ISRAEL

GOVERNMENT

Prime Minister and Knesset (Parliament)

Several major political parties Israeli men and women must serve in

army at least one year

ECONOMY

High Technology equipment Cut diamonds Tourism

DIVERSITY AND LANGUAGES

80% of population is Jewish Most others are Muslim and Christian

Arabs Official languages are Hebrew and

Arabic Some Jews live on kibbutz-a large farm

where people share everything

JEWISH CULTURE

Sabbath, Yom Kippur, Passover Kosher-“Proper” is word for Jewish

dietary law No pork or shellfish, no mix milk and

meat products

THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

GAZA

Crowded land with minimal resources, large unemployment

THE WEST BANK

Home to about 2.4 million people Economy based on agriculture from

irrigated farms mostly rural Cities of Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah

EAST JERUSALEM

Disputed land-city divided into neighborhoods by religion

Holy sites for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, or the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the Christian Quarter of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan.

The site is venerated as Golgotha[1] (the Hill of Calvary), where Jesus was crucified,[2] and is said also to contain the place where Jesus was buried (the Sepulchre). The church has been a paramount – and for many Christians the most important – pilgrimage destination since at least the 4th century, as the purported site of the resurrection of Jesus. Today it also serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the building is shared between several Christian churches and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for centuries. Today, the church is home to Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Anglican, Nontrinitarian and Protestant Christians have no permanent presence in the church[3] – and some regard the alternative Garden Tomb, elsewhere in Jerusalem, as the true place of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection.

The Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel (Hebrew: יJבLרNעPQמPה WQתUל הPכ(help·info), translit.: HaKotel HaMa'aravi; Ashkenazic pronunciation: Kosel; Arabic: البراق ,translit.: Ḥā'iṭ Al-Burāq ,حائطtranslat.: The Buraq Wall) is located in the Old City of Jerusalem at the foot of the western side of the Temple Mount. It is a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard, and is arguably the most sacred site recognized by the Jewish faith outside of the Temple Mount itself. Just over half the wall, including its 17 courses located below street level, dates from the end of the Second Temple period, commonly believed to have been constructed around 19 BCE by Herod the Great, but recent excavations indicate that the works were not finished during Herod's lifetime. The remaining layers were added from the 7th century onwards. The Western Wall refers not only to the exposed section facing a large plaza in the Jewish Quarter, but also to the sections concealed behind structures running along the whole length of the Temple Mount, such as the Little Western Wall–a 25 ft (8 m) section in the Muslim Quarter.

It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries; the earliest source mentioning Jewish attachment to the site dates back to the 4th century. From the mid-19th century onwards, attempts to purchase rights to the wall and its immediate area were made by various Jews, but none were successful. With the rise of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, the wall became a source of friction between the Jewish community and the Muslim religious leadership, who were worried that the wall was being used to further Jewish nationalistic claims to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Outbreaks of violence at the foot of the wall became commonplace and an international commission was convened in 1930 to determine the rights and claims of Muslims and Jews in connection with the wall. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War the wall came under Jordanian control and Jews were barred from the site for 19 years until Israel captured the Old City in 1967