Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The siege of Jerusalem (597 BC) was a military campaign carried out by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, in which he besieged Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah. The city surrendered, with king Jeconiah of Judah deported to Babylon and replaced by his Babylonian-appointed uncle, Zedekiah. The siege was recorded by both the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 24:10–16) and the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle. In 601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar unsuccessfully attempted to take Egypt and was repulsed with heavy losses. Jehoiakim king of Judah seized the opportunity to revolt against Babylonian rule, taking a pro-Egyptian position, despite the strong remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah. Jehoiakim died for reasons unclear, and was succeeded by his young son, Jeconiah.The Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, and in March 597 BC the city surrendered. Jeconiah, his court and other prominent citizens and craftsmen, were deported to Babylon. This event is considered to be the start of Babylonian captivity and of the Jewish Diaspora. Jeconiah's uncle, Zedekiah, was installed as vassal king of Judah. A decade later, Zedekiah launched another rebellion against the Babylonians, which was brutally crushed by Nebuchadnezzar. In 587 BC, a second siege of Jerusalem culminated in the destruction of the city and First Temple, bringing an end to the Kingdom of Judah.

The Hayat Mosque (Arabic: مسجد الحيات) is a small historical mosque located within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Christian Quarter. It is one of the ancient mosques of the city, attributed to the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab. This mosque holds particular significance as it is situated next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the east and is surrounded by shops. Its dimensions are 4x4 meters. It is named "Hayat," which is the Arabic plural of "snake," because, according to popular belief, it contains a talisman that is believed to neutralize the venom of the snakes that roam in Jerusalem and whose bites are potentially lethal.

Yeshivat Aderet Eliyahu (ישיבת אדרת אליהו), commonly referred to as "Zilberman's," is a Haredi, Lithuanian educational facility located between the Jewish and Muslim quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem.The yeshiva encompasses three buildings, including the main beis midrash (study hall) called "Galicia," as well as a yeshiva ketana (yeshiva high school), near the Armenian quarter, and an elementary school, also in the Old City. Although in many ways a traditional Haredi yeshiva, it differs from most yeshivas in its commitment to following the teachings of the Vilna Gaon. In addition, Zilberman's is well known for endorsing the newly found Techelet (blue dye extracted from sea snails and used to color fringes of tzitzit) as authentic and encouraging its students to wear tzitzit dyed with it. Wearing tefillin (phylacteries) throughout the day is also encouraged, unlike most yeshivas where tefillin is only worn briefly for morning prayer. Zilberman's also features a simpler, more straightforward teaching method for Talmud and the Bible. Returning to traditional teaching methods abandoned by the Yeshiva world, students of Zilberman's have a set study schedule including Torah, "Nach" (Prophets and Writings), Mishnah and Talmud; the method of Talmud study does not involve intense scrutiny of commentaries and has more focus on the text itself. The yeshiva was founded in the 1970s by Rabbi Yitzhak Shlomo Zilberman. As he was orphaned as a teenager, he did not grow up with the guidance of any specific sect of Orthodoxy, and was able to search independently to find what he felt was the most accurate stream of Judaism. Eventually he found the Vilna Gaon's teachings to be by far the most faithful to Judaism, and founded the yeshiva and yeshiva ketana. Since then, many new schools have been established throughout Israel and in Jewish communities abroad based on the model of Zilberman's. Some of these schools do not share Zilberman's Haredi, ultra-orthodox character, and many are associated with the National Religious and Settler movements. Three of these schools were founded by students of Rabbi Zilberman; one in Beit El (dedicated to Rabbi Binyamin Kahane), one in Yitzhar and one in Hebron now administered by Baruch Marzel. The largest, the Beit El yeshiva, has nearly 250 students (as of September 2007). Despite its own strong right wing and nationalistic leanings (many of its younger students are affiliated with or sympathetic towards the Hill-top settler movement), Zilberman's is firmly Haredi/ultra-orthodox. Following Rabbi Avigdor Nevenzahl's ban on entering the Temple Mount, Zilberman's followed suit. After Rabbi Zilberman's death in the late 1990s, his sons took over management and leadership of the yeshiva.

The Immovable Ladder is a wooden ladder leaning against the right window on the second tier of the facade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. The ladder rests on a ledge and is attached to a window owned by the Armenian Apostolic Church. The ladder is a symbol of inter-confessional disputes within Christianity. Its presence in its current location signifies the adherence to an agreement among six Christian denominations, who collectively own the church, not to move, repair, or alter anything in the church without the consent of all six denominations.

The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group is a charitable foundation which operates an ophthalmic hospital in Jerusalem – one of six hospitals in the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network – and satellite eye care clinics and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Venerable Order of St John. The Hospital Group is based in Jerusalem and is the main provider of eye care in the Palestinian territories.

The Muristan (Hebrew: מוריסטן, Arabic: مورستان) is a complex of streets and shops in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The site was the location of the first Bimaristan (from Persian Bimārestān بیمارستان meaning "hospital") of the Knights Hospitaller.

The Ayyubid Mosque of Omar (Arabic: مسجد عمر بن الخطاب) is an Islamic place of worship inside the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located opposite the southern courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Muristan area of the Christian Quarter. The mosque is not open to tourists, and can be accessed only for praying.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains two sites considered holy in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, which is where he was buried and resurrected. Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection'). Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

Deir es-Sultan, literally the Monastery of the Sultan (Arabic: دير السلطان, romanized: Deir al-Sultan), is a monastery located on the roof of the Chapel of Saint Helena, which is part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. The Status Quo, a 250-year old understanding between religious communities, applies to the site.

The Chapel of Saint Helena is a 12th-century Armenian church in the lower level of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, constructed during the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Armenians call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.

The Christian Quarter (Arabic: حارة النصارى, Ḥārat al-Naṣārā; Hebrew: הרובע הנוצרי, Ha-Rova ha-Notsri) is one of the four quarters of the walled Old City of Jerusalem, the other three being the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. The Christian Quarter is situated in the northwestern corner of the Old City, extending from the New Gate in the north, along the western wall of the Old City as far as the Jaffa Gate, along the Jaffa Gate - Western Wall route in the south, bordering on the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, as far as the Damascus Gate in the east, where it borders on the Muslim Quarter. The Christian quarter contains about 40 Christian holy places. First among them is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christianity's holiest place. Most of its residents are Palestinian Christians, despite their dwindling numbers.

Calvary (Latin: Calvariae or Calvariae locus) or Golgotha (Greek: Γολγοθᾶ, translit. Golgothâ) was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was crucified.Since at least the early medieval period, it has been a destination for pilgrimage. The exact location of Calvary has been traditionally associated with a place now enclosed within one of the southern chapels of the multidenominational Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a site said to have been recognized by the Roman empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, during her visit to the Holy Land in 325. Other locations have been suggested: in the 19th century, Protestant scholars proposed a different location near the Garden Tomb on Green Hill (now "Skull Hill") about 500 m (1,600 ft) north of the traditional site and historian Joan Taylor has more recently proposed a location about 175 m (574 ft) to its south-southeast.