Jerusalem: The Biography

CRUSADE

Enter on the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race and subject it to ourselves.

Pope Urban II, Address at Clermont

Jerusalem is for us an object of worship that we could not give up even if there were only one of us left.

Richard the Lionheart, Letter to Saladin

Jerusalem is ours as much as yours – indeed it’s even more sacred to us.

Saladin, Letter to Richard the Lionheart

Have we any heritage save the sanctuaries of God?

Then how should we forget His Holy Mount?

Have we either in the East or the West

A place of hope wherein we may trust

Except the land that is full of gates

Towards which the gates of Heaven open.

Judah Halevi

When I took up my theme and said

When I to Zion from Spanish exile went

My soul from depths to heaven made ascent

Greatly rejoicing that day, God’s hill to see

The day for which I longed since I had come to be.

Judah al-Harizi