Jerusalem Things to Do Tips by Oana_bic

Gethsemane (also spelled Gethsemani) was the garden where, according to the New Testament and Christian traditions, Jesus watched, prayed, and suffered for the sins of the world the night before he was crucified. According to Luke, Jesus' anguish in Gethsemane was so deep that "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Gethsemane was also where Christ was betrayed by the disciple Judas Iscariot.
The garden identified as Gethsemane is located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Located by the garden is the Church of All Nations, also known as the Church of the Agony. The ancient church was destroyed by the Sassanids in 614. The church rebuilt on the site by the Crusaders was finally razed, probably in 1219. Also on the Mount of Olives is the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene with its distinct golden, onion-shaped domes (Byzantine/Russian Style). It was built by Russian Tsar Alexander III in memory of his mother.

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Directions: Old City Jerusalem

The Western Wall or simply The Kotel, is a retaining wall in Jerusalem that dates from the time of the Jewish Second Temple (516 BCE - 70 CE). It is sometimes referred to as the Wailing Wall, referring to Jews mourning the destruction of the Temple. The Western Wall is part of the bigger religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem called Har ha-Bayit (the Temple Mount) to Jews and Christians, or Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims. The Western Wall derives its holiness due to its proximity to the sacred Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount, which is the Most Holy Place in Judaism. This makes the Western Wall the holiest location in Judaism which is currently generally accessible to the Jewish people for prayer.
Jewish men and women can be found praying at the wall at every hour, though a mechitza, or divider, separates the men's section of the wall from the women's section. B'nai Mitzvah celebrations can also be held here, and some people of different ages travel from all over the world to have their ceremonies at the Kotel. It is also a tradition to deposit a slip of paper with wishes or prayers on it into the cracks of the wall. Looking closely, one can see hundreds of tiny, folded papers stuffed inside the grooves.
The Temple in Jerusalem was the most sacred building in Judaism. Herod the Great built vast retaining walls around Mount Moriah, expanding the small, quasi-natural plateau on which the First and Second Temples stood into the wide open spaces of the Temple Mount seen today.

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Directions: In the Old City Jerusalem

The Jaffa Gate is a stone portal in the historic walls of Jerusalem's Old City; it is one of eight gates in Jerusalem's Old City walls. The Jaffa gate opens to a road, Jaffa Street that leads to Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times, that road led to the port city of Jaffa, which is now just along the southern edge of Tel Aviv.
On the Old City side of the Jaffa Gate is a small square between the Christian and Armenian Quarters. The Christian Quarter is to the north, on the left, and the Armenian Quarter is to the South, on the right. Straight ahead an Arab suq runs due east along a narrow street that leads to the Muslim Quarter. The Jewish Quarter is accessed by a number of streets and alleyways running off the gate square.
Running along the high city walls just to the south of the Gate is The Citadel of Jerusalem, also referred to as the Tower of David, a notable Jerusalem landmark that dates back to antiquity. The current tower was built during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
When German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem, the Turkish authorities created a gap in the city's wall, in order to allow the visitor to enter the city without dismounting his horse. The act was a symbol of friendship between the two empires. In 1917, British general Edmund Allenby entered the Old CIty through this gate, giving a speech at the nearby Tower of David. During Israel's War of Independence, Israeli forces fought hard to connect the Jewish Quarter of the Old City with western Jerusalem by controlling the Jaffa Gate. With a Jordanian victory in 1948, Israeli forces were not able to regain control of the gate until the Six Day War in 1967.
As the westernmost of the gates, it is heavily used by pedestrians and vehicles, and the plaza in front of the gate has been expanded to connect with new residential developments outside the gate.

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Stretching from the Zion Gate in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west, up to the Cardo in the north and and extending to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in the east, the quarter has had a rich history, with a nearly continual Jewish presence since Roman times. In 1948 its population of about 2,000 Jews was besieged, and forced to leave en masse. The quarter had been completely sacked, with ancient synagogues destroyed. The quarter remained under Transjordanian occupation until its capture by Israeli paratroops in the Six-Day War of 1967. The quarter has since been rebuilt and settled, and has a population of about 2,500 and many large educational institutions have taken up residence.
Before being rebuilt, the quarter was carefully excavated under the supervision of Hebrew University. The archaeological remains, on display in a series of museums and outdoor parks to visit which tourists descend two or three stories beneath the level of the current city, collectively form one of the world's most accessible archaeological sites.

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The ground on which the church rests is venerated by most Christians as Golgotha, the Hill of Calvary, where the New Testament describes that Jesus was crucified. The entrance to the church is through a single door in the south transept. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. Just inside the entrance is the Stone of Anointing, believed to be the spot where Jesus' body was prepared for burial. To the left, or west, is the Rotunda of the Anastasis beneath the larger of the church's two domes, in the center of which is the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre itself. Under the status quo the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. To its rear, within a chapel constructed of iron latticework upon a stone base semicircular in plan, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox. Beyond that to the rear of the Rotunda is a very rough hewn chapel believed to be the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea in which the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays. To the right of the sepulchre on the southeastern side of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.On the east side opposite the Rotunda is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. The second, smaller dome sits directly over the center of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas, an omphalos once thought to be the center of the world, is situated. On the south side of the altar via the ambulatory is a stairway climbing to the Chapel of Calvary, or Golgotha, believed to be the site of Jesus' crucifixion and the most lavishly decorated part of the church.

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Directions: Old City Jerusalem