Similarly, I have portrayed the progress of British pro-Zionism, secular and evangelical, from Palmerston and Shaftesbury to Lloyd George, Balfour, Churchill and their friend Weizmann for the simple reason that this was the single most decisive influence on the fate of Jerusalem and Palestine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
I end the main body of the book in 1967 because the Six Day War essentially created the situation today and it provides a decisive stop. The Epilogue cursorily brings the politics up to the present and ends with a detailed portrait of a typical morning in the three Holy Places. But the situation is ever changing. If I were to continue the history in detail up to today, the book would lack any clear ending and have to be updated almost hourly. Instead I have tried to show why Jerusalem continues to be both the essence of and obstacle to a peace deal.
This work is a synthesis based on a wide reading of the primary sources, ancient and modern, on personal seminars with specialists, professors, archaeologists, families and statesmen, and on innumerable visits to Jerusalem, the shrines and archaeological digs. I have been fortunate to uncover some new or rarely used sources. My research has brought three special joys: that of spending much time in Jerusalem; that of reading the wondrous works of writers from Usamah bin Munqidh, Ibn Khaldun, Evliya Celebi and Wasif Jawhariyyeh to William of Tyre, Josephus and T. E. Lawrence; and, thirdly, that of being befriended and helped, with such trust and generosity, amid ferocious political crises, by Jerusalemites of all sects – Palestinians, Israelis and Armenians, Muslims, Jews and Christians.
I feel I have been preparing to write this book all my life. Since childhood, I have been wandering around Jerusalem. Because of a family connection, related in the book, ‘Jerusalem’ is my family motto. Whatever the personal link, I am here to recount the history of what happened and what people believed. To return to where we started, there have always been two Jerusalems, the temporal and the celestial, both ruled more by faith and emotion than by reason and facts. And Jerusalem remains the centre of the world.
Not everyone will like my approach – after all, this is Jerusalem. But in writing the book I always remembered Lloyd George’s advice to his Governor of Jerusalem, Storrs, who was being savagely criticized by both Jews and Arabs: ‘Well, if either one side stops complaining, you’ll be dismissed.’1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have been helped in this huge project by a wide cast of scholars outstanding in their fields. I am deeply grateful to them for their help, advice and, where stated, reading and correcting of my text.
In the archaeological–biblical period, thank you, above all, to the following for reading and correcting this section: Professor Ronny Reich; Professor Dan Bahat, formerly the Chief Archaeologist of Jerusalem, who also gave me detailed tours of the city; Dr Raphael Greenberg, who likewise treated me to site visits; and Rosemary Eshel. Thanks for help and advice to Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper of Ancient Iraq and magical-medical texts at the British Museum; and to Dr Eleanor Robson, Reader in Ancient Middle Eastern Science, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, for her correction of the sections on Assyria–Babylon–Persia, and Dr Nicola Schreiber for her advice on the pottery implications for the dating of the gateways of Megiddo; to Dr Gideon Avni, Director of Excavations and Surveys Department, IAA; Dr Eli Shukron, for his regular tours of the dig in the City of David; Dr Shimon Gibson; Dr Renee Sivan of the Citadel. And special thanks to Dr Yusuf al-Natsheh, Director of the Department of Islamic Archaeology of the Haram al-Sharif, for his help throughout the project and for arranging access to closed sites on the Haram and tours with Khader al-Shihabi. On the Herodian–Roman–Byzantine period, I am immensely grateful to Professor Martin Goodman of Oxford University and to Dr Adrian Goldsworthy for the reading and correction of my text.
On the early Islamic period, Arabs, Turks and Mamluks, I owe huge thanks for his advice, guidance and detailed correction of my text to Hugh Kennedy, Professor of Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and also to Dr Nazmi al-Jubeh, Dr Yusuf al-Natsheh and Khader al-Shihabi. On the Mamilla Cemetery, I thank Taufik De’adel.
On the Crusades: thanks to Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge University, and to Professor David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History, Cambridge University, for reading and correcting the text.
On Jewish history from the Fatimids to the Ottomans: thanks to Professor Abulafia who gave me access to manuscript sections of his Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, to Professor Minna Rozen, Haifa University, and to Sir Martin Gilbert, who let me read the manuscript of In Ishmael’s House.
On the Ottoman period and the Palestinian Jerusalem Families: thanks to Professor Adel Manna, who read and corrected the text of the sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sections.
On the nineteenth-century–imperialist–early-Zionist periods: thanks to Yehoshoa Ben-Arieh; Sir Martin Gilbert; Professor Tudor Parfitt; Caroline Finkel; Dr Abigail Green, who let me read her manuscript Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero; and Bashir Barakat, for his private research on the Jerusalem Families. Kirsten Ellis generously gave me access to unpublished chapters of Star of the Morning. Dr Clare Mouradian gave me much advice and material. Professor Minna Rozen shared her research on Disraeli and other papers. On the Russian connection, thanks to Professor Simon Dixon, and to Galina Babkova in Moscow; and on the Armenians to George Hintlian and Dr Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev.
On the Zionist period, the twentieth century and the Epilogue: I owe the greatest thanks to Dr Nadim Shehadi, Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme, Chatham House, and to Professor Colin Shindler, SOAS, both of whom read and corrected these entire sections. I am grateful to David and Jackie Landau of the Economist and Haaretz for their corrections. Thanks to Dr Jacques Gautier; to Dr Albert Aghazarian; to Jamal al-Nusseibeh for ideas and contacts; to Huda Imam for her tour of the Security Wall; to Yakov Loupo for his research on the ultra-Orthodox.
I owe much to Dr John Casey of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, who nobly and mercilessly corrected the entire text, as did George Hintlian, historian of the Ottoman period, Secretary of the Armenian Patriarchate 1975–95. Special thanks to Maral Amin Quttieneh for her translation of Arabic materials into English.
Thanks for advice and family history to the following members of the Jerusalem Families interviewed or consulted: Muhammad al-Alami, Nasseredin al-Nashashibi, Jamal al-Nusseibeh, Zaki al-Nusseibeh, Wajeeh al-Nusseibeh, Saida al-Nusseibeh, Mahmoud al-Jarallah, Huda Imam of the Jerusalem Institute, Haifa al-Khalidi, Khader al-Shihabi, Said al-Husseini, Ibrahim al-Husseini, Omar al-Dajani, Aded al-Judeh, Maral Amin Quttieneh, Dr Rajai M. al-Dajani, Ranu al-Dajani, Adeb al-Ansari, Naji Qazaz, Yasser Shuki Toha, owner of my favourite Abu Shukri restaurant; Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University.
Thanks to Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites; to Father Athanasius Macora of the Catholics, Father Samuel Aghoyan, Armenian Superior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Father Afrayem Elorashamily of the Copts, Syriac Bishop Severius, Syriac Father Malke Morat.
I am grateful to Shimon Peres, the President of the State of Israel, and Lord Weidenfeld, both of whom shared memories and ideas; to Princess Firyal of Jordan for her memories of Jordanian Jerusalem; and to Prince and Princess Talal bin Muhammad of Jordan.
Thanks to HRH the Duke of Edinburgh for his advice and for checking the text on his mother Princess Andrew of Greece and his aunt Grand Duchess Ella; and to HRH the Prince of Wales. I am especially grateful for access to their private family archives to the Earl of Morley and to the Hon. and Mrs Nigel Parker for their charming hospitality.
Yitzhak Yaacovy was the man who introduced me to Jerusalem: survivor of Auschwitz, fighter in the 1948 War of Independence, man of letters, young aide in Ben-Gurion’s office, he was the long-serving Chairman of the East Jerusalem Development Company under Mayor Teddy Kollek.
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sp; The envoys of both the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority were immensely generous in time, ideas, information and conversation: thanks to Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to London, Rani Gidor, Sharon Hannoy and Ronit Ben Dor at the Israeli Embassy; Professor Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority Ambassador in London.
William Dalrymple and Charles Glass were both extremely generous throughout this project with ideas, materials and reading-lists. The Jerusalem Foundation was incredibly helpful: thanks to Ruth Chesin, Nurit Gordon, Alan Freeman and Uri Dromi, Director of Mishkenot Shaanim. No one helped as much with academic and other contacts as John Levy of the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation and of the Academic Study Group, and Ray Bruce, veteran television producer.
Thanks to Peter Sebag-Montefiore and his daughter Louise Aspinall for sharing Geoffrey Sebag-Montefiore’s papers; to Kate Sebag-Montefiore for research into William Sebag-Montefiore’s adventures.
Thanks for help, advice, encouragement to: Amos and Nily Oz, Munther Fahmi at the American Colony Bookshop, Philip Windsor-Aubrey, David Hare, David Kroyanker, Hannah Kedar, Fred Iseman, Lea Carpenter Brokaw, Danna Harman, Dorothy and David Harman, Caroline Finkel, Lorenza Smith, Professor Benjamin Kedar, Yaov Farhi, Diala Khlat, Ziyad Clot, Youssef Khlat, Rania Joubran, Rebecca Abram, Sir Rocco and Lady Forte, Kenneth Rose, Dorrit Moussaeff and her father Shlomo Moussaeff, Sir Ronald and Lady Cohen, David Khalili, Richard Foreman, Ryan Prince, Tom Holland, Tarek Abu Zayyad, Professor Israel Finkelstein, Professor Avigdor Shinan, Professor Yair Zakovitch, Jonathan Foreman, Musa Klebnikoff, Arlene Lascona, Ceri Aston, Rev. Robin Griffith-Jones, the Master of the Temple, Hani Abu Diab, Miriam Ovits, Joana Schliemann, Sarah Helm, Professor Simon Goldhill, Dr Dorothy King, Dr Philip Mansel, Sam Kiley, John Micklethwait, editor of the Economist, Gideon Lichfield, Rabbi Mark Winer, Maurice Bitton, the Curator of Bevis Marks Synagogue, Rabbi Abraham Levy, Professor Harry Zeitlin, Professor F. M. al-Eloischari, Melanie Fall, Rabbi David Goldberg, Melanie Gibson, Annabelle Weidenfeld, Adam, Gill, David and Rachel Montefiore, Dr Gabriel Barkey, Marek Tamm, Ethan Bronner of the New York Times, Henry Hemming, William Sieghart. Thanks to Tom Morgan for help with the research.
Thanks to my agent Georgina Capel and my international rights agents Abi Gilbert and Romily Must; to my British publishers Alan Samson, Ion Trewin and Susan Lamb, my brilliant editor Bea Hemming at Weidenfeld; and to Peter James, the master of copy-editors; to my most longstanding publishers: Sonny Mehta at Knopf; in Brazil to Luiz Schwarz and Ana Paula Hisayama at Companhía das Letras; in France, Mireille Paoloni at Calmann Lévy; in Germany, Peter Sillem at Fischer; in Israel, Ziv Lewis at Kinneret; in Holland, Henk van ter Borg, at Nieuw Amsterdam; in Norway, Ida Bernsten and Gerd Johnsen at Cappelens; in Poland, Jolanta Woloszanska at Magnum; in Portugal, Alexandra Louro at Alêtheia Editores; in Spain, Carmen Esteban at Crítica; in Estonia, Krista Kaer of Varrak; and in Sweden, Per Faustino and Stefan Hilding at Norstedts.
My parents Dr Stephen and April Sebag-Montefiore have been superb editors of all my books. Above all I want to thank my wife Santa, who has been the patient, encouraging and loving sultana of this long process. Santa and my children Lily and Sasha have, like me, undoubtedly suffered the full effects of the Jerusalem Syndrome. They may never recover, but they probably know more about the Rock, the Wall and the Sepulchre than many a priest, rabbi or mullah.
NOTES ON NAMES,
TRANSLITERATIONS AND TITLES
This book inevitably contains a challenging diversity of names, languages and questions of transliteration. It is for general readers, so my policy is to use the most accessible and familiar names. I apologize to purists who are offended by these decisions.
In the Judaean period, I generally use the Greek not the Latin or Hebrew names for the Hasmonean kings – Aristobulos, for example. With minor characters such as Herod’s brother-in-law I use his Hebrew name Jonathan instead of his Greek one, Aristobulos, to avoid confusion with the many other Aristobuloses. With household names, I use the familiar – Herod (not Herodes), Pompey, Mark Antony, Tamurlane, Saladin. For Persian names, if well known such as Cyrus, I use that version. The Maccabean family reigned as the Hasmonean dynasty, but I call them Maccabean throughout for the sake of clarity.
In the Arab period, the challenges are greater. I do not pretend to be consistent. I generally use familiar English forms – such as Damascus rather than Dimashq. I have dropped the Arabic article ‘al-’ before persons, groups and towns but kept it on the whole within compound names and for the first mention of names in the text and the notes and not thereafter. I do not use diacritical marks. Most of the Abbasid and Fatamid caliphs and Ayyubid sultans adopted a regnant name, a laqab, such as al-Mansur. Purely to ease reading, I drop in all cases the definite article. I use ‘ibn’ instead of ‘bin’ except in well-known names. In names such as Abu Sufyan, I do not use the Arabic genitive (which would give, for example, Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan), again for facility. I generally call the Ayyubids the ‘house of Saladin’.
There is no consistency in the Western historical use of Arab names – for example, the Abbasids are known by their ruling names apart from Harun al-Rashid because he is famous thanks to the Arabian Nights stories. All historians use the name Saladin for the twelfth-century sultan yet call his brother al-Adil. Saladin’s birth name was Yusuf ibn Ayyub; his brother was Abu Bakr ibn Ayyub. Both men adopted honorific names Salah al-Din and Saif al-Din; and both later used regnant names al-Nasir (the Victor) for Saladin and al-Adil (the Just) for his brother. For ease, I use Saladin and Safedin respectively, partly to avoid confusion of Ayyubid names such as al-Adil, al-Aziz, al-Afdal, and partly to highlight the connection with Saladin.
During the Mamluk period, historians usually use the name Baibars, rather than using his regnant name al-Zahir, but then employ regnant names for most of the others – except for al-Nasir Muhammad where they use both. I follow this inconsistent tradition.
During the Ottoman period, in less well-known names, I try to use Turkish, not Arabic, spellings. I have simply chosen the most recognizable version: Jemal Pasha is Çemal in Turkish and often transliterated as Djemal. I use Mehmet Ali instead of Muhammad Ali.
In modern times, I call Hussein ibn Ali the Sherif of Mecca or King Hussein of the Hejaz; I call his sons Prince or Amir (until they too become kings) Faisal and Abdullah instead of Faisal and Abdullah ibn Hussein. I call them Sherifians in the early period and Hashemites later. I call the first king of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz al-Saud but more often use the Westernized version, Ibn Saud. Bertha Spafford married Frederick Vester: for consistency I call her Spafford throughout.
Canaan, Judah, Judaea, Israel, Palaestina, Bilad al-Shams, Palestine, Greater Syria, Coele Syria, the Holy Land, are just some of the names used to describe the country, with varying borders. There are said to be seventy names for Jerusalem (some are listed in the Appendix). Within the city, the House of God, the Holy House, the Temple, all refer to the Jewish Temple. The Dome, the Qubbet al-Sakhra, Temple of the Lord, Templum Domini refer to the Dome of the Rock; the Aqsa is the Temple of Solomon. Har HaBayit is the Hebrew and Haram al-Sharif is the Arabic for the Temple Mount, which I also call the sacred esplanade. The Sanctuary refers either to the Holy of Holies or later to the Temple Mount, which Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary (Haram); for Muslims, the Two Sanctuaries refer to Jerusalem and Hebron, another Herodian building: the tomb of Abraham and the patriarchs. The Anastasis, the Church, the Sepulchre and Deir Sultan refer to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Rock is Sakhra in Arabic; the Foundation Stone is Even HaShtiyah in Hebrew; the Holy of Holies is Kodesh haKodeshim. The Wall, the Kotel, the Western and Wailing Wall and al-Buraq wall refer to the Jewish holy site. The Citadel and the Tower of David refer to the Herodian stronghold close to the Jaffa Gate. The Virgin’s Tomb and St Mary of Jehoshaphat are the same place. The Valley of Jehoshaphat is the Kidron Valley. David’s Tomb, Nabi Daoud, the Cenacle and Coenaculum describe the shrine on Mount Zion. Each of the gates ha
s so many names which change so frequently that to list them would be worthless. Every street has at least three names: the Old City’s main street is El Wad in Arabic; Ha-Gai in Hebrew and the Valley in English.
Constantinople and Byzantium refer to Eastern Rome and its empire; after 1453, I refer to the city as Istanbul. Catholics and Latins are used interchangeably; Orthodox and Greeks also. Iran and Persia are used interchangeably. I use Iraq instead of Mesopotamia for accessibility.
On titles: the Roman emperors were the princeps in Latin and later imperator; Byzantine emperors later became basileos in Greek. In early Islam, Muhammad’s successors were variously Commanders of the Faithful and caliph. Sultan, padishah and caliph are all titles of the Ottoman rulers; in Germany, Kaiser and emperor and in Russia, tsar and emperor are used interchangeably.
PROLOGUE
On 8th of the Jewish month of Ab, in late July AD 70, Titus, the Roman Emperor Vespasian’s son who was in command of the four-month siege of Jerusalem, ordered his entire army to prepare to storm the Temple at dawn. The next day happened to be the very day on which Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem over 500 years before. Now, Titus commanded an army of four legions – a total of 60,000 Roman legionaries and local auxiliaries who were eager to deliver the final blow to the defiant but broken city. Within the walls, perhaps half a million starving Jews survived in diabolical conditions: some were fanatical religious zealots, some were freebooting bandits, but most were innocent families with no escape from this magnificent death-trap. There were many Jews living outside Judaea – they were to be found throughout the Mediterranean and Near East – and this final desperate struggle would decide not only the fate of the city and her inhabitants, but also the future of Judaism and the small Jewish cult of Christianity – and even, looking forward across six centuries, the shape of Islam.