Jerusalem ירושלים
The city David made his capital and ever since the centre of the nation's prayer, longing and return.
Before David, Jerusalem is a foreign city — a Jebusite fortress on the border of Yehuda and Binyamin that no one had taken. David captures it in his eighth year and makes it his capital precisely because it belongs to no tribe. The Ark is brought there, David buys Aravna's threshing floor, and his son builds the Temple.
From then on it is no ordinary city. Three times a year the whole nation ascends; from here, says the prophet, «Torah shall go forth». Yeshayahu and Yirmeyahu prophesy here; Chizkiyahu cuts a water tunnel under Sennacherib's siege; in 3338 the walls fall and the First Temple burns, and in 3828 the Second. Twice destroyed, the city remains the address of prayer: Jews face it three times daily and break a glass at every wedding.
In 5727 Israeli soldiers reached the Western Wall for the first time in nineteen years.