Rabbi Judah Alharizi Tells of the Jews’ Return

And God inspired the spirit of the king of the Ishmaelites in the year four thousand nine hundred and fifty of the creation and he besieged Jerusalem and God gave it into his hand. And a call went out to every city to every young man and old man saying: Speak on the heart of Jerusalem, to come to it all who want from the seed of Ephraim, who has remained from Assyria and from Egypt, and the outcasts and the ends of heaven, and they will gather from all ends to it and will live within it. And we are now living in Jerusalem in the shadow of this sweetening hour .

Sefer Tachkemoni, Topolansky edition, p. 248

The poet and translator Rabbi Judah Alharizi, who translated Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed into Hebrew, came to Jerusalem in 1216. When he arrived, he heard from the local Jewish community how, after Saladin’s victory over the Crusaders, the latter had called on Jews to return to the city and settle there.