Jerusalem 1918

For those who haven't seen it - a Youtube video of Jerusalem in 1918, just at the beginning of the British mandate.



It's from the Youtube channel of Yakov Gross, who says that it's from a Jewish family in Amsterdam.

Hat tip to Miriam Shaviv at Bloghead. It's nice to discover her blog again - I used to read her, but she seemed to have left the blogging world for a while.

More Google Earth images of Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif

I discovered a few days ago that someone has created a wonderful overlay on the Temple Mount of the Dome of the Rock, the Al Aqsa Mosque, and many of the smaller buildings on the mount, as well as the trees. It's also possible to go inside the Dome of the Rock and see the building from that perspective as well.

Israeli takeover of East Jerusalem

Akiva Eldar in Haaretz reports (Planning committee to release blueprint outlining takeover of East Jerusalem):

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee at the Interior Ministry will publish in the coming weeks a new blueprint program for development in Jerusalem that will include plans to expand Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Most of the land earmarked for this expansion is privately owned by Arabs. If the plan is approved, after objections to it are heard, it will grant official approval to an urban plan for the Israeli takeover of East Jerusalem....

In October 2008, the District Planning and Building Committee decided to advance the blueprint plan, which was prepared by a team headed by Moshe Cohen, who was the Jerusalem planning official at the Interior Ministry.

Right wing elements and factions in the Jerusalem municipality complained to Interior Minister Eli Yishai that the plan would add large residential areas for the city's Arab population, at the expense of open space and also argued it would take away from areas earmarked for Jews.

Mayor Nir Barkat ordered adjustments to the blueprint plan in line with his support for broadening Jewish presence in the Holy Basin in East Jerusalem.

Even though the National Planning and Building Committee had determined that the City of David would be categorized a "national park," the blueprint plan allows the construction of residential areas there.

The Elad NGO, whose heads are close to Barkat, purchased in recent years homes in the village of Silwan, which is near the walls of the Old City, in order to "Judaize" the area.
Last week, the municipal planning and building committee approved Barkat's plans to destroy 22 homes in the Al-Bustan neighborhood, in the southern part of Silwan. Barkat explained that illegal construction in the area is blocking the plan to transform Al-Bustan, also known as Gan Hamelech, into a part of the national park.

A spokesman for the Jerusalem municipality confirmed that "in the coming weeks the plan will be brought for discussion before the district committee.

A statement from the Interior Minister's office said that "there are discussions at a professional level in order to approve the plan."

It's events like this that are leading Israel very quickly to create a situation in which there will be only one state, and no possibility to create a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I don't know if Prime Minister Netanyahu is in cahoots with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat over these plans, or if Barkat and his right-wing partners Elad are trying to create "facts on the ground" under his nose, but if Netanyahu doesn't want to shut off his negotiating options completely, he should put a public stop to this. But of course he won't, because Netanyahu moves to stop things like this only when they have created international condemnation and a public rift with the United States.

I had a conversation over Shabbat with a couple of friends about the future of Israel. These friends are politically pretty centrist - they're religious, Zionist, have been part of the religious peace movement Oz ve-Shalom/Netivot Shalom in the past. They were saying that they thought it might come to one state. One of them said that all she wants is for Jews and Arabs to be able to live peacefully with each other, and for that purpose she's getting to the point where she is basically willing to give up on Israel being defined as a Jewish state - so that it becomes a "state of all its citizens." This is a perspective that comes from the extreme left of the Israeli political spectrum and is identified with the Hadash party (the Arab-Jewish communist party). I would never have expected either of these friends in the past to take this perspective. This is a sign of how badly the situation has deteriorated in the past year.

Update - see this article from the June 28 edition of Haaretz - Jerusalem Master Plan.

Old City of Jerusalem - June 24, 2010, part 1

My record of a trip I took Thursday to the Old City, complete with photos.

I began the day by eating breakfast with an old friend whom I had not really talked to for about ten years. (I still have friends in Jerusalem that I met when I lived here in the late 1980s). From her house, I went to the Old City, via Jaffa Road. I took the #18 bus along Emek Refaim, up King David St., and then and got off at the stop in front of the Iriya (the Jerusalem Municipality or town hall). Downtown Jerusalem is a mess because there is lots of construction for a light rail system that is being built very slowly. The main streets are all torn up and laying the tracks is going torturously slowly.

On Jaffa Rd., I stopped at the Bible Society and bought 20 copies of the National Geographic Jerusalem map from 1996 that I had tried to get from NG itself last year, without success, for my Jerusalem class. I don’t understand why the Bible Society here managed to get so many copies while NG itself possesses none. I Had a pleasant conversation with two women working there, one from Denmark, one from Finland. [The Bible Society is worldwide – they translate the Bible into as many languages as possible for purposes of proselytization. The Bible Society store in Jerusalem has lots of good scholarly books] on the Bible.

 Google Map of Kikar Zahal (Army square)

I then set out for the Old City – I crossed the street at Kikar Zahal [Zahal Square], and walked down the way to Jaffa Gate. They are actually renovating the park at Zahal Square – it’s been a mess for quite a while, but today workers were not only mowing the grass, but even edging it to make it look neater! 

 Archaeological garden at Kikar Zahal.

The walkway has been improved by the addition of several large trees to give additional shade. It’s actually quite handsome now.

As I got closer to Jaffa Gate itself I saw that the gate itself has been renovated – it’s been cleaned up and looks much nicer. Then I realized that I had to walk through the gate itself – the road into Umar ibn Al-Khattab Square has been blocked off because they’re doing construction in the square, so it’s a hideous mess. 

Jaffa Gate

I skirted around the construction, saying no to several shopkeepers who wanted me to come into their shops and buy something. One of them poked me on the shoulder to get my attention, which really pissed me off. I guess my patience level has been pretty low recently.

I walked along Armenian Patriarchate Road, past some Armenian shops, and turned into the area of the Armenian quarter occupied by an Armenian seminary. I walked around some, but it wasn’t very interesting. The Armenian museum was closed. There has been an Armenian community in Jerusalem for a very long time, but the community increased in size in the early twentieth century with refugees who came to Jerusalem after escaping from the genocide inflicted by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

Garden next to the Armenian Seminary.

I continued down this road and arrived at Zion Gate, where I exited and went into Mt. Zion. I went into a church that I don’t think I’ve been into before, the Church of the Dormition. It’s modern but has some nice mosaics. (“Dormition” means “Sleep” and refers to the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus).

Church of the Dormition - notice the mosaic on the ceiling of the apse of Mary and Jesus.

I then went into the room of the Last Supper (or the supposed room – I don’t see how it could actually have been the room, since from the architectural details it’s from the Crusader period; then during the Ottoman period it was turned into a mosque – the niche pointing to the qibla [direction to Mecca] is still there).

It was too full of tourists, so I left, and found some stairs going up to the roof. I cannot resist going up stairs to roofs in the Old City because the views tend to be so interesting. This one was too, giving a great view of the valley between the Old City and the Tayelet [the Promenade].

It also gives quite a view of part of the Separation Wall, cutting through the Arab suburb of Abu Dis.

View from the roof of the room of the Last Supper. We are looking across the valley to the Tayelet.

Roof of the room of the Last Supper

The Separation Wall at Abu Dis, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem.