Jerusalem in History

Jerusalem in History 

Jerusalem is unique. The city has a special place in the heart of the three great monotheistic religions. It has been the centre of pilgrimages for centuries. It has been fought over for millennia. The problem of Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel has declared that Jerusalem will be its capital forever and will never be divided again. The PLO have proclaimed the city as the capital of the (theoretical) state of Palestine. And it is still possible to find elderly Jerusalemites who remember four national regimes in the city in their own lifetime.

It is extraordinary therefore, that although so much has been written about the city there is no universal and comprehensive single volume history available. Jerusalem in History edited by K.J. Asali goes a long way to filling this gap. Its even-handed journey through the history of the city begins with an account of the Amorite people living in the area in the Middle Bronze Age and ends with the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada. Its description of the city's colourful history has insight and is presented with a refreshing clarity. When David conquered the fortress of Zion in the 10BC we are told that the citadel measured little more than 350 metres by 100 metres. Jerusalem became the capital of a vast Levantine empire that absorbed the old Canaanite city states as well as the Philistine cities and developed the ideology of a divinely ordained monarchy. His successor, Solomon, constructed the first great Temple of Jerusalem. The story of the city over following centuries is that of the rise and fall of empires, of destruction and rebuilding, of the growth of Hellenistic influence and of the final victory of Rome.

John Wilkinson's chapter on Jerusalem under Rome and Byzantium is a particularly readable account of this fascinating phase of the city's history which includes the rule of Pontius Pilate, the era of Christ, the revolt of Bar Cochba and the beginning of Christian pilgrimages in the second century AD. Under Constantine, Jerusalem became a city full of monks and nuns and the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built.

In the seventh century Jerusalem became sacred to the third great religion in its history, venerated as the place where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven on his noble steed. The first mosque was built by Umar at the Noble Sanctuary at al-Aqsa and later the Umayyads built the Dome of the Rock. Henceforth, Jerusalem was to be also a centre of Moslem pilgrimage.

One of the most gruesome acts in the city's history took place on July 15th, 1099. Some 40-70,000 Arabs were put to death by the conquering Frankish Crusaders who finally succeeded in breaching the city walls after a forty day siege. Mustafa Hiyari's chapter on Crusader Jerusalem is a fine account of the many transformations of the city between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries but lacks any real evocation of the spirit of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem with its synthesis of western and oriental systems.

In the nineteenth century the city became caught up in the whirlpool of European rivalries known as the 'Eastern Question'. The European powers each looked for influence in the region and the easiest way to achieve this was to find religious minorities to 'protect'. From the 1860s the construction of telegraph, road and railway links stimulated the growth of a new European-style metropolis outside the Old City walls. By the late nineteenth century an Arab Palestinian identity had become visible with its capital in Jerusalem which from 1872 was united with the sanjaqs of Acre and Nablus under the governor of Jerusalem reporting direct to Constantinople. In the early twentieth century the handful of Palestinian families that dominated the municipality were growing fearful of the problem of Jewish immigration and Zionist political aspirations. The ambitions of British imperialism and Zionism combined in the First World War and when Allenby entered Jerusalem in December 1917 he was the first Christian conqueror since the Crusades.

The main criticism of this fine attempt to bring together modern writing on the history of the city must be of the space given to Michael Hudson, who struggles in thirty pages, to assess the transformation of Jerusalem from a predominantly Arab city in 1917 to the capital of the Jewish state of Israel three-quarters of a century later. The expulsion of 50-80,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948 is given little more than a paragraph. The account of the divided city between 1948 and 1967 when the Jewish and Arab cities were 'politically, economically, socially and psychologically as far removed as New York and Peking' is covered in seven pages. And the Israelification of the city is summed up in four pages. It is sad that such momentous events are traced so briefly hut one thing that is certain is that the Intifada (which began seventy years to the day after Allenby's entry into the city) will soon call for the writing of several more pages in Jerusalem's fervent history.

During the nineteenth century the process of producing and marketing images of the Holy Land became big business. Of the many painters, artists and photographers who travelled through the region and produced a visual chronicle of the land, none have had as much impact as the Scottish scenic artist David Roberts. The beauty of Roberts' pastel images lies in both the impressionistic feel for place and people combined with a delightful care for detail. Roberts' lithographs have be- come almost the standard images to represent Jerusalem and the Holy Land and have been reproduced many times. Travelling the region in 1839, Roberts' work represents the absolute apotheosis of the lithographic form, on the eve of the invention of photography. And in his publisher, Francis Moon, Roberts found one of the first great Victorian publisher-entrepreneurs who was to make Roberts' reputation and his own fortune by trading in the images of the Holy Land that the public were so enthusiastic to acquire.

It is a delight to look through this latest edition of The Holy Land which consists of facsimiles of 123 of his coloured lithographs. Each lithograph is counterpointed with a modern photograph taken from as near to the spot where Roberts painted as is possible. This neat de vice only increases one's admiration for the skill of Roberts, who evokes the spirit of the biblical sites so much more powerfully than the mere reproduction of actuality. Every Victorian artist who drew painted or photographed the Holy Land brought his own perception to bear on the land of Palestine, and Roberts saw in the place a timeless echo of biblical places and personages.

Accompanying the lithographs are passages from Roberts' journal which are enough to place his artistic achievement in the context of the perils and the tribulations of travelling through Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon in the 1830s. Guarded by a posse of Bedouin tribesmen whom Roberts describes as a 'wild family', his journey was delayed by sand- storms, plague and problems with servants. His journal is itself an entertaining account of the land and of the excitements of pioneering travel.

So splendid is this lavish volume that it seems carping to complain. Nevertheless, the layout makes for a confusing read. Roberts' account of his travels goes in almost the opposite direction to the layout of the lithographs which follows the order of the first edition. And the additional commentary cites other sources that are not always clearly referenced. Also, it would be good to know more about the techniques Roberts used in the production of the first subscription edition. However, these are minor criticisms in the face of this delightful work.

V.D. Lipman's book Americans and the Holy Land through British Eyes, 1820-1917, is a collection of documents designed to show the different concerns Americans felt for the Holy Land to those of the British. A variety of letters, official reports and selections from the prolific correspondence of various missionaries are all intended to paint a picture of Palestine as a remote and neglected corner of the Ottoman empire. During the nineteenth century the British formalised a continuing political presence with the establishment of the Jerusalem consulate and later a Bishopric, with the settlement of various missionary bodies and the establishment of a school system. Added to his from 1865 were the archaeological and surveying interests of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The Americans, however, had no permanent clerical presence in Jerusalem until much later in the century when various millenarian colonists set up short-lived American religious settlements in Palestine. Some of these groups, like the Mormons, even anticipated political Zionism by half a century in dedicating the Holy Land as the gathering place of the dispersed Jews. Lipman also shows how this attitude became official policy with Woodrow Wilson's Presidency from 1913. Under the influence of Louis Brandeis, a committed Zionist and close personal adviser of the President, Woodrow Wilson became an enthusiastic supporter of the Balfour Declaration. Aware of the political influence of Jewish mass-opinion in the States, Woodrow-Wilson helped to set the scene for later American influence in the region. Lipman traces the origins of this emotional link between American Christians and Zionism in the century before Zionism came to depend upon its American connection for political survival.

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