Question: What exactly makes Jerusalem such a special place of importance for Mulims, Christians, and Jews alike?
About the article "Israel", section "Religion".

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Jerusalem is named for Jerusalem, Israel, which is considered a holy city to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. 
The Mount has great significance in Christianity due to the role the Temple played in the life of Jesus.
As a twelve-year-old boy, Jesus was found in the Temple where he confounded the Jewish theologians with his knowledge of the Torah.
() During his ministry, Jesus challenged the corruption of those who used the Temple for commerce and extortion () and prophesied the temple’s destruction, which came to pass in AD 70.
() During the Byzantine era, Jerusalem was primarily Christian and pilgrims came by the tens of thousands to experience the places where Jesus walked.
With the Persian invasion in 614 followed by the Muslim Siege of Jerusalem in 637, many churches were razed but for some time pilgrims still were able to come and experience the Temple Mount area.
Increasing Muslim violence against these pilgrims to Jerusalem instigated the Crusades.
The Crusaders re-captured Jerusalem in 1099 and the Dome of the Rock was given to the Augustinians, who turned it into a church, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque became the royal palace of Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1104.
The Knights Templar, who believed the Dome of the Rock was the site of the Solomon’s Temple, gave it the name "Templum Domini" and set up their headquarters in the Al-Aqsa Mosque adjacent to the Dome for much of the 12th century.
Though some Christians believe that the Temple will be reconstructed before, or concurrent with, the Second Coming of Jesus (also see dispensationalism), pilgrimage to the Temple Mount is not viewed as essential in the beliefs and worship of most Christians.
To wit, the New Testament recounts a story of a Samaritan woman asking Jesus about the appropriate place to worship, Jerusalem or the Samaritan holy place at Mount Gerizim, to which Jesus replies, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
"()The place is of greater importance to Eastern Christians because there was a fully consecrated church on that spot during the Byzantine period.
According to Eastern Church canons, once a church has been fully consecrated, it cannot ever serve as anything other than a church.
Of course, this is just one example of the thousands of churches that were either destroyed, or converted to mosques following the Muslim invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The most notable example is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. 
The number of native Jews was soon bolstered by small groups of Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1421–1453.
Among these new Ashkenazi immigrants was Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati, a German-born Jew of French descent (Hebrew: צרפתי–"Sarfati", meaning: "French"), who became the Chief Rabbi of Edirne and wrote a letter inviting the European Jewry to settle in the Ottoman Empire, in which he stated that: ""Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking"" and asking: ""Is it not better for you to live under Muslims than under Christians?
The greatest influx of Jews into Asia Minor and the Ottoman Empire, occurred during the reign of Mehmed the Conquerors's successor, Beyazid II (1481–1512), after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal.
The Sultan issued a formal invitation to Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal and they started arriving in the empire in great numbers.
A key moment in Judeo-Turkic relations occurred in 1492, when more than 150,000 Spanish Jews fled the Spanish Inquisition, many to the Ottoman Empire.
At that point in time, Constantinople's population was a mere 70,000 due to the various sieges of the city during the Crusades, the so-called Black Death of the 14th century, and the Ottoman's military conquest of Constantinople, so this historical event was also significant for repopulation of the city.
These Sephardic Jews settled in Constantinople as well as Salonika.
The Sultan is said to have mocked the Spanish monarch's lack of wisdom: ""Ye call Ferdinand a wise king he who makes his land poor and ours rich!"".
The Spanish Jews were allowed to settle in the wealthier cities of the empire, especially in the European provinces (cities such as: Istanbul, Sarajevo, Salonica, Adrianople and Nicopolis), Western and Northern Anatolia (Bursa, Aydın, Tokat and Amasya), but also in the Mediterranean coastal regions (for example: Jerusalem, Safed, Damascus, Egypt).
Izmir was not settled by Spanish Jews until later.
The Jewish population at Jerusalem increased from 70 families in 1488 to 1,500 at the beginning of the 16th century.
That of Safed increased from 300 to 2,000 families and almost surpassed Jerusalem in importance.
Damascus had a Sephardic congregation of 500 families.
Istanbul had a Jewish community of 30,000 individuals with 44 synagogues.
Bayezid allowed the Jews to live on the banks of the Golden Horn.
Egypt, especially Cairo, received a large number of the exiles, who soon out-numbered the native Jews.
Gradually, the chief center of the Sephardic Jews became Salonica, where the Spanish Jews soon outnumbered their co-religionists of other nationalities and, at one time, the original native inhabitants.
The Jews satisfied various needs in the Ottoman Empire: the Muslim Turks were largely uninterested in business enterprises and accordingly left commercial occupations to members of minority religions.
They also distrusted the Christian subjects whose countries had only recently been conquered by the Ottomans and therefore it was natural to prefer Jewish subjects to which this consideration did not apply. 
In the Apostolic Age, Christianity consisted of an indefinite number of local Churches that in the initial years looked to Jerusalem as its main centre and point of reference.
(See also Jerusalem in Christianity and Early centers of Christianity) Some found their way to Antioch, where they undertook evangelical efforts, and to whom the term "Christians" was first used.
Before the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War (66-73 AD) and the destruction of Herod's Temple in 70 by Titus, Christians led by Simeon fled to Pella in Decapolis (Jordan), where they remained until 135.
The Jews of Judea again revolted against Rome in the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136).
By or during that time, the Christians had returned to Jerusalem.
However, to punish the Jews for their revolt and to prevent further unrest, Jerusalem was made a Roman colony and renamed Aelia Capitolina by Hadrian.
In 135, the Metropolitan of Caesarea appointed Marcus as the first bishop of the renamed Church of Aelia Capitolina.
He was the first gentile bishop of the Church of Jerusalem (or Aelia Capitolina), all the previous ones having been Jewish.
The persecution of Jews by Roman authorities in Judea increased, with most of the Jewish and Christian population of Judea being enslaved and dispersed throughout the Roman Empire.
The importance and place of Jerusalem in the life of the Christian Church diminished, though a Jewish and Christian remnant always remained in the city and the land.
Despite the strife, persecutions and meager population, bishops continued to be elected or named.
Eusebius of Caesarea provides the names of an unbroken succession of thirty-six Bishops of Jerusalem up to the year 324.
The first sixteen of these bishops were Jewish—from James the Just to Judas († 135)—and the remainder were Gentiles.
The Metropolitans of Caesarea continued to appoint the bishops of Aelia Capitolina until 325.
At the First Council of Nicaea in 325, though the bishop of Aelia Capitolina was still subordinate to the Metropolitan of Caesarea, the Council accorded the bishop a certain undefined precedence in its seventh canon.
In a decree issued from the seventh session of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (the Council of Chalcedon) in 451 the Bishop of Jerusalem was elevated to the rank of Patriarch, ranked fifth after the Sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch.
(see Pentarchy) Since then, the Church of Jerusalem has remained an autocephalous Church.
Jerusalem was established as a patriarchate because of the special significance acquired between the First and Fourth Ecumenical Councils; the erection of magnificent Churches; the conversion of a large proportion of the population of Roman and Byzantine Syria-Palestina to Christianity; the coming together of pilgrims from around the world; the importance of outstanding bishops, monks, and teachers of the Church of Jerusalem; the struggles of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre on behalf of Orthodoxy; and the support of various Emperors of Byzantium.
The Persians occupied Jerusalem in 614 and took Patriarch Zachariah prisoner, along with the palladium of Christianity, the Precious Cross.
Chrysostomos Papadopoulos writes in his history of the Patriarchate: "The Churches and the monasteries, inside and outside Jerusalem, were destroyed; the Christians were brutally slaughtered … thousands of prisoners purchased by Jews were slaughtered.
Anything good that existed was destroyed or was plundered by the invaders.
The monks were slaughtered mercilessly, especially those of St Savvas Monastery.
"In 637, after a long siege of Jerusalem, Patriarch Sophronius surrendered Jerusalem to Caliph Umar, but secured the Covenant of Umar I, which recognised Christian rights to protection.
In 638, the Armenian Apostolic Church began appointing its own bishop in Jerusalem.
After 638, however, Christians suffered many persecutions.
Christian shrines were repeatedly ransacked and defaced by the successors of Umur, and there was great persecution all around.
The most deadly persecution occurred during the time of the Fatamid Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (1007–1009), a schizophrenic, named the "Nero of Egypt" for his merciless acts.
He persecuted ferociously both Christians and Jews.
He ordered that in public Jews were to wear masks representing the head of an ox and bells around their necks; Christians were to wear mourning apparel and crosses one yard in length.
Also, Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
In the eleventh century, the Caliph Ali az-Zahir, under a treaty with Byzantium, permitted the reconstruction of the shrines.
In the Great Schism of 1054, the Patriarch of Jerusalem joined those of Antioch, Constantinople and Alexandria as the Eastern Orthodox Church.
All Christians in the Holy Land came under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.
In 1099, the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, setting up the Kingdom of Jerusalem and establishing a Latin hierarchy under a Latin Patriarch, and expelling the Orthodox Patriarch.
The Latin Patriarch resided in Jerusalem from 1099 to 1187, while Greek Patriarchs continued to be appointed, but resided in Constantinople.
In 1187, the Crusaders were forced to flee Jerusalem, and the Orthodox Patriarch returned to Jerusalem.
The Catholic Church continued to appoint Latin Patricarchs, though the office holder resided in Rome until 1847, when they were permitted to return to the Middle East by the Ottoman authorities.
The Orthodox Patriarch is the uninterrupted line of Apostolic succession to the see of Jerusalem.
The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, which is closely linked to the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, remains the custodian of many of the Christian Holy places in the Holy Land, sometimes jointly with the Roman Catholic Church and the Oriental Churches (Egyptian and Ethiopian Coptics and Armenian Orthodox Christians). 
 "This article deals with the historical concept.
For the modern-day blend of Jewish practice and terminology with Christian theology, see Messianic Judaism."
Jewish Christians, also Judeo-Christians, were the original members of the Jewish movement that later became Christianity.
In the earliest stage the community was made up of all those Jews who accepted Jesus as a venerable person or even the messiah, and was thus equivalent to all Christians.
As Christianity grew and evolved, Jewish Christians became only one strand of the Christian community, characterised by combining the confession of Jesus as Christ with continued adherence to Jewish practices such as Sabbath observance and observance of the Jewish calendar, observance of Jewish laws and customs, circumcision, and synagogue attendance, and a direct genetic relationship to the earliest Jewish Christianity.
The term "Jewish Christian" appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of Jewish origin with Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the New Testament church and the second and following centuries.
It is also a term used for Jews who converted to Christianity but kept their Jewish heritage and traditions.
Alister McGrath, former Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, claims that the 1st century "Jewish Christians" were totally faithful religious Jews.
They differed from other contemporary Jews only in their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.
However as Christianity grew throughout the Gentile world, Christians diverged from their Jewish and Jerusalem roots.
Jewish Christianity, initially strengthened despite persecution by Jerusalem Temple officials, fell into decline during the Jewish-Roman wars (66-135) and the growing anti-Judaism perhaps best personified by Marcion (c. 150).
With persecution by the orthodox Christians from the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century, Jewish Christians sought refuge outside the boundaries of the Empire, in Arabia and further afield.
Within the Empire and later elsewhere it was dominated by the Gentile based Christianity which became the State church of the Roman Empire and which took control of sites in the Holy Land such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Cenacle and appointed subsequent Bishops of Jerusalem.
It has been argued that few Jews joined the Christian movement in the first century and that the movement probably never exceeding 1,000 Jewish members at any one time during the first century.
Furthermore the size and importance of the Christian movement in general during the first century tends to be exaggerated by most scholars.
By the end of the first century the total Christian population is estimated to have been only 7,530.
The term "Jewish Christians" in the 3rd and 4th centuries can refer to groups such as Ebionites, Nazarenes and other groups, and related to these groups are quotation fragments of non-canonical gospels referred to as the "Jewish-Christian Gospels".