LOS ANGELES (JTA) — PBS will air a two-hour show on Jerusalem featuring its sites and history.
“Jerusalem: Center of the World,” will be broadcast April 1 on most PBS stations. The film is subtitled “The World’s Most Contested Piece of Real Estate.”
The guide for the film is Ray Suarez, senior correspondent on the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," who is backed by a battery of scholars.
Suarez apportions equal time to Jews, Christians and Muslims, who all consider the city sacred.
The film begins at Mount Moriah, where according to tradition, God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son, and which later became the site of the First and Second Temples. Other highlights include the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried before ascending to heaven.
"Jerusalem" also explores the Dome of the Rock, from where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad rose to heaven, and the Western Wall, sacred to Jews as the remnant of the Second Temple, sacked by the Romans.
Along with visits to landmarks, Suarez includes large doses of history, drawing on biblical sources, the Koran and Hadith, medieval travelers and contemporary reporters.
“Jerusalem” was produced and directed for Oregon Public Broadcasting by Andrew Goldberg, whose previous productions include “Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century” and “A Yiddish World Remembered.”
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