Jerusalem syndrome

[not verified in body] It is not listed as a recognised condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the International Classification of Diseases.

[not verified in body] The psychosis is characterised by an intense religious theme and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the area.

In a 2000 article in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Bar-El et al. claim to have identified and described a specific syndrome which emerges in tourists with no previous abnormal psychiatric history.

[2][3][6] Most of the discussion has centered on whether this definition of the Jerusalem syndrome is a distinct form of psychosis, or simply a re-expression of a previously existing psychotic illness that was not picked up by the medical authorities in Israel.

They have typically gone to the city because of the influence of religious ideas, often with a goal or mission in mind that they believe needs to be completed on arrival or during their stay.

This does not necessarily take the form of mental illness and may simply be a culturally anomalous obsession with the significance of Jerusalem, either as an individual, or as part of a small religious group with idiosyncratic spiritual beliefs.

In The Simpsons 2010 episode "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed", Homer develops Jerusalem syndrome while visiting Israel with his family as part of a tour group from Springfield.

[12] "Jerusalem", the twelfth story in Neil Gaiman's 2015 collection, Trigger Warning, centres around a British woman who comes down with the syndrome on holiday.

[13] The catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2016 show about an earlier era of the city's history used the syndrome as the "organizing metaphor" for the first paragraph of the introduction, per a review.

[14] In 2023 the York Theatre Company produced "The Jerusalem Syndrome,"[15] a musical comedy written by Kyle Rosen, Laurence Holzman and Felicia Needleman, and directed by Don Stephenson.