THE SYMBOL AND THE STONE - JERUSALEM AT THE MILLENNIUM

This article explores the relationship between sacrality and sovereign ty, between symbolic and material realities in Jerusalem's politics fr om the Six Day War of 1967 to the present and as Jerusalem moves towar d the millennium. It begins with the Israeli efforts to separate the c ity's sacred places from political solutions and how this affects reli gious traditions and their communities in the city. It takes up the gr owing symbolic importance of Jerusalem for American evangelical Christ ians, then how the city functions as a ritual theater for Israeli and Palestinian politics, and, finally, how the city is doubly cleaved: be tween communities at the level of politics and within each community a round the relationship between the political order and the religious o rder, especially since the signing of the Oslo accords and the defeat in 1993 of Jerusalem's longtime liberal mayor, Teddy Kollek, and his r eplacement by center-right Likud mayor Ehud Olmert.