An ancient house built hundreds of years ago in the Old City of Jerusalem received new Jewish residents yesterday. The house, located just inside the Damascus Gate (Shaar Shechem) entrance, was recently purchased by the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva from an Arab family that lived there previously.
Arutz-7 reported last week that similar efforts continue in other areas of Jerusalem as well. The latest acquisition: a building in a largely Jewish-owned but Arab-populated neighborhood outside the Old City that was about to be sold to the Arab tenant. Initiatives of the same sort in other neighborhoods have led to Jewish presences there.
The new/old Damascus Gate building, now known as Beit Baruch (Baruch House), was named after Baruch Lerner, a security guard in the Old City who was murdered by Arab terrorists in the attack at Jerusalem's Moment Cafe last year. Ironically, at the time of his murder, Baruch was working on a thesis about suicide bombers in the framework of his political science studies.
Acquisition of the new building is especially significant to Jewish worshippers and the 55 Jewish families already living in the Arab-populated area of the Old City, because of its strategic location near the route connecting the Western Wall with Shechem Gate. The new Jewish presence in the area gives a renewed sense of security to Jews on their way to the Western Wall. The area has been witness in recent years to a number of terrorist incidents in which Jewish pedestrians were threatened or attacked by local Arab thugs.
Beit Baruch is located near Beit Gabriel, another building in the area known as the Moslem Quarter, in which live two Jewish families. Mati Dan, head of the Ateret Cohanim association involved in the promotion of Jewish settlement in the Old City, said that the establishment of Beit Baruch next to Beit Gabriel "is the real and only response to Arab hatred and terror." Renovations on Beit Baruch, which will house three families, are to begin in the coming weeks.
The Old City is today populated predominantly by Arabs, mostly Moslems. In 1830, there were 19,000 Jews living in the Old City, while today, 55 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, only 3,900 Jews live there, out of a total population of 32,000.
Up until 1936, the Old City served a the center of Jewish life in the land of Israel, but wave after wave of Arab anti-Jewish violence, especially the Arab uprising of 1939, gradually diminished the city's Jewish population. The British divided the Old City into ethnic quarters, leaving the Jews only 13% of the area - which subsequently became known as the "Jewish Quarter." But even this quarter was almost totally destroyed by the Jordanians in the 1948 Independence War, and the entire Old City came under Jordanian control until it was liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Since then, some 800 Jews, 55 families and a few hundred yeshiva students have repopulated and reclaimed the Old City's Jewish areas. "For generations, Jews have been attracted to the center of Jerusalem and to the areas close to the Temple Mount. We are just coming home," explained Mati Dan.
Arutz-7 reported last week that similar efforts continue in other areas of Jerusalem as well. The latest acquisition: a building in a largely Jewish-owned but Arab-populated neighborhood outside the Old City that was about to be sold to the Arab tenant. Initiatives of the same sort in other neighborhoods have led to Jewish presences there.
The new/old Damascus Gate building, now known as Beit Baruch (Baruch House), was named after Baruch Lerner, a security guard in the Old City who was murdered by Arab terrorists in the attack at Jerusalem's Moment Cafe last year. Ironically, at the time of his murder, Baruch was working on a thesis about suicide bombers in the framework of his political science studies.
Acquisition of the new building is especially significant to Jewish worshippers and the 55 Jewish families already living in the Arab-populated area of the Old City, because of its strategic location near the route connecting the Western Wall with Shechem Gate. The new Jewish presence in the area gives a renewed sense of security to Jews on their way to the Western Wall. The area has been witness in recent years to a number of terrorist incidents in which Jewish pedestrians were threatened or attacked by local Arab thugs.
Beit Baruch is located near Beit Gabriel, another building in the area known as the Moslem Quarter, in which live two Jewish families. Mati Dan, head of the Ateret Cohanim association involved in the promotion of Jewish settlement in the Old City, said that the establishment of Beit Baruch next to Beit Gabriel "is the real and only response to Arab hatred and terror." Renovations on Beit Baruch, which will house three families, are to begin in the coming weeks.
The Old City is today populated predominantly by Arabs, mostly Moslems. In 1830, there were 19,000 Jews living in the Old City, while today, 55 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, only 3,900 Jews live there, out of a total population of 32,000.
Up until 1936, the Old City served a the center of Jewish life in the land of Israel, but wave after wave of Arab anti-Jewish violence, especially the Arab uprising of 1939, gradually diminished the city's Jewish population. The British divided the Old City into ethnic quarters, leaving the Jews only 13% of the area - which subsequently became known as the "Jewish Quarter." But even this quarter was almost totally destroyed by the Jordanians in the 1948 Independence War, and the entire Old City came under Jordanian control until it was liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Since then, some 800 Jews, 55 families and a few hundred yeshiva students have repopulated and reclaimed the Old City's Jewish areas. "For generations, Jews have been attracted to the center of Jerusalem and to the areas close to the Temple Mount. We are just coming home," explained Mati Dan.