad. In IX-X centuries, members of groups of the ascetic movement of Aveli Tsion (“grieving over Zion”) settled in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem’s conquest by Fatimids in the beginning somewhat improved the city’s Jews situation, yet soon a turmoil of unceasing wars ensued. Crazy Fatimid caliph al-Khacim in 1009-1020 destroyed the churches (including the Church of the Sepulchre) and synagogues of Jerusalem. Most likely the city seriously changed in that period of time and its population fell into decay.
The Jewish community of Jerusalem in the period of the Abbasids and especially Fatimids was closely tied with the Jews of Egypt who rendered the Jews of Jerusalem material help.
According to descriptions of Arab geographers and other sources, the first four centuries of Moslem dominion were much more favorable for Jerusalem than the following centuries: the city was surrounded by a mighty wall with a ditch and 8 gates; inside of the wall there were comfortable and clean bazaars; the streets were paved with stone. Jerusalem continued to be predominantly a Christian city with many magnificent churches. Jews settled in two districts: south-west of the Temple Mount and north of it, near today’s Damascus gates. In 1071, Jerusalem was seized by Seljuqs and was joined to the great Empire of the Sultans of Iraq and Persia; in 1098, Fatimids managed to regain Jerusalem. But one year later, on July 15 of 1099, the city after a 40-day siege was captured by the Crusaders who slaughtered the Moslem and Jewish population of the city; many Jews died in synagogues set on fire by the conquerors; survivors were sold into captivity.
The Crusaders Period. The crusaders turned Jerusalem into the capital of the Jerusalem Kingdom founded by them on the territory of Eretz Israel. In the first years of their rule marked with turmoils and economical inaction Jerusalem remained almost unpopulated. In an attempt to populate the city the crusaders attracted Arab Christians from behind the Jordan area to Jerusalem ceding to them a former Jewish district between the Damascus and Lion’s gates, lowered taxes on agricultural products and concentrated all the government and church establishments in Jerusalem. Because of these efforts by the middle of XII century, Jerusalem’s flourishing began: on the site where there once was Herod’s Palace King’s and Patriarch’s Palaces were built; monasteries and dormitories for knights of different orders were built nearby; thousands of pilgrims from all the corners of Christian Europe streamed to the city.
The majority of Jerusalem’s population in the XII century was Europeans, for the most part –– French, and the main language of communication was French. In Jerusalem there were also significant groups of German, Spanish, Provencal and Hungarian knights. The so-called eastern Syrian Christians also lived in the city. Moslems and Jews were banned to live in the city. But Moslems visited Jerusalem on business affairs, and a certain number of Jews settled near the city. According to one of the versions of traveler’s notes by Benjamin of Tudella, in 1172, a small group of Jewish craftsmen-painters lived in Jerusalem.
The crusaders’ rule ensued in intense Christianization of Jerusalem. Many Moslem sanctuaries were turned into churches (for example, the Dome of the Rock Mosque –– into the church of the Temple of the Lord, the Al-Aks mosgue –– into the church of Solomon, the main residence of the Templiers Order); new churches were built intensively (the most significant one as far as architecture is concerned was the new Church of the Sepulchre, sanctified in 1149). Throughout XII century, Christian legends and traditions related to Jerusalem and its vicinities appeared and rooted, especially –– legends about the life of Jesus (for instance, the legend about the Way of the Cross –– Via Dolorosa).
In November of 1187, after a long siege, Saladin’s army seized Jerusalem. Christians excluding the eastern ones were banned to live in the city; Christian churches were turned into mosques and Moslem charity establishments; on an initiative of Saladin the Jewish community was restored, and the Jews began to move to Jerusalem from other cities of the country. Among the newly migrated settlers there were also Jews from Yemen, Magrib and Europe, including some of 300 Rabbis from France and England who arrived to Akko in 1209-1211.
The crusaders’ attempt to win Jerusalem back (the Third Crusade 1189-1192) failed, yet in 1229 by an agreement between Egyptian Sultan al-Malik al-Camil and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Frederic II the entire territory of Jerusalem with a corridor up to Jaffa was joined to the territories still controlled by the crusaders, while the Temple Square remained Moslem. The crusaders’ dominion over Jerusalem ended in 1244 when a Horesmian 10-thousand army of horsemen summoned by Egyptian Sultan Nudjm ad-Din Aiyub (1240-1249) seized and plundered the city, slaughtered Christians and devastated the church of the Sepulchre; most likely, Jews also suffered.
The Mameluke period. When in 1250 power over Egypt passed from Ayubids to Mamelukes Jerusalem was included into the Sultanate of Syrin Ayubids waging war against the Mamelukes. In the beginning of 1260, Mongols invaded Eretz Israel; Jerusalem’s dwellers, panic-stricken, fled from the city. In September of 1260, the Mamelukes managed to defeat the Mongols at Wane-Harod, and the country of Israel became part of the Mamelukes Sultanate. After the Mongols’ retreat, Jerusalem at first remained in desolation.
Nahmanid, who arrived to Jerusalem in the fall of 1267, in a letter to his son describes the miserable condition Jerusalem was in seven years after the Mongols’ invasion. According to Nahmanid, only two Jews constantly lived in the city –– two brothers, painters by trade, –– in whose house visiting out of town Jews gathered on Sabbath for prayer. Under Nahmanid’s leadership a small community of the Jews remaining in Jerusalem and its vicinities and his own disciples was gathered, Ramban Synagogue, which still functions to this day, was founded, and, probably, an Yeshiva. Nahmanid managed to persuade several Jewish families hiding from the Mongols in the nearest villages to return to Jerusalem. Since then the Jewish community of the city has existed continually.
Under the Mamelukes Jerusalem turned into a center of Moslem theology; many pilgrims streamed to the city. The Mamelukes in all possible ways emphasized Jerusalem’s significance for Islam, encouraged building of madrasahs (confessional schools that combined middle and high theological education), mosques and inns for pilgrims. Since XIII-XIV centuries, Jerusalem becomes one of the centers of Moslem scholarship.
Jerusalem’s atmosphere was saturated with Moslem fanaticism and religious intolerance; non-Moslem population of the city suffered frequent persecution, and Christian rulers’ intercession for their fellow-believers in Jerusalem was, for the most part, unanswered. From time to time the Moslems plundered and destroyed Christian sanctuaries, the church of the Sepulchre in particular.
The Mamelukes cared little for economic development of Jerusalem; that is why in spite of the city’s turning into a religious center the economical situation of its population, which by the end of XV century hardly exceeded ten thousand people, was very hard. The Jewish population of Jerusalem at that period was very scarce. Since 1391, families of Spanish Jews who had been baptized by force but later returned to Judaism began to gradually settle in Jerusalem. A bigger Jewish immigration to Jerusalem from different countries of Europe was stopped short by Pope Martin V who on the request of Christian population of Jerusalem demanded of Italian republics not to take on board Jews going to the Holy land (1427).
Moslem authorities oppressed Jews, and around 1440 a special annual tax was laid upon them. Being not able to pay it many Jews of Jerusalem making their living by petty trade and craft abandoned the city. Around 1470, Rabbi Itshak Ben Meir Latif tells us that in Jerusalem about 150 families lived; Meshullam from Volterra, who visited Jerusalem in 1481, estimated its Jewish population as 250 families; according to a Dominican monk Felix Fabris’ information in 1483 there were around 100-150 Jewish families in the city; according to Ovadia Bertinoro, who migrated to Jerusalem in 1488 and became the spiritual head of the Jewish community of the city, only 70 Jewish families at that time lived in Jerusalem.
The situation changed in the end of XV century: the authorities cancelled the Jewish annual tax, and ships of Italian Republics going to the Holy Land resumed accepting Jews. In 1492, the Jews driven out from Spain began to arrive in Jerusalem. By the end of the Mameluke period, nagid Itshak Sholal (died in 1524) moved from Cairo to Jerusalem and published a number of takkanotes aimed at strengthening of the city’s Jewish community.
The Ottoman Period (1517-1917). In 1517, Eretz Israel became part of the Ottoman Empire. Under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), around Jerusalem in 1536-1541 instead of the old wall a new one was erected with some parts of the old wall used; this new wall remains to this day. There were 7 gates in the wall, of which the Damascus (Skem) gates and the Mercy (Golden) gates that remain preserved since Byzantine time, immured after 1187, differ by a special richness of architectural design. On Suleiman’s order mosaic facing of the Omar Mosque was substituted by polychrome tiling and tiles of colored marble; aqueduct from the so-called Solomon Lakes near Beth-Lehem to Jerusalem was fixed and significantly enlarged; in the city itself 5 water supply towers with stone engravings were built, and the city’s citadel at the Jaffa gates was remodeled.
The years of building boom were soon replaced by a period of stagnation. In the eyes of the Turkish authorities Jerusalem had lost its strategic meaning and became just a fort to confront attacks of Bedouins who roamed the wilderness east of Jerusalem. Magnificent buildings gradually decayed. The governor of Jerusalem sandjak submitted to a ruler of a bigger villayet (for the most part, with the center in Damascus). Throughout 400 years of the Ottoman dominion structure of the Moslem population of Jerusalem did not have any significant changes: it remained almost completely Arabic, while non-Arab Moslems who settled down in the city, as a rule, got quickly assimilated in the Arab environment.