Medieval Jerusalem was a vibrant international center, home to multiple cultures, faiths, and languages. Harmonious and dissonant voices from many lands, including Persians, Turks, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Copts, Ethiopians, Indians, and Europeans, passed in the narrow streets of a city not much larger than midtown Manhattan. Patrons, artists, pilgrims, poets, and scholars from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions focused their attention on the Holy City, endowing and enriching its sacred buildings, creating luxury goods for its residents, and praising its merits. This artistic fertility was particularly in evidence between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, notwithstanding often devastating circumstances—from the earthquake of 1033 to the fierce battles of the Crusades. So strong a magnet was Jerusalem that it drew out the creative imagination of even those separated from it by great distance, from as far north as Scandinavia to as far east as present-day China. This publication is the first to define these four centuries as a singularly creative moment in a singularly complex city. Through absorbing essays and incisive discussions of nearly 200 works of art, Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven explores not only the meaning of the city to its many faiths and its importance as a destination for tourists and pilgrims but also the aesthetic strands that enhanced and enlivened the medieval city that served as the crossroads of the known world.

Har-El demonstrates the dynamic interrelationship and historical process between man, landscape, geographical conditions, conquests, culture and religion.

“In this epic examination, [a] celebrated historian explores the evolution of Judaism and Islam through a lens of Middle Eastern stability.” (Publishers Weekly) The relationship between Jews and Muslims has been a flashpoint that affects stability in the Middle East with global consequences. In this eloquent book, Martin Gilbert presents a fascinating account of the hope and fear that have characterized these two peoples through the 1,400 years of their intertwined history. Harking back to the Biblical story of Ishmael and Isaac, Gilbert takes the reader from the origins of the fraught relationship—the refusal of Medina’s Jews to accept Mohammed as a prophet—through the ages of the Crusader reconquest of the Holy Land and the great Muslim sultanates to the present day. He explores the impact of Zionism in the early twentieth century, the clash of nationalisms during the Second World War, the mass expulsions and exodus of 800,000 Jews from Muslim lands following the birth of Israel, the Six-Day War, and the political sensitivities of the current Middle East. Ishmael’s House sheds light on a time of prosperity and opportunity for Jews in Muslim lands stretching from Morocco to Afghanistan, with many instances of Muslim openness, support, and courage. Drawing on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, Gilbert uses archived material, poems, letters, memoirs, and personal testimony to uncover the human voice of this centuries-old conflict. Ultimately Gilbert’s moving account of mutual tolerance between Muslims and Jews provides a perspective on current events and a template for the future. “A reliable source and a pleasure to read.” —Herman Wouk, Pulitzer prize winning author of The Caine Mutiny “Moving and important.” —The Independent

Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel analyses how Jerusalem is translated into the visual and material culture of medieval, early modern and contemporary Europe, and in what ways European encounters with the city have shaped its holy sites. The volume also demonstrates methodological shifts in the study of Jerusalem in Western art by mapping the diversity of concepts that underlie imaginations of the city as an earthly presence and a heavenly realization, as a physical and a mental space, and as a unique location which is multiplied and re-imagined in numerous copies elsewhere. Contributors are Lily Arad, Pnina Arad, Barbara Baert, Neta B. Bodner, Iris Gerlitz, Anastasia Keshman Wasserman, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Ora Limor, Galit Noga-Banai, Robert Ousterhout, Yamit Rachman-Schrire, Bruno Reudenbach, Alessandro Scafi, Tsafra Siew, and Victor I. Stoichita.

Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein show that, contrary to previous explanations, this transformation was driven not by anti-Jewish persecution and legal restrictions, but rather by changes within Judaism itself after 70 CE--most importantly, the rise of a new norm that required every Jewish male to read and study the Torah and to send his sons to school. Over the next six centuries, those Jews who found the norms of Judaism too costly to obey converted to other religions, making world Jewry shrink. Later, when urbanization and commercial expansion in the newly established Muslim Caliphates increased the demand for occupations in which literacy was an advantage, the Jews found themselves literate in a world of almost universal illiteracy. From then forward, almost all Jews entered crafts and trade, and many of them began moving in search of business opportunities, creating a worldwide Diaspora in the process.

This book explores several fascinating medieval Christian and Islamic artworks that represent and reimagine Jerusalem’s architecture as religious and political instruments to express power, entice visitors, console the devoted, offer spiritual guidance, and convey the city’s mythical history.

A man travels to Israel to uncover a diamond’s remarkable past in this vivid historical saga from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Physician. A diamond cutter and seller from a long, respected line of precious-gem dealers, New Yorker Harry Hopeman is intrigued by the story of the so-called “Jerusalem Diamond,” a magnificent yellow jewel rumored to date back to the biblical time of King Solomon. So when he’s asked to broker a deal that will return the legendary gemstone to Israel, he eagerly accepts. Arriving in the volatile Middle East, Hopeman soon discovers that his assignment will be anything but easy. Representatives of the Holy Land’s three major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are all laying claim to the priceless jewel that once adorned the miter of Pope Gregory, and they will do anything to possess it. Partnering with Israeli government agent Tamar Strauss—a beautiful and courageous Yemenite war widow who inspires the visiting American’s passion as well as his respect—Hopeman is soon entangled in a web of mystery and intrigue that crosses continents and stretches back thousands of years. As the duo follows the twisting travels of the gem and the bloody conflicts it has ignited throughout its extraordinary past—a history that intertwines with Hopeman’s own family saga—the story of a breathtaking land and its people unfolds in all its drama and glory. International-bestselling author Noah Gordon—whose acclaimed historical novel The Physician was the inspiration for the major motion picture of the same name starring Ben Kingsley— “has packed a suspense tale with religious, historical and archeological underpinnings, along with fascinating insights into an industry whose conduct is generally shrouded from outside scrutiny” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).