Jerusalem: The Biography

* The Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela visited Jerusalem just after Maimonides. While he was there, workmen refurbishing the Cenacle on Mount Zion discovered a mysterious cavern that was hailed as King David’s Tomb. The Crusaders added a cenotaph which, in the contagious religious atmosphere of Jerusalem, made this Christian site holy for Jews and Muslims too. Benjamin claimed he travelled on to Iraq. Either way, he recorded the drama playing out in Baghdad where a young Jew named David el-Rey (the King) or Alroy declared himself the Messiah, promising to fly the local Jews on wings ‘to conquer Jerusalem.’ The Jews of Baghdad waited on their rooftops but never achieved lift-off, much to the amusement of their neighbours. Alroy was later murdered. When Benjamin Disraeli visited Jerusalem in the nineteenth century, he started to write his novel, Alroy.