Time Magazine recently listed Jerusalem as one of the world’s emerging high-tech hubs to watch. For a city known as the centre of three great religions and that has spent much of its 5,000 year history lathed in conflict, that statement is quite a move away from the stereotype view.

Yes, the Hebrew University is ranked in the world’s top two hundred places for tertiary education. The bio / pharma sector has blossomed in the past decade with over with over one hundred companies located in the area. Intel has a major r&d plant in the north of the city. Meet up groups like the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum and PICO have emerged through street initiatives.

Yet while the list of attributes is impressive, come Friday late afternoon, as the sun descends, much of the holy city goes to sleep. The large government offices shut down. Aside from the Arab market and some of the pubs, Jerusalem rejects comparisons to Silicon Valley.

Maybe that is about to change. There are already ambitions plans to revamp the entrance of the city, creating large amounts of office space. Within a couple of years a new train line will link the city to the rest of the country. (For now, the old Ottoman paths are still in use). And despite this year’s downturn in tourism, new hotels are planned.

This week, Mayor Nir Barkat, a former high-tech supremo, launched a 5 year initiative for the city. The aim is to double the level of foreign direct investment into Jerusalem. The hope is to bring 5 major multinational conglomerates to the capital. To date the offices of Microsoft, Siemens, Lockheed Martin et al tend to remain in Tel Aviv.

Simply put, the number of jobs in the sector is expected to double and this should have a positive knock-on effect in auxiliary services. As part of this process, Barkat has encouraged the shooting of three major media productions in the past year alone. Portman, Gere and others have had an opportunity to visit the city recently.

Finding the resources to invest around US$8 billion over the next five years is a tall order. But then take a look at Our Crowd and Besadno. These are two private groupings, based in Jerusalem and investing tens of millions in primarily Jerusalem-based start ups. I wonder how the Davids, Solomons and Herods of old would have considered these near miraculous changes. The image of the city of Jerusalem is receiving an encouraging and sorely welcome commercial facelift.