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or the Virgin Mary. (Jews prefer Abraham.) Others don white robes and carry ro-foot crosses through the Old City along the route Jesus took to his crucifixion. In a phase more potentially violent, the condition leads some extremists to hatch elaborate schemes to destroy certain Islamic mosques and buildings in order to precipitate the apocalypse that they believe will pave the way for the coming of the new messiah. It is only by actually being in Jerusalem that it is possible to grasp the city's power. I arrived by minibus from the airport in the early hours of the morning in the Muslim Quarter, which was hidden by a thick veil of darkness and bathed in the rich fragrances of thyme, cardamom and roasting coffee. As I passed through Damascus Gate, I ran straight into a pack of Israeli boys in green uniforms lounging by the side of the road, armed with M-I6 assault rifles. They grinned and whistled softly at me. At a small hotel in the Muslim Quarter, Jihad, a young Palestinian, took me up to my third-floor room and threw open the huge windows to reveal the glowing golden Dome of the Rock, which sits atop the Temple Mount, or Haram ai-Sharif in Arabic, the third holiest site in Islam. From here, Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven. The Haram ai-Sharif is the highest point in the Old City, and it looms above the Western Wall, the spot most sacred for the Jews. The Wall stands on the same spot where Judaism's First and Second Temples stood, before they were destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and then the Romans in 70 AD. Today, all that remains of the Second Temple is the much-adored Western Wall, which makes up the southwestern edge of the Haram ai-Sharif plaza. I was so close that I could see the details of the mosaic that fringes the walls of the great dome. Turning slightly to the right, I could see the crosses of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified. Jerusalem's Old City houses some of the holiest sites of the world's three leading monotheistic religions compressed in a total area of one square kilometer. Churches, mosques, synagogues, souqs and 20,000 people exist on top of one another. When the Muslim call to prayer rings out over the Jews praying at the Wall, they start to dance and chant loudly, trying to drown out the Muslim sound. "Religious territorialism," notes Amos Elon in Jerusalem, City of Mirrors, "is an ancient form of worship here." Suddenly a noise broke the sleeping stillness. A man's voice rang out in the silent streets and he beat a metal gong. The sound grew louder and louder as it passed below. Then softer, until it finally wavered out of range. Soon the haunting, melodic voices of the muezzins (the men who call Muslims to prayer) rose over the city, beginning the dawn prayers. The achingly beautiful sound filled the air and left no room for anything else. If God had a human voice, I suddenly realized, this is what it would sound like. To my left, the sky turned increasingly intense shades of red. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is huge, dark and cloudy with incense in the early hours of the morning. I watched as an old woman shuffled up to the entrance. She ventured inside, crossed herself before the Stone of Unction, marking where Jesus' body is believed to have been laid after his crucifixion. As she kissed the stone, the old woman started to weep. The old woman is not the only one affected by the power of the place. The human texture of Jerusalem at the turn of the millennium ranged from travelers to journalists to messiahs-all with their own agenda. Some were straightforward pilgrims, like George. Twelve years ago, George hit the road in his native Alabama with nothing but the clothes on his back and the faith that God would provide. His aim was to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and his destination was Jerusalem. He wore a cloak of square denim patches and carried a staff with a cross lashed to the top. After walking through 76 countries, George arrived in the Holy City a few days before Christmas. But he couldn't find his peace there: the people stared, the children threw stones and the police kept detaining him for questioning. George planned to retire to a quiet hermitage near Haifa to stay until the fervor in Jerusalem settled down. Others were attracted to Jerusalem for less deliberate reasons. When I asked two young Canadian backpackers I met busking in the hot afternoon sun on Jaffa Road why they'd come to Jerusalem, they said, "Why not go where the fire burns hottest!" The older of the two, tall, blond, attractive, wore a white crash helmet plastered with stickers that he called his Millennium Helmet. Specialists describe Jerusalem Syndrome as a response to the earthy experience of Jerusalem, whose electric, confrontational spirit is very different from the biblical image most people have of this eternal city. Although the condition was identified as a psychiatric condition twenty years ago-and has probably existed in some form for the last 2,000 years-it hit Jerusalem with particular vengeance at the turn of the new millennium. Some associate the coming of a new messiah to Jerusalem with the year 2000, others with

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