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This post presents a selection of famous quotes about the power and role of Jerusalem from a wide range of sources, including the Bible, politicians, authors, poets and religious leaders.
Famous Quotes About Jerusalem
“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal. This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word would be ‘Jerusalem.’”
(Teddy Kollek)
“In the din and tumult of the age, the still small voice of Jerusalem remains our only music.”
(Israel Zangwill)
“If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.”
(Psalm 137:5)
“Without Jerusalem, the land of Israel is as a body without a soul.”
(Elhanan Leib Lewinsky)
“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
(Benjamin Disraeli)
“Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity.”
(Yehuda Amichai)
“Jerusalem’s a place where everyone remembers
he’s forgotten something
But doesn’t remember what it is.”
(Yehuda Amichai)
“You are shaking… so am I. It is because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One does not go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries.”
(Elie Wiesel)
“We regard it as our duty to declare that Jewish Jerusalem is an organic and inseparable part of the State of Israel, as it is an inseparable part of the history of Israel, of the faith of Israel.”
(David Ben-Gurion)
“Your name will scorch my lips forever, Like a seraph’s kiss, I’m told, If I forget thee, golden city, Jerusalem of gold.”
(Naomi Shemer)
“You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it was they who made it famous.”
(Winston Churchill)
“Through a historical catastrophe — the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome — I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.”
(S.Y. Agnon)
“No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people.”
(David Ben-Gurion)
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
(Psalms 122:6)
“Eternity means Jerusalem.”
(Talmud, Tractate Berachot)
“For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
(Isaiah 2:3)
“Jerusalem is a festival and a lamentation. Its song is a sigh across the ages, a delicate, robust, mournful psalm at the great junction of spiritual cultures.”
(David K. Shipler)
“I would never call Jerusalem beautiful or comfortable or consoling. But there’s something about it that you can’t turn away from.”
(Pico Iyer)
“Wherever I go, I am going to Jerusalem.”
(Rabbi Nachman of Breslov)
“In the Jewish tradition, there is at the same time Jerusalem in the heavens and Jerusalem on the ground. Jerusalem is a living city, but also the heart, the soul of the Jewish people and the state of Israel.”
(Yitzhak Rabin)