bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Jerusalem is once again stirring powerful emotions around the world with US President Donald Trump recognise the city as Israel’s capital. Here are five things to know about the divided city:

Current status
Israel seized control of Palestinian east Jerusalem from Jordan during a 1967 war and later annexed it. The move was never recognised by the international community but Israel declared the city its undivided capital.
The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
No countries have accepted Israeli sovereignty and have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv instead.
The city’s eastern sector contains some of the sites holiest to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Divided population
Jerusalem’s population is divided not only between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, but also within the Jewish population, with more than a third of the city’s 542,000 adult Jewish residents defining themselves as ultra-Orthodox, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The ultra-Orthodox are the fastest growing segment in the city, with more than two-thirds of junior school children enrolled in their schools in Jerusalem.


Palestinians in Jerusalem have Israeli residency and access to services. Most Palestinians do not partake in municipal elections and cannot vote in parliamentary elections. NGOs in support of them denounce what they describe as the unequal distribution of resources and services in east and west Jerusalem.
Secular life
Alongside the religious sites, institutions and people, Jerusalem is host to Israel’s top higher education facility, the Hebrew University, whose founding fathers include Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.
The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Sam Spiegel Film and Television School and Nissan Nativ acting studio are some of the institutions that draw Israel’s most talented artists.
The Palestinian National Theatre is among the rare Palestinian institutions located in Jerusalem. Israeli authorities do not allow the Palestinian Authority to operate in the city.

Tourism capital
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 78 per cent of the three million tourists who entered Israel in 2016 visited Jerusalem. The most popular destinations were the Western Wall along with the Christian holy sites at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Via Dolorosa, all in the walled Old City.
Other popular tourist sites are Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem and the Israel Museum, home to a collection of nearly 500,000 objects of art and archaeology, ancient and modern, including the Dead Sea Scrolls which date back more than two millennia and include some of the earliest texts from the Bible.
Muslim pilgrims visit the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam. The compound is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, their holiest site.

Jerusalem Syndrome
Jerusalem is one of the few cities worldwide to have a psychiatric condition named after it.
The rare condition affects tourists who come to visit holy sites of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and suddenly find themselves overwhelmed by it all, believing themselves to be characters from the Bible, Dr Grigory Katz, a psychiatrist at Jerusalem’s Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre and an expert on the syndrome, has said.


The syndrome is rare, but when it strikes, it usually affects Protestant pilgrims from small-town America or Scandinavia raised in pious families whose trip to the Holy Land may be their first ever abroad.
Many of those afflicted by the condition become convinced they are Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary or some other character from the Bible, but symptoms do not tend to last long and medication can help bring patients back to “normalcy” within days.


Protests sweep Iran amid internet blackout and state TV warning of casualties

China FM Wang Yi opens Africa tour with united call for rules-based order

Israel says Bulgarian diplomat to direct Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza

Israeli gunfire kills 11-year-old girl in Gaza ‘safe zone’ despite ceasefire

Israel

Five things to know about Jerusalem as Trump’s embassy move angers global community

The walls of the Tower of David compound in Jerusalem, one of the many holy sites that sit within the city. Photo: AP

Christian worshippers carry a cross as they walk at the Via Dolorosa in the Jerusalem Old City on November 8, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / THOMAS COEX

(FILES) This file photo taken on May 23, 2017 shows US President Donald Trump speaking during a visit to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem Trump will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 6, 2017, upending decades of careful US policy and ignoring dire warnings from allies across the Middle East and the world. A senior administration official said Trump would make the landmark and keenly watched announcement at 1 pm (1800 GMT) from the White House. / AFP PHOTO / Menahem KAHANA

epa06369487 (FILE) - A group of tourists near the distinctive golden Dome of the Rock as they tour the Temple Mount, or Haram el-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) as it is known to Arabs, in Jerusalem's Old City, 30 July 2017, (reissued on 05 December 2017). The rock over which the shrine was built is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in the world in Islam. According to media reports on 05 December 2017 state that US President Donald J. Trump has informed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that he intends to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. EPA-EFE/JIM HOLLANDER *** Local Caption *** 53678278

epa06316096 An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man passes by Polish Christian worshippers as they walk next to Stations III at the Via Dolorosa in the Jerusalem Old City, 08 November 2017. EPA-EFE/ATEF SAFADI

News

World

Middle East

United States & Canada

No countries have accepted Israeli sovereignty and have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv instead


Donald Trump

Five things to know about Jerusalem as Trump’s embassy move angers global community

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}No countries have accepted Israeli sovereignty and have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv instead

No countries have accepted Israeli sovereignty and have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv instead