Mount Zion
Mount Zion (Hebrew: הר צִיּוֹן, Har Tzion) is a hill just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The term "Zion" became a synecdoche referring to the entire city of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
There is reason to believe that in Biblical times the name Mount Zion referred to the area of what today is called by Jews the Temple Mount. However, as early as the first century the hill today called Mount Zion had acquired the name for unknown reasons.
Important sites on Mount Zion are Dormition Abbey, King David's Tomb and the Room of the Last Supper. The Chamber of the Holocaust (Martef HaShoah), the precursor of Yad Vashem is also located on Mount Zion. Another place of interest is the Catholic cemetery where Oskar Schindler, a Righteous Gentile who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews in the Holocaust, is buried.[1]
The winding road leading up to Mount Zion is known as Pope's Way (Derekh Ha'apifyor) because it was paved in honor of the historic visit to Jerusalem of Pope Paul VI in 1964. Between 1948 and 1967, this narrow strip of land was a designated no-man's land between Israel and Jordan.[2]
References
- ^ Rubinstein, Danny. "A sign points to the grave". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
- ^ Bar-Am, Aviva. "On the spot". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2007-10-23.
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