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IT’S ONE OF THE FEW CITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST WHERE JEWS,
CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS ENJOY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
For thousands of years, Jerusalem has served as the crossroads of the
world’s three major monotheistic religions. In the modern age, it remains one
of the only places in the Middle East where Jews, Christians and Muslims
enjoy complete freedom to practice their faith without fear of persecution.
You can witness this first-hand by visiting the major pilgrimage sites in
Jerusalem, including Judaism’s holiest sites and important religious locations
in the Muslim and Christian faiths.
As one might expect in a city where cultures have converged for four
millennia, Jerusalem has witnessed major civilization clashes. After King David
established Jerusalem as the Jewish kingdom’s capital in about 1,000 BCE and
his son Solomon built the first Holy Temple there, the Babylonian, Persian
and Greek empires conquered and occupied the city at various points, with
the Romans officially changing the name of the territory from ‘Judea’ to
‘Palestine’ after crushing a Jewish revolt and destroying the Second Temple.
After the Roman Empire fell, Jerusalem was controlled by the Byzantine
Empire, conquered by early Islamic caliphates, held by European Crusaders
and taken by the Mamluk Sultanate. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire
gained control of Jerusalem and held it until World War I, when the British
took possession of the city until the establishment of the modern state of
Israel in 1948.
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