A city’s significance is often measured by its commercial importance, the height of its skyscrapers, or the grandeur of its architecture. But Jerusalem is not like any other city. Jerusalem’s significance comes from the One who chose to dwell there—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God has a unique relationship with the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem. The God of peace chose Jerusalem, which means “city of peace,” as the place where the Jewish people should worship Him and from which the Jewish Messiah will one day reign. Because of the city’s crucial role in the plan of God, God’s enemy—Satan—has launched a spiritual war against Jerusalem and the Jewish people.
Jerusalem is embedded in the spiritual fabric of the Jewish community worldwide. Prayers like the Amidah, which have been recited three times a day for nearly two millennia, recall the link between God’s faithfulness and the hope of rebuilding Jerusalem. And the phrase Next year in Jerusalem, recited at the end of Passover and Yom Kippur, expresses the Jewish anticipation of a future Jerusalem where peace will reign.
It’s hard to believe that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approved in 2016 a resolution on “Occupied Palestine.” Supposedly designed to protect Arab culture in eastern Jerusalem, UNESCO knowingly repudiated 3,000 years of Jewish culture by labeling all holy sites solely in Arabic and calling Israel an “occupying power.” Even then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against the wording that robbed Jerusalem of its Jewish identity.
But nothing is new under the sun. That was certainly not the first or last time nations attempted to separate what God has knit together. The ugly narrative that defrauds the Jewish people of their unique, historical connection to Jerusalem did not originate with UNESCO.
It is an age-old tale that has been unfolding for millennia. Past kingdoms and empires also tried to sever Jerusalem from the Jewish people and claim God’s eternal city as their own. In 167 BC, the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes sought to dismantle Judaism from the inside out. His anti-Semitic mission started by outlawing Jewish traditions and rites, such as reading the Torah, performing circumcision, and honoring the Sabbath. He eventually struck at the heart of Judaism, turning Jerusalem into a Greek colony and the Temple into a place of pagan worship. The Hellenization of Jerusalem, however, met its demise when God raised up Judas Maccabeus to fight against the forces of the evil one.
A few centuries later, Roman Emperor Hadrian tried to rewrite Jewish history by renaming Judea and Jerusalem. He removed every ounce of Jewish identity from the city and quelled a massive Jewish uprising led by Simon Bar Kokhba, a Jewish leader who fought for an independent Jewish country and a liberated Jerusalem. Hadrian’s anger led him to rename Judea “Palaestina” and rename Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, a name that remained until the Arabs seized control from the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire in AD 638.
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