Jerusalem: Nahmanides, exiled from Aragon, Spain, for criticizing Christianity.
He makes aliyah to the land of Israel, where he establishes a synagogue, extant to this day, in the Old City, known, of course, as the Ramban Synagogue.
The Ramban’s tenure in Jerusalem reestablishes rich cultural Jewish communal life in the Old City, which had been interrupted by the Crusades. The establishment of the Ramban Synagogue thus marks the beginning of almost 700 years of uninterrupted Jewish communal settlement in the Old City of Jerusalem, up until its temporary seizure by Jordan in the 1948 war.