“Soundscapes of the Old City”: Listening to Jerusalem’s Old City

Jerusalem’s Old City, enclosed by ancient stone walls, offers a unique auditory experience distinct from Western urban environments. A study capturing soundscapes over a year revealed that the absence of vehicular noise dominates the acoustic landscape, with reverberant alleys and marketplaces filled instead by human voices—traders, pilgrims, tourists—and natural sounds like rain on corrugated roofs or crickets at dusk. The research highlights Jerusalem’s warm climate, where public life thrives outdoors, and its layered cultural diversity, evident in concurrent Qur’anic recitations, Hebrew psalms, Russian Orthodox chants, and Arabic pop music. The study’s approach involved immersive field recordings across different days, documenting daily sounds to reflect the city’s dynamic yet harmonious auditory tapestry.

(Ed.). (2015). “Soundscapes of the Old City”: Listening to Jerusalem’s Old City. Pieces of the Musical World: Sounds and Cultures, 31–48. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315857879-8