Three thou­sand years have passed since a shep­herd-turned-war hero-turned-ter­ror­ist-turned-king cap­tured an obscure city sit­u­at­ed on a hill 34 miles inland from the Mediterranean.

David, Israel’s sec­ond king, would estab­lish his cap­i­tal in that city whose name is every bit as inapt as Philadel­phia (city of broth­er­ly love) or Los Ange­les (city of angels). Jerusalem, David’s cho­sen cap­i­tal, means “city of peace.”

It has more often been a city of con­tention, war and strife.  The rever­ber­a­tions from that ongo­ing dis­cord reached the Supreme Court last month in a case that car­ries impli­ca­tions for whether the U.S. will con­tin­ue to be gov­erned as a Repub­lic or ruled by a king. Con­tin­ue read­ing →