Jerusalem

"Gerusalem sovra due colli è posta D'impari altezza, e volti fronte a fronte: Va per lo mezzo suo valle interposta Che lei distingue, e l'un dall'altro monte. da tre lati ha malagevol costa: Per l'altro vassi, e non par che si monte. Ma d'altissime mura è più difesa La parte piana, e incontra Borea stesa.'La Città dentro ha lochi, in cui si serba L'acqua che piove, e laghi e fonti vivi: Ma fuor la terra intorno è nuda d'erba, E di fontane sterile, e di rivi. Nè si vede fiorir lieta e superba D'alberi, e fare schermo ai raggj estivi; Se non se in quanto oltra sei miglia un bosco d'ombre nocenti orrido e fosco."

"Jerusalem, a city surrounded by thick forests and rolling hills, where the air was fresh and cool, where everything was ancient, biblical, suffused with meaning."

"We know, it must be done, For God hath spoke the word, All Israel shall their Saviour own, To their first state restor’d: Re-built by his command, Jerusalem shall rise, Her temple on Moriah stand Again, and touch the skies."

"If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next. Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting the West. It is not a conflict over territory but rather an ideological battle, between the mentality of the liberated West and the ideology of Islamic barbarism. There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan."

"Let us never forget that Islam threatens not just Israel; Islam threatens the entire world. Without Judea and Samaria, Israel cannot protect Jerusalem. The future of the world depends on Jerusalem. If Jerusalem falls, Athens and Rome – and Paris, London and Washington – will be next."

"This is the cause of your survival. I count it as my privilege to help you fight your battle. To that purpose I want to devote my life. I believe that the very existence of mankind is justified when it is based on the moral foundation of the Bible. Whoever dares lift a hand against you and your enterprise here should be fought against. Whether it is jealously, ignorance or perverted doctrine, such as have made your neighbors rise against you, or "politics" which make some of my countrymen support them, I shall fight with you against any of these influences. But remember that it is your battle. My part, which I say I feel to be a privilege, is only to help you."

"Paul refers to the church, and indeed to individual Christians, as the ‘temple of the living God’ (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19). To Western Christians, thinking anachronistically of the temple as simply the Jewish equivalent of a cathedral, the image is simply one metaphor among many and without much apparent significance. For a first-century Jew, however, the Temple had an enormous significance; as a result, when Paul uses such an image within twenty-five years of the Crucifixion (with the actual temple still standing), it is a striking index of the immense change that has taken place in his [Paul’s] thought. The Temple had been superseded by the Church. If this is so for the Temple, and in Romans 4 for the Land, then it must a fortiori be the case for Jerusalem, which formed the concentric circle in between those two in the normal Jewish worldview."

"God’s house in Jerusalem was meant to be a ‘place of prayer for all the nations’ (Isaiah 56:7; Mark 11:17); but God would now achieve this through the new temple, which was Jesus himself and his people"

"There are three gates to Gehinam (purgatory) — one of them is in Jerusalem."

"Since your city is regarded with affection by the adherents of three great religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and the pilgrimages of devout people of these three religions for many centuries, therefore I do make known to you . . . that all sacred buildings will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those who faiths are sacred"

"Jerusalem, which was first conquered by Omar and then liberated by Saladin, was lost by the Muslims, who strayed from the path of Allah....Jerusalem will be restored only through Jihad."

"When the clock of the Mosk needs repairing, they are compelled, however reluctantly to employ a Frank. But in order to have a clean conscience in the commission of such an abominable piece of sacrilege as the admission upon the sacred premises, they adopt the following expedient. The mechanic selected being thoroughly purged from his uncleanness ablution . . . a certain formula of prayer and incantation is sung over him at the gate. This being satisfactorily concluded, he is considered as exorcised, not only of Christianity (or Judaism, as the case may be), but of humanity also; and is declared to be no longer a man but a donkey. He is then mounted upon the shoulders of the faithful, lest . . . the ground should be polluted by his footsteps; and being carried to the spot where his labours are required, he is set down upon matting within certain prescribed limits; and the operation being performed, he is carried back to the gate, and there, by certain other ceremonies, he is duly undonkeyfied and transmuted back into a man again."

"Cá nesta Babilónia, donde mana matéria a quanto mal o mundo cria; cá onde o puro Amor não tem valia, que a Mãe, que manda mais, tudo profana; cá, onde o mal se afina e o bem se dana, e pode mais que a honra a tirania; cá, onde a errada e cega Monarquia cuida que um nome vão a desengana; cá, neste labirinto, onde a nobreza com esforço e saber pedindo vão às portas da cobiça e da vileza; cá neste escuro caos de confusão, cumprindo o curso estou da natureza. Vê se me esquecerei de ti, Sião!"

"One must weep ceaselessly over the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of the glory of King David, for that is the object of human perfection. If we do not have Jerusalem and the kingdom of the House of David, why should we have life? . . . Since our many transgressions have led to the Destruction and to the desolation of our glorious Temple and the loss of the kingdom of the House of David, the degree which we suffer the absence and the lack of good is known to all. Surely have we descended from life until death. And the converse is also true: "When the Lord restores the captivity of Zion," we shall ascend from death unto life. Certainly the heart of anyone who possesses the soul of a Jew is broken when he recalls the destruction of Jerusalem."

"We do not mourn properly over Jerusalem. Were we guilty of this transgression alone, it would be sufficient reason for the extension of the period of our Exile. In my opinion this is the most likely, most apparent and the strongest reason for all of the dreadful terrifying persecutions which have been fallen us in Exile, in all the places of our dispersion. We have been hotly pursued. We have not been granted rest among the nations with our humiliation, affliction and homelessness, because this sense of mourning has left our hearts. While becoming complacent in a land not ours, we have forgotten Jerusalem; we have not taken it to heart. Therefore, "Like one who is dead we have been forgotten," from generation to generation sorrow is added to our sorrow and our pain."

"JERUSALEM, the chief city of Palestine. Letters found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, written by an early ruler of Jerusalem, show that the name existed under the form Urusalim, i.e. “City of Salim” or “City of Peace,” many years before the Israelites under Joshua entered Canaan."

"Jerusalem, thought Morrison, was like a deep pool, where time had settled too thickly."

"“Come to Jerusalem and go mad,” said Morrison. “Not much of an advertising slogan.”"

"“I suppose you must be looking forward to them sorting all this out,” he said. “Er. The Palestinian situation. The politics.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to Jerusalem,” she said. “The people come. The people believe. Then they kill each other, to prove that God loves them.” “Well,” he said. “How would you fix it?” She smiled her whitest smile. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think it would be best if it was bombed. If it was bombed back to a radioactive desert. Then who would want it? But then I think, they would come here and collect the radioactive dust that might contain atoms of the Dome of the Rock, or of the Temple, or a wall that Christ leaned against on his way to the Cross. People would fight over who owns a poisonous desert, if that desert was Jerusalem."

"[Prophet said:] This city hath been to me a provocation of Mine anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even unto this day."

"Jerusalem-which sometimes feels like the frontline of an ongoing war"

"The key to understanding Zionism lies in its name. In the Bible, the easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem was called Zion. The period was the tenth century BC. In fact, the name ‘Zion’ appears 152 times in the Old Testament, referring to Jerusalem. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the Royal City and the City of the Temple. ‘Mount Zion’ is the place where God dwells according to the Bible. Jerusalem or Zion is a place where the Lord is King according to Isaiah and where he has installed his King, David, as quoted in the Psalms. King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel almost 3,000 years ago, and Jerusalem has remained the capital ever since."