Capitals of Israel

Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel, though it is hardly the only capital the Jews have known. In fact, there were a number of capitals established both before and after the selection of Jerusalem at the close of the 11^th century BCE. Some capitals lasted for only a matter of years or decades; others endured centuries. What follows is a précis of their storied history.

1. Shiloh – Situated north of Beit El (Luz) and east of Lvonah, in the mountainous territory of Ephraim, Shiloh was the amphictyonic center of tribal Israel and served as the de facto capital for more than two centuries. Shiloh was first settled about 700 years before the era of the Judges (c. 1228–1020 BCE), but had been abandoned before Israelite resettlement and fortification. Here Joshua erected the Tabernacle wherein the Ark of the Testimony (Ark of the Covenant) was housed and here lots were cast to allot the tribal territories and Levitical cities. As the hub of religious worship, Shiloh hosted congregational assemblies, most famously including the annual Tu B’Av festival when Jewish women danced in the surrounding vineyards. Shiloh regularly received devout Israelite pilgrims including Hannah and Elkanah, whose son Samuel was dedicated to the divine service and ministered under Eli the priest in the Tabernacle. Born in nearby Ramah (Ramatayim-Tzophim/Ramatayim/Arimathea) in Ephraim, Samuel received the prophetic call in neighboring Shiloh, which was destroyed circa 1050 BCE after the Battle of Apheik (Pegae/Arethusa/Antipatris) by the triumphant Philistines, who captured the Ark. The prophet Ahiyah ben Ahituv was a priestly Shilonite who foretold the advent of King Jeroboam I of Israel, and who later prophesied the demise of that renegade’s dynasty. Shilonites were among the Ephraimites who offered oblations in Jerusalem after its destruction by the Babylonians. Shiloh was revived more than once over time, including under Roman rule, and was frequented by Talmudic sages. Jews made pilgrimage to Shiloh to pray at the tomb of Eli until the 14^th The site, called Seilun in Arabic, features ancient stone tombs and a pool in a rock hollow, and today once again hosts gatherings for prayer and dancing on special occasions.
2. Givah (Givat Binyamin/Givat Sha’ul) – The main town in the highlands of the tribal territory of Benjamin and located beside the central road between Judah and Mount Ephraim, Givah (“hill”) is sometimes confused with Geva or Givon, other notable towns in Benjamin. Givah was destroyed by the Israelite tribes during the era of the Judges (c. 1228–1020 BCE) in a civil war after certain Benjaminites had shockingly gang-raped to death the Judahite concubine of a roving Levite. The town was rebuilt and, because it was perhaps his hometown (his hometown may alternatively have been Givon, which was at least his ancestral hometown), served as King Saul’s capital, thus as the first capital of the United Monarchy of Israel (1030–931 BCE), and became known thereafter as Givat Sha’ul. During the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), the Roman general Titus encamped at Givah en route to Jerusalem, and his legionaries in time destroyed the site. Givah is identified with Tel el-Ful, three and a half miles north of Jerusalem, where a towered fortress has been excavated. The modern Givat Sha’ul neighborhood in Jerusalem is unrelated to Givah.
3. Mahanayim – A site in Transjordan, named Mahanayim (“God’s Camp” or “Two Camps”) by the patriarch Jacob who had envisioned angels at this locus prior to his crossing of the Yabbok River en route to Penu’el (Peni’el). Mahanayim sat on the border between the tribal territories of eastern Menasheh to the north and Gad to the south, and was designated a Levitical city in Gad. After the Israelite defeat and the decease of King Saul in the fateful Battle of Mount Gilboa (1010 BCE), following which Saul’s cousin and general Avner took Saul’s son Ish-Boshet to Mahanayim, the locality became nationally prominent as a refuge for fugitives and embattled monarchs. During the internecine conflict between Ish-Boshet and David, Avner embarked from and returned to Mahanayim as commander of the Israelite army. At the outset of his son Avshalom’s rebellion, King David retreated to Mahanayim, where he accepted furniture, wares, and victuals from loyal Giladites. Later, King Solomon appointed his governor Ahinadav ben Ido to Mahanayim, wherefrom food was provided to Solomon and his household for one month annually. Pharaoh Shishak (Sheshonk) I of Egypt conquered and plundered Mahanayim during his military campaign in King Rehoboam of Judah’s fifth regnal year (927 BCE). The site’s precise location in Gilad is uncertain, though it is probably either the twin site of Tulul adh-Dhahab (al-Garbiya and ash-Sharqiya) by the Yabbok River, or else Mahneh (Khirbat Mihna), north of Ajloun.
4. Hebron (Mamre/Kiryat Arba) – Originally a Hittite site, and also a key locus along the ancient Derekh HaAvot (The Way of the Patriarchs/The Ridge Route/The Watershed Route) national highway connecting Lower Galilee and the Negev Desert, Hebron was where the patriarch Abraham settled by the oaks of Mamre and bought from Ephron the Hittite the Cave of Makhpeilah, a double cavern (in Hebrew, mukhpal denotes “doubled”/“twofold”) wherein he buried his wife Sarah (Abraham, Isaac, Rivkah, Jacob, and Leah were subsequently buried there as well). During the Exodus from Egypt (c. 1313–1273 BCE), the 12 Israelite scouts reconnoitered Hebron. The Amorite ruler King Hoham of Hebron was defeated along with his fellow Amorite kings by Joshua in the Battle of Givon (c. 1265 BCE), and Khaleiv ben Yiphuneh conquered Hebron. The city was later designated a Levitical city and a city of refuge. The Israelite Judge and strongman Samson carried off the doors and doorposts of Gaza’s city gates to Hebron. From 1010 BCE, before conquering Jerusalem, King David reigned in Hebron, his first capital, for seven and a half years; here he was twice anointed king, once over Judah then again over all of Israel. David’s nephews Yo’av and Avishai slew their foe Avner by Hebron’s city gate. Avner, general of Saul’s son Ish-Boshet, was entombed in Hebron (along with Ish-Boshet’s severed head), as were the Davidic prophets Gad the seer and Nathan. David’s son Avshalom began his ill-fated revolt from Hebron, and later King Rehoboam of Judah fortified the city as one of his administrative centers in the Judean Hills. Eventually Hebron was claimed by the Edomites (who had migrated northwest from across the Aravah Valley) until the Hasmonean era (167–63 BCE), when Judah Maccabee expelled them and destroyed the city’s towers and fortifications. Later the Hasmonean ruler and high priest Yohanan Hyrkanos conquered Idumea, thereby reincorporating Hebron into Judea. King Herod the Great of Judea erected the wall surrounding the Cave of Makhpeilah (which remains extant). During the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), Zealot leader Shimon bar Giora reclaimed Hebron from the Romans until the Roman commander Cerealis reconquered the city and destroyed it. In the seventh century, Muslim Arabs conquered Hebron, and referred to it by several names: Habra, Habran, Khalil al-Rahman, and al-Khalil. Caliph Omar permitted the Jews to construct a synagogue near the Cave of Makhpeilah and a new local graveyard. Hebron is traditionally considered among the four holy cities of the Jews (along with Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Tzfat). Moses ben Maimon (Rambam/Maimonides), Benjamin of Tudela, Petahyah of Regensburg, and Jacob ben Netanel were among the Jewish notables who visited Hebron during the Middle Ages. Ovadiah of Bertinoro was briefly chief rabbi of Hebron. Since the early modern era, many famous sages lived, studied, wrote, and taught in Hebron, including: Elijah de Vidas, Malkiel Ashkenazi, Solomon Adeni, Joseph di Trani, Abraham ben Mordekhai Azulai, Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Mordekhai Rubio, Judah Bibas, Hezekiah Medini, Nathan Tzvi Finkel, Moses Mordekhai Epstein, Yehezkel Sarna, and Isaac Hutner. The renowned Slobodka academy was transferred from Lithuania to Hebron in 1925. Arab pogroms against Hebron’s Jewish community broke out in 1929 and in 1936; Jews returned to Hebron in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967 and also developed the adjacent community of Kiryat Arba.
5. Shekhem – Situated in the fertile valley between Mount Eival and Mount Gerizim, the ancient locus was originally a Canaanite city situated along the ancient Derekh HaAvot (The Way of the Patriarchs/The Ridge Route/The Watershed Route) national highway connecting Lower Galilee and the Negev Desert. Upon his arrival in Canaan, the patriarch Abraham beheld God and built an altar here by the terebinth of Moreh. In time the patriarch Jacob encamped before the city and purchased an adjacent parcel of land from Hammor the Hivite’s sons for 100 silver pieces. Jacob’s sons, Shimon and Levi, destroyed the city after its prince, Shekhem, kidnapped and violated their sister Dinah. Jacob buried the foreign idols and earrings of his household under the terebinth of Moreh at Shekhem, and sent his beloved son Joseph from the Hebron Valley to report back on the welfare of his other sons feeding their flock around Shekhem. The city was apportioned to the tribe of Ephraim, in whose northern mountain territory it lay. Joshua assembled the Israelite tribes here and established a covenant with the people to loyally serve the God of Israel, then erected a stone monument under the terebinth of Moreh attesting to the covenant. At Shekhem were laid to rest the exhumed bones of Joseph, in the very plot of land his father Jacob had acquired centuries earlier. During the era of the Judges (c. 1228–1020 BCE), Shekhem became the midpoint of the Land of Israel—exactly 71.5 miles from both Dan in the north and Be’ersheva in the south—and the short-lived kinglet Avimelekh ben Gidon was coronated in Shekhem, whose rebels prompted him to conquer the city, raze its walls, and sow it with salt. King Rehoboam of Judah was coronated and later abjured by the northern tribes of Israel at Shekhem in favor of King Jeroboam I of Israel, whose first capital Shekhem became. In the monarchic period the city featured two-storey abodes, well-designed quarters, and large granaries. Much of the city was destroyed by repeated Assyrian invasions in the eighth and the seventh centuries. Resettlement of the site was transitory until the Hellenistic era (332–167 BCE), during which the Samaritans who rebelled against King Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) were expelled from Samaria and subsequently regrouped at Shekhem. The Hasmonean ruler and high priest Yohanan Hyrkanos destroyed the Samaritan settlement and leveled the mound of Shekhem late in his reign (134–104 BCE), and his son King Yannai Alexander of Judea was later defeated by Emperor Demetrius III Eucaerus of Syria in a crushing battle near Shekhem in 89/88 BCE. In 72 CE, Emperor Vespasian of Rome built Neapolis (Nablus) near the ruined Shekhem. During the Middle Ages, the site was visited by Jewish travelers such as Benjamin of Tudela. Today the ruins of Shekhem, known in Arabic as Tel el-Balata, lie just over a mile southeast of the modern Arab city of Nablus.
6. Penu’el (Peni’el) – Located in Transjordan south of the Yabbok River, Penu’el was where the patriarch Jacob received his new name Israel after wrestling with a mysterious figure. He called the place Peni’el (“God’s Face”), “because I have seen God face to face, yet my life is spared” (Genesis 32:31). Local residents later deprived the Israelite Judge Gidon and his fighters of provisions during their military campaign against the Midianites, for which reason Gidon later demolished Penu’el’s tower and slew the town’s male inhabitants. King Jeroboam I of Israel rebuilt Penu’el as his second capital, perhaps to better administer his domains beyond the Jordan River. The site’s precise location in Gilad is uncertain, though it is probably either part of the twin site of Tulul adh-Dhahab (al-Garbiya and ash-Sharqiya) by the Yabbok River, or else Tel Deir Alla.
7. Tirtzah – A Canaanite city whose king Joshua defeated, Tirtzah was allotted to the tribal territory of western Menasheh. It became the third and final capital of King Jeroboam I of Israel, whose son died in Tirtzah per the prophecy of Ahiyah of Shiloh. It also served as King Basha of Israel’s capital for 24 years and as his son King Eilah of Israel’s capital for two years, until the latter was murdered while drunk in his steward’s house by the chariot commander Zimri. The usurper King Zimri of Israel reigned for all of a week in Tirtzah before being burned alive in the royal palace during his rival Omri’s conquest of the city. King Omri of Israel reigned for six years from Tirtzah until he transferred his capital to the newly built city of Samaria. The rebel Menahem ben Gadi arose from Tirtzah to infiltrate Samaria, where he slew then usurped King Shallum of Israel; from Tirtzah, King Menahem of Israel attacked the defiant town of Tiphsah (Thapsacus, or else the village Khurbet Taphsah), whose pregnant women he cruelly ripped open. Tirtzah was likely destroyed along with Samaria by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.
8. Samaria (Shomron/Sebaste) – Founded by King Omri of Israel in his seventh regnal year (878 BCE), Samaria was named after Shemmer, who sold his hill to Omri for two silver talents. Situated on an isolated elevation some seven miles north of Shekhem, the site featured a rectangular acropolis surrounded by ashlar and casemate walls containing the royal palace of Omri, his son Ahab, and the many kings that followed their dynasty. Here King Ahab of Israel built for his infamous Phoenician consort Jezebel an “ivory house”—likely a palace pavilion whose walls and furniture were adorned with ivory imported from Phoenicia—and here he met with King Yehoshaphat of Judah to listen to the ominous prophecy of Micaiah ben Yimlah. In Samaria Yehu had the 70 sons of Ahab purged and the temple of Ba’al destroyed; he later found King Ahazyahu of Judah hiding from him in Samaria, and soon put him to death. In 785, King Yeho’ash of Israel plundered Jerusalem and hauled the spoils of the Temple and of the royal palace to Samaria. King Pekah of Israel captured 200,000 Judahites and brought them to Samaria, where they were treated mildly then released. Samaria was the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel for almost 160 years until it fell to the invading Assyrians in 722. The city’s inhabitants were exiled variously to Hilah, Havor, the Gozan River, and the Median cities ruled by Assyria, and replaced by pagan gentiles from Babylon, Khutah, Avva, Hammat, and Sipharvayim. The Achaemenid Persians retained Samaria as an administrative center within its satrapy, and during the Persian era (539–332 BCE) the local rulers of the Sanballat family clashed with Nehemiah. During the Hellenistic era (332–167 BCE), the Samaritans assassinated Andromachus, governor of Coele-Syria, thereby rebelling against King Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) who punished them by transforming the city into a Greek colony of 6,000 Macedonians in 331. The Hasmonean ruler and high priest Yohanan Hyrkanos besieged and razed Samaria around 107, but it was restored by the Roman general Pompey the Great. In 25, King Herod the Great of Judea refurbished the city with a colonnaded street, forum, Augustan temple, theater, aqueduct, and new wall with towers and gateways; he renamed the city, now the district capital of the province of Samaria, Sebaste (the feminine form of “Sebastos”, the Greek equivalent of the Latin “Augustus”) in honor of his patron Augustus Caesar, which gives the site its modern appellation, Sebastia. It became a colony under Emperor Septimius Severus of Rome. The hermetic Jewish preacher John the Baptist is traditionally believed to have been interred here, and the site was a bishopric in the third century CE (and again later during the Crusades); a church and a monastery were also erected in the lower city in the fifth century. In 614, the Sassanid Persians destroyed Samaria. Today Samaria endures as Sebastia National Park under the management of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
9. Jerusalem – The Eternal City, nestled in the center of the Judean Hills, arose upon two ridges circumscribed by the Hinnom (Ben Hinnom) and the Kidron (Yehoshaphat) Valleys, with its inhabitants sustained by the Gihon spring, whose existence was a determining factor in the city’s founding. Originally known by the Canaanites/Amorites as Salem or Jebus and first mentioned in the El-Amarna tablets, the city was a key locus just off the ancient Derekh HaAvot (The Way of the Patriarchs/The Ridge Route/The Watershed Route) national highway connecting Lower Galilee and the Negev Desert and was once ruled by the priestly King Malkhi-Tzeddek, who blessed the patriarch Abraham. During the period of the Israelite repatriation to the Land of Israel (c. 1273–1245 BCE), King Adoni-Tzeddek of Jerusalem assembled his fellow Amorite kings to attack Joshua’s allies, the Givonites, in the Battle of Givon (c. 1265 BCE) won by the Israelites. Jerusalem, however, remained an independent Canaanite enclave on the border between Benjamin and Judah, allocated to the tribal territory of Benjamin, wherein Benjaminites and Jebusites dwelt together. It was soon absorbed into the tribal territory of Judah, however, following its capture by King David in 1003 BCE; thereafter it was known as the City of David or Zion, after the central mount previously known as Mount Moriah. David made Jerusalem his new capital and transferred there from Kiryat Ye’arim (Ba’alei Yehudah) the Ark of the Testimony (Ark of the Covenant), thereby establishing Jerusalem as the ultimate religious and political center of the United Monarchy of Israel (1030–931 BCE). David built a royal palace in the City of David and from King Aravnah the Jebusite he purchased the threshing floor atop Mount Zion, immediately to the north, whereon he erected an altar. Thenceforth Israelites dutifully journeyed to Jerusalem for the three annual pilgrimage festivals ordained in the Torah: Sukhot (Booths/Tabernacles), Pesah (Passover), and Shavuot (Weeks/Pentecost). David’s son King Solomon erected the First Temple, replete with bronze pillars named Yakhin and Bo’az, upon Mount Zion, thereafter also known as Temple Mount, in 960; by 948, he had also erected an adjacent royal palace and completed or renovated the Milo (formerly thought to be a stepped stone structure or series of terraced platforms supporting houses, but currently believed to be the Gihon spring’s fortifications—namely the Spring Tower and the Fortified Passage). Jerusalem remained the capital of the southern Kingdom of Judah, ruled by the Davidic dynasts, after the northern tribes of Israel seceded to form the northern Kingdom of Israel. It was plundered in King Rehoboam of Judah’s fifth regnal year (927) by Pharaoh Shishak (Sheshonk) I of Egypt and in 785 by King Yeho’ash of Israel, who dismantled a portion of the city wall. Decades later, King Uziyahu of Judah fortified towers in Jerusalem and had war engines placed atop the city wall’s towers and corners; his son King Yotam built the Temple’s upper gate and expanded upon the Ophel wall. In 701, the city was besieged by Emperor Sennacherib of Assyria, but not before King Hezekiah of Judah had refortified the Milo, repaired the city wall, built an additional wall, raised watchtowers, and excavated a rock-cut tunnel channeling water from the Gihon spring into the newly walled Pool of Shiloah (Siloam) within the city walls. Hezekiah’s son, King Menasheh of Judah (the longest-serving king in either Judah or Israel), erected an outer wall for the city by the Gihon spring and raised the Ophel bulwark. In 597, Jerusalem was besieged by Emperor Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylonia, who took captive 10,000 elites including King Yehoiakhin of Judah and Ezekiel the prophet; in 586, the Babylonians led by general Nebuzaradan destroyed the city, including the Temple, royal palace, and city walls. After the Cyrus Proclamation of 538, Judahites under Sheishbatzar, Zerubavel, and Yeshua the high priest returned from the Babylonian Captivity (605–538 BCE) and repopulated Jerusalem, where they erected an altar of burnt offering then built the Second Temple, completed in 516. During the Persian era (539–332 BCE), Jerusalem served as the provincial capital of Yehud Medinata (a province within the satrapy of Ever-Nahara), and a square-shaped citadel called the Birah (Baris) was erected above the northwestern corner of the Temple. During the reign of Emperor Artaxerxes I Longimanus of Persia (465–424 BCE), the priest Ezra the Scribe led a new cohort of 1,754 Judahite exiles from Persia to Judah and Jerusalem, reintroducing therefrom the Torah and revivifying Jewish spiritual life while his junior counterpart Nehemiah, the Persian-appointed Jewish governor, rebuilt the city wall, built gates for the Birah, and marshaled one-tenth of Judah’s Jewish populace to repopulate Jerusalem. After the high priest Yohanan slew his brother Yeshua in the Temple, the Persian general Bagoas (Bagoses) illicitly entered its precincts. The high priest Yaddua welcomed King Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) to Jerusalem and directed him in offering a sacrifice in the Temple. For much of the next 150 years (301–167 BCE), Jerusalem was contested by the Ptolemies (Egyptian-Greeks) and the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks); during this precarious period, the high priest Shimon II the Just repaired damage to the Temple, rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls that had been razed by Emperor Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt, oversaw the digging of a reservoir, and fortified the city against siege warfare. The Seleucids, however, constructed the Akra citadel south of the Temple to dominate it, as well as a gymnasium west of the Temple. In 169, the Temple was plundered and desecrated under Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes (who also slew many Jerusalemites), but was reconsecrated by the Hasmonean hero Judah Maccabee and his glorious brothers in 164 during the Maccabean Rebellion (167–134 BCE), thereby engendering the Hanukah festival. Temple Mount was fortified with high walls and strong towers. Shimon Maccabee finally razed the Akra and leveled its hill. Under Hasmonean rule, Jerusalem was once again the capital of the entire Jewish kingdom. In 63, during the Hasmonean Civil War (67–63 BCE), the Roman general Pompey the Great occupied Jerusalem and invaded the Temple. In 40, the Parthians captured Jerusalem and ruled it through the last Hasmonean king, Mattathias Antigonus, until his Roman-backed rival, the future King Herod the Great of Judea, besieged and conquered the city in 37. In 20, Herod began remodeling the Second Temple, then a relatively modest sanctuary, into a marvelous and elaborate structure resting upon a Temple Mount enlarged through embanking, its peristylar esplanade supported by a retaining wall comprised of ashlar stones (of which the Western Wall or Kotel forms a part). At the northwestern corner of Temple Mount, he reconstructed, refortified, and rebranded the Birah as the Antonia fortress, honoring Mark Antony, and also built a theater, an amphitheater or hippodrome, and a monument to himself. He further constructed a new royal palace in the city’s northwestern quarter and erected four great towers named Psephinus, Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne (the surviving base of Phasael is today erroneously called the Tower of David). In 41 CE, King Agrippa I of Judea built a third northern wall. The Adiabene royals, Jewish proselytes, built royal palaces and pyramidal royal tombs in Jerusalem. In 66, after the Roman procurator Gessius Florus had plundered the Temple, the Great Revolt (66–73 CE) broke out in Jerusalem; after a few years of independence and internecine struggle among the Zealots—and after the surreptitious escape from the city of the sage Yohanan ben Zakkai along with his disciples Joshua ben Hananiah and Eliezer ben Hyrkanos—Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans under Titus in 70. In 129/130, Emperor Hadrian of Rome visited ruined Jerusalem and determined to rebuild the city as a Roman colony to be named Aelia Capitolina, in honor of himself (Aelius Hadrianus) and of the Roman chief deity (Jupiter Capitolinus). Following the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE), the Romans forbade Jews from entering Jerusalem on pain of death except for one day annually, to mourn on the fast day of Tisha B’Av. In 312, after the conversion to Christianity of Emperor Constantine I the Great of Rome, Jerusalem became a holy city for Christians. Constantine’s mother, Helena, visited the city circa 325, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was soon consecrated in 335. Churches and monasteries multiplied in Jerusalem, which attracted pilgrims from near and far. In 438, Empress Aelia Eudocia of Byzantium permitted Jews to pray once again atop Temple Mount. In 614, the Sassanid ruler Shahanshah Khosrow II of Persia briefly occupied the city with the assistance of some 24,000 Jews; in 628, Emperor Heraclius of Byzantium reclaimed Jerusalem for his empire and proscribed Jews from the city. In 637, Jerusalem was conquered by the Muslim Arabs under Caliph Omar, who had a wooden mosque erected atop Temple Mount; this modest structure was replaced in 691 by the Umayyad ruler Caliph Abd al-Malik’s Dome of the Rock shrine, reportedly built employing the labor of 10 Jewish families exempted from poll taxes, and the adjacent Al-Aqsa Mosque (repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes and rebuilt until the current structure was constructed by the Fatimids in 1035). Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem under Arab rule, but the city was neglected and soon conquered by Seljuk Turks in 1077. In 1099, crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon conquered Jerusalem and established it as the capital of their Latin Kingdom; they also slaughtered tens of thousands of Jerusalem’s Jewish and Muslim “infidels”. In the 12^th century, Jerusalem was visited by the sages Judah HaLevi and Moses ben Maimon (Rambam/Maimonides), and by the itinerant traveler Benjamin of Tudela. In 1187, Sultan Saladin of the Ayyubid Sultanate recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslims. In 1211, hundreds of English and French rabbis repatriated to Jerusalem. In 1260, the city was overrun by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan. In 1267, Moses ben Nahman (Ramban/Nahmanides) came to Jerusalem and reorganized the Jewish community, which was over time replenished by Jewish repatriates to the Land of Israel from Europe, particularly after the Spanish expulsion of 1492, and from Muslim lands. The Mamelukes reconstructed Jerusalem with new edifices and an improved water supply. From 1537–1541, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire rebuilt in irregular quadrangular form the city walls, which thenceforth featured seven gates—Jaffa, Zion, Dung, Lions’/Saint Stephen’s, Herod’s/Flowers, Damascus, and Mercy/Golden (New Gate was added only in 1889)—but in general Jerusalem declined severely due to neglect by the Ottoman Turks. Only from 1855 were new homes and neighborhoods developed outside the Old City wall, with the help of Jewish benefactors such as Moses Montefiore and Judah Touro. In 1917, General Edmund Allenby occupied Jerusalem for the British after defeating the Ottomans. In spite of the restrictive British Mandate (1923–1948) and of the Arab riots of 1922, 1929, and 1936–1939, Jewish repatriation to Jerusalem increased and Hebrew University of Jerusalem atop Mount Scopus, founded in 1918, was opened in 1925. In 1948, Jerusalem became the capital of the State of Israel, the Third Commonwealth. Following Israel’s War of Independence (1947–1949), its government and legislature were transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, even as Jordan occupied the city’s eastern half. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel recaptured the Old City from the Jordanian Arabs and Jews immediately returned to worship at the Western Wall, from which they had been barred by the Arabs for almost 20 years. The Jewish quarter of the Old City, which the Jordanians had demolished, was restored and repopulated. The 50^th anniversary of Jerusalem’s historic liberation and reunification was celebrated in 2017.

Aside from Jerusalem, all of the capitals of Israel are situated in areas (Judea & Samaria, or Jordan) now predominantly or entirely occupied by Muslim Arab populations. Ceding sovereignty over these seminal historic sites means relinquishing supremely meaningful elements of Jewish national heritage and entrusting them to inimical neighbors whose respect for the sacred sites and regard for the significant antiquities of preceding civilizations cannot be guaranteed. Only under Israeli sovereignty can Jewish heritage ultimately be preserved.