The Jewish quarter
The Jewish Quarter is special because it stands on the site of the original
city from the time of the 2nd temple. No other part of Jerusalem can
make that claim.
There is proof of this in all the archaeological excavations, which have
been made since the 6 days war in 1967. Archaeologists have found
homes, walls, water cisterns and streets from those early days.
Christian churches and mosques surround the Jews of the Jewish
Quarter. Looking at Jerusalem from above ground one would think
that only Christians and Moslems lived there, yet the archaeological
discoveries have shown that Jews have always been the majority of the
population of the Old City. No matter how loudly the bells ring out or
how loudly the muezzin calls nothing can change this fact.
When Jews didn’t live in Jerusalem, nobody lived here. Believe it or
not!!! Jerusalem lay deserted for hundreds of years before Suleiman the
magnificent; Sultan of Turkey built a wall around Jerusalem, which made
Jews feel that it was safe to live here. In about 3 years after he built the
wall, from 1538 the population of the city tripled. Everyone wanted to
live here because the Jews had chosen to live here.
Most of these Jews came from Spain, after the expulsion of the Jews and
from Istanbul. This was not the first time the Jewish Quarter grew very
swiftly. It had grown very much in the 13th century when Rabbi Moshe
ben Nachman came here, also from Spain, in 1265. That was after the
Mongol invasion had destroyed the city and the Mamaluk Arabs began
to rebuild it and encouraged Jews to live here.
That was the time when the Jewish cemetery on the Mt. of Olives
was consecrated and is still used today by the Jewish community of
Jerusalem.
One could say we never left the city. The Romans killed Jews. The
Christians and the |Moslems built on top of the Jewish buildings and
tried to convince themselves and everybody else that the Jews had
never lived here, but they weren’t successful. Today everything is
revealed. The Jewish quarter of today stands on the site of Jerusalem of
2000 years ago.
The Christian Quarter
The reason why Christians saw Jerusalem as their holy city wasn’t
because it was the city where Jesus lived, but rather, being destroyed it
was proof to them that Jesus was the Messiah, because the prophecy
He had made that Jerusalem would be destroyed had been fulfilled.
The fact that Jerusalem lay in ruins was proof that the prophecy that
Jerusalem would be destroyed, which He had made on the Mt. of Olives
and to the women of Jerusalem had been fulfilled (Matthew 23:36-39,
Luke 23:28).
The site of the original city from the time of the 2nd temple is at Mt.
Zion, where David’s Tomb is and where the City of David is and where
the Jewish Quarter stands today.
The part of Jerusalem where the Christian Quarter stands today is the
site of a city built by Hadrian in 132 CE and known as Aelia Capitolina, a
Pagan city built to commemorate the victory of Jupiter over the Jewish
God.
The fact that Aelia Capitolina stood in all its glory and Jerusalem lay
in ruins was considered by the Pagan Roman, the Christians and later
the Moslem as proof that God had rejected the Jewish People and had
chosen another nation instead of them.
The Roman emperor Constantine the Great built the church of the Holy
Sepulchre, and it forms the center of the Christian Quarter. Originally this
was a beautiful Roman temple dedicated to Aphrodite, a very popular
Roman god.
Aphrodite was the goddess of love. The Romans must have thought the
Jews very strange because they hated Aphrodite.
Naturally they didn’t hate Aphrodite because she wasn’t appealing
or attractive but she simply contravened the first 3 of the 10
commandments (to worship only God, not to have any other gods and
not to make any graven images).
Constantine built a church of Jesus in place of Aphrodite’s temple in the
hope that the Jews would prefer to worship Jesus rather than Aphrodite.
After all according to them he was Jewish.
The Cardo in Beit She’an
Beit Sh’an lies at a strategic point at the entrance to the Jezreel Valley – the natural passageway from Tranjordan to the Mediterranean Sea – and close to the major highway known as the Sea Road, which ran from south to north. The city is first mentioned in Egyptian documents 3,900 years ago. Until the thirteenth century BCE the city was called Scythopolis, in honor of the Scythian cavalrymen who served in the Ptolemaic army, and this name was preserved in the ensuing eras. Under Roman rule, Beit She’an became an independent city, part of an alliance of ten cities (the Decapolis).
View of the main street (cardo) of Beit She’an as it was in the 4th century CE. The columned road linked the theater to the foot of the mound where the first city was raised.
Revolt against Rome in 66CE, Jewish zealots attacked the city, but its Jewish inhabitants preferred to fight them alongside the gentiles. However, the non –Jewish citizens did not trust their neighbors, and cruelly slaughtered the Jews.
Beit She’an reached the heights of its development during the Byzantine period (fourth-seventh centuries CE) and most of the remains we see today are from this time.
The city extended over a large area on both sides of the Harod River, and when Christianity became the state religion (fourth century) Beit She’an turned into an administrative and religious center. In opposing the Muslim conquest in the seventh century.
The Cardo (main street) seen in the picture led from the Roman theater to the central streets of Beit She’an. It was some 180 meters long, and was called the Palladius street, because of the inscription found there stating that the street’s portico was built by the bishop Palladius, apparently in the fourth century CE.
The portico underwent a thorough renovations in the sixth century. The street is over 7 meters wide, with a deep drainage channel in its center. The vault above the channel is characterized by its unique paving pattern.
The installations, such as shops, on each side of the street were raised very high – up to 280 cm – and were covered with mosaic. This installations where separated from the street by the portico, which supported the roof that stretched along the entire length of the street and protected the facades of the shops.
In the sixth century changes were made in the street; some of the shops were knocked down to make room for the construction of a semicircular patio, surrounded by rooms with mosaic floors.
In one of the rooms, a mosaic was found describing Tyche, the goddess of the city. In the Muslim period, water cisterns and various structures were installed above the street. Only ten shops have been excavated so far. There has been widespread pillage of stones in the area, and few remnants are to be found along the street.
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