Page 4 - Holyland Magazine - 2019 Edition
P. 4
Hurva Synagogue
The Jewish Quarter
of the Old City
Moving Testimonies from the Days of Jesus in Jerusalem
By Shachar Shilo it would inevitably fall at the hands of the beneath it the streets and houses that
sophisticated Roman army. A large fire existed in Jerusalem during its most glorious
Jesus stood on the hillside of the Mount destroyed the city’s houses, turning the days. Here, we may visit sites that served
of Olives and turned his gaze towards Jewish Quarter into a sealed and exciting as centers of power and housing for the
the Temple Mount and the Temple, time capsule, exposed to visitors after city’s nobility during the era of King Herod.
looming on top of the hill in the heart 2,000 years. Beneath its streets, the Jewish Quarter
of the eternal city. In that moment, it houses what once was the wealthiest
seemed as if nothing could harm Jerusalem In 1967, after the Six Day War, new and most spectacular area that existed in
or its Temple. Despite the pastoral image, excavations began throughout the Jewish Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.
Jesus predicted that the Temple would be Quarter, revealing the most striking and
destroyed, the city razed to the ground with exciting evidence that survived in Jerusalem Listed are some of the must-see tourist
not one single stone remaining intact (Lucas since the city’s height of glory, including attractions, for all those who wish to experience
19:42-44). events that are documented in the New the City of Jerusalem, the most famous city in
Testament. Beneath the surface of the the world, as it is depicted in the Bible.
The blazing summer of 70 BC would be the modern streets and alleyways lie some of the
last during which the beautiful Temple would most impressive sites known to us today. For The Burnt House
stand at the heart of Jerusalem. It had been example, the city’s striking walls which were
restored and rebuilt by King Herod only 100 built by Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent in The Katros family was a well-known family of
years prior, yet the destruction of Jerusalem the mid 16th century. priests, mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud.
occurred, exactly as Jesus had predicted, A small stone weight found during the site’s
on the ninth day of the eleventh month of the Within a few decades, Jerusalem was excavations indicates that the home, in fact,
Jewish calendar. reinvented into the city we know today, belonged to the Katros family. The family’s
divided into four quarters – Christian, home, located in the Quarter of the priests
The city’s guards and inhabitants fled to the Armenian, Jewish and Muslim. The location and nobility, is open to visitors who come to
north of the city and to the quarter inhabited of the present-day Jewish Quarter hides relive the city’s last days under roman siege.
by priests and nobility. A full month would
pass for the protectors of the city, before
4
