Full Blown Obsession: Jerusalem

"If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither"


British Policy in Palestine (October 1938)





Holyland real estate scandal












More than 110 were wounded in the attack, 40 of them children, when a Hamas bomber detonated a five-kilogram device packed with ball-bearings on a crowded bus returning from prayers at the Western Wall.

Mount Zion

Western Wall

Tomb of King David

Golgotha, site of Jesus's crucifixion.

Muhammad's Night of Ascension: Muslims believe Muhammad was miraculously transported one night from Mecca to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Dome of the Rock

" ...with Israel a modern state, some see that longing as anachronistic, and with it the phrase that traditionally ends the seder, "Next Year in Jerusalem." The temple was destroyed 2,000 years ago, and many Jews today feel comfortable, religiously and materially, in their Diaspora communities. Some are uncomfortable with the extremes of religious life and the ongoing political strife in the Jewish state. The issue is even more salient for Israeli Jews, residents of a country whose capital is Jerusalem, for whom "next year in Jerusalem" therefore makes little sense on its surface.

What, then, does it mean for today's Jew to utter the words "next year in Jerusalem" at the end of every Passover seder?"

Exodus 3

"Jerusalem itself--is it a place we want to be, this year or next?"