Jerusalem: The Biography

* In 1957, Yad Vashem, ‘A Place and a Name’, the memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was created on Mount Herzl. In 1965, the Israel Museum was opened, followed by the new Knesset, both funded by James de Rothschild who had helped recruit the Jewish Legion in Allenby’s army.

* Arafat claimed to have been born in Jerusalem. His mother was a Jerusalemite, but he was in fact born in Cairo. In 1933, at the age of four, he went to live with relatives for four years in the Maghrebi Quarter next to the Wall.

* As the tension rose, an old man visited the city for the last time and the world scarcely noticed: Haj Amin Husseini, the ex-mufti, prayed at al-Aqsa and then returned to his Lebanese exile, where he died in 1974.

* Kollek, born in Hungary, raised in Vienna, and named after Theodor Herzl, had specialized in secret missions for the Jewish Agency, liaising with the British secret service during the campaign against the Irgun and the Stern Gang, and then buying arms for the Haganah. He then served as director of Ben-Gurion’s private office.

* The chief academic work on Jerusalem madness describes the typical patients as ‘individuals who strongly identify with characters from the Old or New Testament or are convinced they are one of these characters and fall victim to a psychotic episode in Jerusalem.’ Tour guides should look out for ‘1. Agitation. 2. Split away from group. 3. Obsession with taking baths; compulsive fingernail/toe-nail clipping. 4. Preparation, often with aid of hotel bed-linen, of toga-like gown, always white. 5. The need to scream, sing out loud biblical verses. 6. Procession to one of Jerusalem’s holy places. 7. Delivery of a sermon in a holy place.’ The Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre in Jerusalem, which specializes in the Syndrome, is said to stand on the site of the village of Deir Yassin.

* Faisal Husseini, the son of Abd al-Kadir, emerged as one of the leaders of the Intifada. Husseini had trained as a Fatah explosives expert and spent years in Israeli jails, the essential badges of honour for any Palestinian leader, but, released from prison, he was one of the first to come round to talks with the Israelis, even learningHebrew to put his case more clearly. Husseini attended the Madrid talks and now became Arafat’s Palestinian minister for Jerusalem. When the Oslo Accords fell apart, the Israelis confined him to Orient House before eventually closingit down. When he died in 2001, buried like his father on the Haram, the Palestinians lost the only leader who could have replaced Arafat.

† Archaeologists had started exploring tunnels beneath the Arab homes that bordered the entire western wall of the Temple Mount duringthe 1950s and Professor OlegGrabar, the future doyen of Jerusalem scholars, remembers how they would frequently appear as if by magic out of the floors in the kitchens of the surprised residents. Under Israeli archaeologists, the tunnel yielded – and continues to do so – the most breathtaking finds from the immense stones of the foundations of Herod’s Temple, via Maccabee, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad buildings, to a new Crusader chapel. But the tunnel also contained the place closest to the Temple’s Foundation Stone where Jews could now pray–and it united Jerusalem by linkingthe Jewish and Muslim Quarters.

* These struggles reveal the complexities of both sides, sometimes bringing Israelis and Arabs together: when Rabbi Goren tried to commandeer the Khalidi house overlooking the Wall for a yeshiva, Mrs Haifa Khalidi was defended in Israeli courts by two Israeli historians, Amnon Cohen and Dan Bahat, and still lives today in her house above the famous Khalidiyyah Library. When religious Jews tried to expand their digs and settlement in Silwan below the City of David, they were stopped by lawsuits brought by Israeli archaeologists.

* In 2009/2010, the population of Greater Jerusalem was 780,000: 514,800 Jews (who include 163,800 ultra-Orthodox) and 265,200 Arabs. There were around 30,000 Arabs in the Old City and 3,500 Jews. There are around 200,000 Israelis living in new suburbs in eastern Jerusalem.