Jerusalem The Golden is a history of some of the many persons, great or small, who visited Jerusalem over the past thirty-eight centuries, from Abraham to myself. The book describes how Jerusalem became the cradle of the three monotheist religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam – and what was happening elsewhere in the world at those times. It is also a history of political changes in the Middle East and how the land changed hands over the centuries, from the Canaanites to the Israelites, to the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greek successor empires and the Romans.