Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for nearly two millennia. They have constituted the largest single group of inhabitants there since the 1840's. Ever since King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel more than 3000 years ago, the city has played a central role in Jewish existence.

Before 1865, the entire population of Jerusalem lived behind the Old City walls (what today would be considered part of the eastern part of the city). Later, the city began to expand beyond the walls because of population growth, and both Jews and Arabs began to build in new areas of the city.

By the time of partition in 1947, a thriving Jewish community was living in the eastern part of Jerusalem, an area that included the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. This area of the city also contains many sites of importance to the Jewish religion, including the City of David, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. In addition, major institutions like the Hebrew University and the original Hadassah Hospital are on Mount Scopus, in eastern Jerusalem.

The only time that the eastern part of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab was between 1949 and 1967, and that was because Jordan occupied the area and forcibly expelled all the Jews, destroying and desecrating their religious and historical sites.

On October 1, 2002, the United States Congress passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2003, which President Bush signed into law. Included in the legislation authorizing State Department programs for the year is language expressing congressional commitment to relocate the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, allow for a US citizen born in Israel to list "Jerusalem, Israel" as the place of birth on his or her birth certificate or passport and require any US Government document to list Jerusalem as Israel's capital.