Jews have lived in the land of Israel for nearly 4,000 years, going back to the period of the biblical patriarchs (c.1900 BCE). The story of the Jewish people, Israel, its capital, Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple there, has been one of exile, destruction and rebirth. In its 4,000 years of history Jerusalem has been destroyed many times and many times reborn. There has always remained a Jewish presence in the land of Israel and in Jerusalem, and the Jewish people as a whole always dreamed of returning to and rebuilding it, a longing reflected in the concluding words of Israel’s national anthem, ‘Ha Tikvah’ (‘The Hope’):