Jerusalem
At a glance
In short
Tziyon and Yerushalayim do not necessarily name the same place; the formula for comforting mourners, "the mourners of Tziyon and Yerushalayim," already implies that they are two. Tziyon is the City of David, a separate walled city that only later came inside the walls of Yerushalayim, though Rabbi Tukachinsky holds that in Tanach it is at times a neighborhood inside Yerushalayim. Where tziyon stands for the Beis HaMikdash or for Klal Yisrael, he reads it as a common noun meaning "outstanding", derived from tziyun, and not as the place-name. Where the Hebrew uses Tziyon for the whole city, some sources suggest it serves as a synonym, though Rabbi Klein proposes that synecdoche, the part naming the whole, may be the more accurate term.
Distinctions
Tziyon (ציון)
Sometimes called Ir David and Metzudas David, and walled on its own (Rashi to Shmuel II 8:7). Yerushalayim's outer walls were only later extended to enclose it, which may have happened in the late first Beis HaMikdash period or at the beginning of the second. Because it was added later, its halachic status for eating kodashim and maaser may not have matched the rest of the city, and the inner wall called chomas beis pagi went on marking Yerushalayim proper off from Tziyon even in the late second Beis HaMikdash period, by which time the two had merged; that wall marked out where within greater Yerushalayim one might eat from the korbanos. The Vilna Gaon (to Yeshayahu 1:9): the populations differed too, the noblemen living in Tziyon and the common people in Yerushalayim.
The Rogatchover Gaon, an anti-Zionist rabbinic figure, was once asked his opinion of Zionism. He did not answer directly but replied playfully that Tziyon is an area outside Yerushalayim proper where gentile heretics historically gathered: the Mishnah rules that spittle found in the Upper Marketplace is presumed to come from a non-Jew (Shekalim 8:1), and he explained that this is the area called Tziyon. By pointing out that Tziyon in Mishnaic times was essentially a slum he registered his disapproval of the secular Zionists, whom he held to be like those historical heretics.
Yerushalayim (ירושלים)
Written Yerushalem in Tanach and in Aramaic, a singular form, from which the English "Jerusalem" comes; the traditional pronunciation Yerushalayim is a dual, which is heard as alluding to two cities joined into one. The Targum reads shevet achim gam yachad (Tehillim 133:1) as the unity of the twin cities, and Rabbi Klein's illustration is Buda and Pest becoming Budapest.
Tziyon as a common noun
Rabbi Tukachinsky: at Yoel 4:17 and Tehillim 2:6 tziyon names the Beis HaMikdash, and at Yeshayahu 51:3 it names Klal Yisrael. In those places it is not a proper name at all but a common noun meaning "outstanding," derived from tziyun.
Where the authorities disagree
Whether Tziyon is a separate city.
- Rabbi Ashtori HaParchi, the Radbaz, and Rabbi Elazar Azkiri all prove from Melachim I 8:1 (and Divrei HaYamim II 5:2) that they are two: Shlomo gathered the elders in Yerushalayim in order to bring the Aron up from the City of David, which is Tziyon.
- Rashi (to Sotah 9a, Yoma 77b) says flatly that Tziyon is outside Yerushalayim.
- Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky disagrees with some of this: Tziyon in Tanach is not always an adjoining city but at times a neighborhood inside Yerushalayim.
- The Zohar (Idra Zuta 296b) says the two are two spiritual levels, one the aspect of rachamim and the other the aspect of din, which Rabbi Klein takes as suggesting that both names denote one physical place.
Where Har Tziyon is. Tehillim 48:3 places it yarkesei tzafon, in the north.
- North of the city. Ibn Ezra and Radak: the northern part of Yerushalayim.
- Har HaZeisim. Rashi cites Dunash ibn Labrat that Har Tziyon is another name for the Mount of Olives.
- South, and "north" is not geography. Midrash Socher Tov asks the question outright, that Har Tziyon lies to the south, and answers that "north" here points to the intense elation felt at a chatas slaughtered north of the mizbeach (Vayikra 1:11). The thirteenth-century Rabbi Yosef Tuv-Elem (Bonfils), in his super-commentary Tzafnas Panei'ach to Vayikra 1:11, argues for the south against Ibn Ezra, on the grounds that the Midrash's author, Rabbi Yochanan, actually lived in Eretz Yisrael, and that he himself lived in Yerushalayim and saw that Har Tziyon lies south of the old city. He grants that Ibn Ezra visited Yerushalayim as well, but assumes Ibn Ezra came only after he had already written, mistakenly, that Har Tziyon lies to the north.
Rabbi Klein's own comment is that none of the first three sources agree with what we today call Har Tziyon, which is southwest of the Old City, and that the Midrash makes this very point.
How wide "the mountain of Tziyon" is.
- HaParchi, a prominent rabbinic topographer, concedes that "mountains of Tziyon" or "mountain of Tziyon" can mean not Har Tziyon itself but the mountains of that general vicinity, taking in Har Tziyon, Har HaMoriah, and Har HaZeisim, so that when Tziyon appears alongside the Mikdash it can include the Temple Mount as well.
- Tukachinsky reaches the same place from the other side: where tziyon means the Mikdash, Har Tziyon sometimes refers to Har HaMoriah.
Also discussed in
- Tombstoneציון / tziyun, Tziyon (צ-י-נ)
Radak on this root
Sefer HaShorashim
צ-י-ן
Its sense is that of a מצבה, a standing stone set over a grave or as a sign on the roads.
The pesukim, and the pattern
מָה הַצִּיּוּן הַלָּז (Melachim II 23:17), what is that marker; וּבָנָה אֶצְלוֹ צִיּוּן (Yechezkel 39:15), he shall build a marker beside it; and הַצִּיבִי לָךְ צִיֻּנִים (Yirmiyahu 31:20), set up markers for yourself. The word is on the pattern of חִבֻּק יָדַיִם (Mishlei 6:10), a folding of the hands.
מָה הַצִּיּוּן הַלָּז (מלכים ב' כג, יז), וּבָנָה אֶצְלוֹ צִיּוּן (יחזקאל לט, טו), בפלס חִבֻּק יָדַיִם (משלי ו, י). הַצִּיבִי לָךְ צִיֻּנִים (ירמיה לא, כ), ענינם כענין מצבה שמשימין אותו על הקבר או לאות על הדרכים.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Twin Cities: Zion and Jerusalem," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 July 2018.
Cited in the essay: Melachim I 8:1 and Divrei HaYamim II 5:2; Shmuel II 8:7 with Rashi; Rashi to Sotah 9a and Yoma 77b; Vilna Gaon to Yeshayahu 1:9; Tehillim 48:3 with Ibn Ezra, Radak, and Rashi citing Dunash ibn Labrat; Midrash Socher Tov and Rabbi Yosef Tuv-Elem, Tzafnas Panei'ach, to Vayikra 1:11; Yirmiyahu 31:5; Tehillim 132:14, 2:6, 133:1 with Targum; Yoel 4:17; Yeshayahu 51:3; Shekalim 8:1; Zohar, Idra Zuta 296b; Rabbi Ashtori HaParchi, the Radbaz and Rabbi Elazar Azkiri; Har HaKodesh by Rabbi Moshe Nachum Shapiro; Ir HaKodesh VeHaMikdash by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky.