Who Founded Jerusalem ?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Jerusalem wasn't built by a single person; it was continuously constructed and reshaped by various civilizations over 5,000 years. Its earliest foundations were built by Canaanites and Jebusites. The city is first mentioned in Egyptian execration texts around 2000 BCE as "Rusalimum." By the 17th century BCE, Jerusalem had developed into a fortified city under Canaanite rule, with massive walls protecting its water system. . During the 14th century BCE, the city was an independent Canaanite stronghold ruled by Egyptian vassals, as documented in the Amarna Letters.During the Late Bronze Age  Jerusalem became a vassal of Ancient Egypt, as documented in the Amarna letters.                      

  The Amarna Letters are a cache of nearly 400 clay tablets discovered in 1887 at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt. Dating to the mid-14th century BC, this royal archive records diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian pharaohs (mainly Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) and the rulers of neighboring kingdoms and vassal states.The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written not in the language of ancient Egypt, but in cuneiform, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia. Most are in a variety of Akkadian sometimes characterised as a mixed language, Canaanite-Akkadian; one especially long letter—abbreviated EA 24—was written in a late dialect of Hurrian, and is the longest contiguous text known to survive in that language.

The city's importance grew during the Israelite period, which began around 1000 BCE when King David captured Jerusalem and made it the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel

Major builders include King David (ruled from 1010-970 BCE) and King Solomon (961-920 BCE) , and then King Herod I(37-4 BCE) son of an Idumean father and a Nabatean mother,  and the

Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled from 1520-1566) who was a Muslim  with Muslim Ottoman  rulers holding it for the last 400 years to WWI where they lost it.  

The Canaanites and Jebusites (ca. 3000–1000 BCE): The first settlements trace back to the Early Bronze Age. It was later fortified and inhabited by the Jebusites before its conquest.  They lived in he hill region around Jerusalem and called it Jebus.  Joshua, the leader that Moses had to take over the Exodus, defeated the Jebus coalition but Israelites only lived there during the reign of King David.  (II Sam. 24:15.).  Jebus people had a king, the last being Araunah.  His people remained in the city under David and became tributary under King Solomon, David's son.  They were assimilated into the Israelites.                                 

                      First Temple by Solomon

King David ruled for 40 years and King Solomon ruled for 41 years=81 years (ca. 1000–950 BCE): King David captured the city, making it the capital of the ancient kingdom of Israel. His son, King Solomon, significantly expanded the city and built the First Temple. 

Herod the Great ruled  as King of Judaea from 37 BCE to 4 BCE;  for 33 years . He was appointed "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40 BCE , but his actual reign began in 37 BCE after he successfully captured Jerusalem and ousted his rivals.  Under Roman rule, King Herod the Great heavily developed Jerusalem, expanding the Temple Mount and rebuilding the Second Temple. King Herod I ("Herod the Great") was a practicing adherent to Judaism. However, he was not ethnically Jewish by birth; his ancestral background was Idumean (Edomite) and Nabatean Arab. His relationship with Judaism was complex and widely debated by his contemporaries: Herod the Great   was the ruler who ordered the "Massacre of the Innocents" (the killing of young boys in Bethlehem ) in an attempt to eliminate the prophesied infant king. This is when Moses was placed in the bullrushes, a hidden area.  

• Ancestral Conversion: The Idumeans were an ancient neighboring people who had been forcibly converted to Judaism a generation prior under the Hasmonean dynasty. Because he followed Jewish law, he was legally considered a Jew and observed Jewish customs, which allowed him to rule over Judea.

Jewish Revolt Against occupation of Romans-66-70 CE, Romans took Jerusalem, starved the Jews, took them as slaves, killed them, some got away- were threatened to never come back to Jerusalem-now a Roman fortress or face death.  

The Romans (135 CE): Following the Jewish revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian entirely rebuilt the city as a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina. 

Suleiman the Magnificent (ca. 1537 CE): The iconic walls surrounding Jerusalem's Old City today were commissioned by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

 Ottoman forces defeated the Mamluks and gained control of Jerusalem in 1516 -1917= 401 years. 

Brief Interruption: The empire lost the city for nine years between 1831 and 1840, when Muhammad Ali of Egypt occupied it before Ottoman authority was restored .

End of Rule: British forces, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the city in December 1917 during World War I, permanently ending Ottoman control.

Resource:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herod-king-of-Judaea

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia