The Jewish Wisdom Database

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning!

There used to be a very good custom in Jerusalem: a table-cloth was spread at the door - - - so long as it was in place, guests would enter the house. When it was removed, they would not.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember thee not, if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys!

Eternity means Jerusalem.

Who saw not Jerusalem in its glory has never seen a beautiful city.

Ten measures of beauty were given the world, nine were taken by Jerusalem and one by all the rest.

Jerusalem was destroyed just because school-children were kept from their classrooms.

There is no beauty like the beauty of Jerusalem.

Who prays in Jerusalem is as one praying before the Throne of Glory, for the Gate of Heaven is there.

Without Jerusalem, the Land of Israel is as a body without a soul.

No city in the world, not even Athens and 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.

If a land has a soul, then Jerusalem is the soul of the Land of Israel.

Jerusalem is the very heart of the Jewish State.

By three things is the world sustained: the Law, the Temple service and deeds of loving kindness.

The Land of Israel is the House of God.

Jerusalem which is bound firmly together (Psalms [Tehillim] 122:3) binds the Jews one to the other.

The Divine Presence never quits the Western Wall.

Even during the time of Jerusalem's stumbling, men of faith did not cease from [living] there.

Malchi Tzedek king of Shalem, said 'this place makes its inhabitants righteous?', so he called Jerusalem 'Tzedek' (righteousness).

Avraham called it Yireh (See) as it says [in the Scriptures], 'And Avraham called the name of that place Yireh Hashem' (See God). Shem called it Shalem (Complete) as it says 'And Malki Tzedek, King of Shalem.' The Holy One, Blessed be He said 'I will call it Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) like both of them called it - Yireh, Shalem - Yerushalayim.

The punishment of vain hatred is so harsh that it destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.

The ransomed of the Lord shall return...with singing to Zion.

The Holy One will turn the Ninth of Ab into joy...and will Himself build Jerusalem and gather therein the exiles of Israel.

A betrothed girl in Jerusalem does not need to adorn herself with the scent of incense.