Jerusalem International YMCA is a YMCA branch in Jerusalem established in the early twentieth century.
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Jerusalem International YMCA is a YMCA branch in Jerusalem established in the early twentieth century.
In 1924, Archibald Clinton Harte, General Secretary of the International YMCA, raised the sum of one million dollars towards the construction of the building. [1] Harte developed a vision for a permanent Y building and worked tirelessly planning every detail. For years, he cultivated donors who shared his vision of a “Sermon in Stone.”
After seven years of construction, the new Jerusalem YMCA was dedicated in 1933 with the words “Here is a place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten and international unity be fostered and developed.” Harte retired to his home on the shores of Galilee, which he bequeathed to the Jerusalem International YMCA as an international conference facility. [2] The cornerstone was laid in 1928 by Lord Plumer, the British High Commissioner for Palestine, on a plot of land in the West Nikephoria section of Jerusalem, purchased from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. [3]
When the building opened on April 18, 1933, the event was attended by YMCA leaders from around the world. Details of the building, with its elegant arches, domes and tower, were described in the world press, which hailed it as a wellspring of cultural, athletic, social and intellectual life. Until 1991, the YMCA stadium was the only soccer stadium in Jerusalem. [3]
The building was designed by the American architect Arthur Loomis Harmon of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, who designed the Empire State Building. The Jerusalem YMCA housed the city's first heated swimming pool and first gymnasium with a wooden floor. The first concert broadcasts of the Voice of Israel radio station were transmitted from the YMCA auditorium. [4]
In 1947, the YMCA was the venue of the UNSCOP talks leading up to the UN Partition Plan. [5] At the end of April 1948 the building was taken over by the International Red Cross, sheltering around 80 refugees. Two months later it was used by the UN Mediation Committee headed by Count Bernadotte and in September it was taken over by the US Consulate with US guards and naval telecommunications equipment. The building was restored to the YMCA in April 1949. [3]
For two months after the 1967 war the UN had a temporary headquarters in the building.
In 2003 62.5% of the membership were Jewish, 19.5% Muslim and 18% Christian. [3]
"The Sandbox" | |
 | |
 | |
| Location | Jerusalem |
|---|---|
| Owner | YMCA |
| Operator | YMCA |
| Capacity | 6000 |
| Surface | Grass |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | 1928 |
| Opened | 1933 |
| Demolished | 2006 |
| Tenants | |
| Beitar Jerusalem (1960s-1991) Hapoel Jerusalem (1980s-1991) | |
YMCA Stadium (Hebrew: אצטדיון ימק"א, Itztadion Yimka) was the city's only sports stadium until 1991. It was the home of Beitar Jerusalem Football Club until the construction of Teddy Stadium in Malha in the 1990s. It was razed by developers to make way for a luxury housing project, King David's Court.
The YMCA Jerusalem Youth Chorus is an interfaith (Christian, Muslim and Jewish) group of young singers. The Chorus encourages the youth from East and West Jerusalem to come together to become leaders for peace in their communities by providing a space where they can engage one another in musical and verbal dialogue.
The Youth Chorus and the Choir of St. Jean Baptiste performed a rendition of the Three Dog Night song "Joy to the World" on the 24 September 2015 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to celebrate Pope Francis's trip to the US. [6]
The Land of Israel, also referred to as the Holy Land or as Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people and Judaism. It is where the Hebrews and Israelites established and developed Israel and Judah, and is also thought to be the region of development for the completed form of the Hebrew Bible; Jews, alongside the Samaritan people, are accredited as ethnic groups originating from the Israelites. Through the influence of Jewish prophets, many of whom were based in the Land of Israel, Jewish traditions came to serve as the basis of the Abrahamic religions. In the 1st century, the Land of Israel also became the birthplace of Christianity, the world's most widespread religion, based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Throughout the course of human history, the Land of Israel has come under the sway or control of various polities, and as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups. In addition to the region's core significance to Judaism and Samaritanism, it is regarded with an especially high degree of holiness in Christianity, Islam, Druzism, the Baháʼí Faith, and a variety of other religious movements whose fundamental theological values trace back to Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch.
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Jerusalem is a city in Western Asia. Situated on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, it is one of the oldest cities in the world and is considered to be a holy city for the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Because of this dispute, neither claim is widely recognized internationally.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other efforts to resolve the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. Public declarations of claims to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, including the First Zionist Congress of 1897 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, created early tensions in the region. Following World War I, the Mandate for Palestine included a binding obligation for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". Tensions grew into open sectarian conflict between Jews and Arabs. The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was never implemented and provoked the 1947–1949 Palestine War. The current Israeli-Palestinian status quo began following Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has referred to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as "the Occupied Palestinian Territory", and this term was used as the legal definition by the ICJ in its advisory opinion of July 2004. The term occupied Palestinian territory was used by the United Nations and other international organizations between October 1999 and December 2012 to refer to areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, but from 2012, when Palestine was admitted as one of its non-member observer states, the United Nations started using exclusively the name State of Palestine. The European Union (EU) also adopts the term occupied Palestinian territory, with a parallel term Palestinian Authority territories also occasionally used.
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Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a state located in the Southern Levant, Western Asia. Officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it claims the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as its territory, though the entirety of that territory has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War. As a result of the Oslo Accords of 1993–1995, the West Bank is currently divided into 165 Palestinian enclaves that are under partial Palestinian National Authority (PNA) rule; the remainder, including 200 Israeli settlements, is under full Israeli control. The Gaza Strip has been ruled by the militant Islamic group Hamas and has been subject to a long-term blockade by Egypt and Israel since 2007.
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Coordinates: 31°46′27.03″N35°13′16.83″E / 31.7741750°N 35.2213417°E
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