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"Mount Zion"

Jerusalem

Monday, ‎December ‎23, ‎2013

Third Day of my Holy Land Trip, Mount Zion, Jerusalem

My Holy Land Trip

"Mount Zion"
Jerusalem

Psalms 132:13-14

For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. "This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.

Joel 3:17

Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, And strangers will pass through it no more.

The first mention of the word “Zion” in the Bible is 2Samuel 5:7: “Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David.” “Zion,” therefore, was originally the name of the ancient Jebusite fortress in the city of Jerusalem. “Zion” came to stand not only for the fortress but also for city in which the fortress stood. After David captured “the stronghold of Zion,” Zion was then called “the City of David”

A view from Mount Zion, near to the church of Peter in Gallicantu:

Mount Zion (Hebrew: Har Tsiyyon; Arabic: Jabel Sahyoun) is a hill in Jerusalem just outside the walls of the Old City. Mount Zion has been historically associated with the Temple Mount. In the Bible, Mount Zion is synonymous with Mount Moriah, the site of the binding of Isaac and the Jewish Temple. The term is also used for the entire Land of Israel.

Zion, in the Old Testament, the easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem. It was the site of the Jebusite city captured by David, king of Israel and Judah, in the 10th century bc (2 Samuel 5:6-9) and established by him as his royal capital. Some scholars believe that the name also belonged to the “stronghold of Zion” taken by David (2 Samuel 5:7), which may have been the fortress of the city. The Jewish historian Josephus, in the 1st century ad, identified Zion with the western hill of Jerusalem, where most of the city lay in his day. This incorrect identification of the site was retained until the late 19th or early 20th century, when the site of Zion was identified as the eastern hill (modern Ophel). The site was not included in the walls of Jerusalem’s 16th-century fortifications.

The etymology and meaning of the name are obscure. It appears to be a pre-Israelite Canaanite name of the hill upon which Jerusalem was built; the name “mountain of Zion” is common. In biblical usage, however, “Mount Zion” often means the city rather than the hill itself. Zion appears in the Old Testament 152 times as a title of Jerusalem; over half of these occurrences appear in two books, the Book of Isaiah (46 times) and that of Psalms (38 times). It appears seven times in the New Testament and five times in quotations from the Old Testament

A view from Mount Zion, near to the church of Peter in Gallicantu:

In the Old Testament, Zion is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation and is infrequently used in ordinary prose. It usually has emotional and religious overtones, but it is not clear why the name Zion rather than the name Jerusalem should carry these overtones. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the royal city and the city of the Temple. Mount Zion is the place where Yahweh, the God of Israel, dwells (Isaiah 8:18; Psalm 74:2), the place where he is king (Isaiah 24:23) and where he has installed his king, David (Psalm 2:6). It is thus the seat of the action of Yahweh in history.

A view from Mount Zion, near to the church of Peter in Gallicantu: Dome of the rock in the background

History

According to the Book of Samuel, Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace and the City of David. It is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah (60:14), the Book of Psalms, and the first book of the Maccabees.

After the conquest of the Jebusite city, the hill of the Lower City was divided into several parts. The highest part, in the north, became the site of Solomon's Temple. Based on archaeological excavations revealing sections of the First Temple city wall, this is believed to have been the true Mount Zion.

Towards the end of the First Temple period, the city expanded westward. Just before the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, Josephus described Mount Zion as a hill across the valley to the west. Thus, the western hill extending south of the Old City came to be known as Mount Zion, and this has been the case ever since. At the end of the Roman period, a synagogue was built at the entrance of the structure known as David's Tomb probably based on the belief that David brought the Ark of the Covenant here from Beit  Shemesh and Kiryat Ye'arim before the construction of the Temple.

In 1948, Mount Zion was linked to the Yemin Moshe neighborhood in West Jerusalem via a narrow tunnel. During the war, an alternative was needed to evacuate the wounded and transport supplies to soldiers on Mt. Zion. A cable car capable of carrying a load of 250 kilos was designed for this purpose. The cable car was only used at night and lowered into the valley during the day to escape detection, it is still in place at the now Mount Zion Hotel. The ride from the Israeli position at the St. John Eye Hospital to Mount Zion took two minutes. Mount Zion was conquered by the Harel Brigade on May 18, 1948

Between 1948 and 1967, when the Old City was under Jordanian occupation, Israelis were forbidden access to the Jewish holy places. Mount Zion was a designated no-man's land between Israel and Jordan. Mount Zion was the closest accessible site to the ancient Jewish Temple. Until East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, Israelis would climb to the rooftop of David's Tomb to pray. The winding road leading up to Mount Zion is known as Pope's Way (Derekh Ha'apifyor). It was paved in honor of the historic visit to Jerusalem of Pope Paul VI in 1964.

A view from Mount Zion, near to the church of Peter in Gallicantu:

Landmarks

Important sites on Mount Zion are Dormition Abbey, King David's Tomb and the Room of the Last Supper. Most historians and archeologists today do not regard "David's Tomb" there to be the actual burial place of King David. The Chamber of the Holocaust (Martef Ha Shoah), the precursor of Yad Vashem, is also located on Mount Zion. Another place of interest is the Catholic cemetery where Oskar Schindler, a Righteous Gentile who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews in the Holocaust, is buried. Notable burials in the Protestant cemetery on Mt. Zion include the architect Conrad Schick.

Chamber of Holocaust museum:

Chamber of the Holocaust (Martef HaShoa, "Cellar of the Holocaust") is a small Holocaust museum located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. It was Israel's first Holocaust museum.

The site was founded in 1948 by the Ministry of Religion and its Director-General, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Zanvil Kahane, whose responsibilities included Mount Zion. That same year, Kahane oversaw the on-site burial of ashes of victims from the Oranien burg concentration camp together with desecrated Torah scrolls recovered from Nazi Europe. In contrast to Yad Vashem, the government's official Holocaust memorial museum established in 1953 on Mount Herzl – a new site symbolizing rebirth after destruction – the Chief Rabbinate chose Mount Zion as the site for the Chamber of the Holocaust because of its proximity to David's Tomb, which symbolically connotes ancient Jewish history and the promise of messianic redemption (through the Messiah, son of David). Scholars have noted that the somber ambience of the museum, whose dank, cave-like rooms are illuminated by candlelight, is meant to portray the Holocaust as a continuation of the "death and destruction" that plagued Jewish communities throughout history. The museum is currently maintained by the Diaspora Yeshiva, with an Orthodox orientation.

Chamber of Holocaust museum:

Przcedcz – Jewish memorial plaque:

Pzcedcz – Jewish memorial plaque

The Jewish community of Przedecz, which accounted for a large proportion of the population of Przedecz, a town in western Poland, was wiped out in the Holocaust. In Yiddish the city was known as Pshaytsh. The town, which dates from the 14th century, is located midway between Chodecz and Kłodawa. It is 75 km (47 mi) northwest of Łódź, 150 km (93 mi) west of Warsaw and 130 km (81 mi) east of Poznań. On the southeast, it borders on Lake Przedecz

Translation of the text in the board:

In eternal memory

In memory of the souls of our dear friends, the martyrs of our city
Przedecz (Pshaytsh)
(Włocławek district)
who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, may their names be obliterated
in Chełmno on the 7th day of Iyar, 742 [Anno Mundi], 24 April 1942
and in the other places of extermination, may God avenge their blood
The memorial day was established as the 7th day of Iyar
May their lives be bound in the bundle of the living
Their holy memory immortalized by the survivors of our city

in Israel and in the Diaspora

A view of Mount Zion from Abu Tor:

I had also a chance to stand in that holy place, Mount Zion for a while:

On the peak of mount Zion, near to the church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, Mount Zion, Jerusalem