*
September 2017 T ishr ei 5778 3330 fr om E xo dus
| September 2017
Tishrei 5778
3330 from E xodus
Issue 39 NIS 39 |
PIONEERS AMONG
THE RUBBLE
REBUILDING
THE JEWISH QUARTER
SPECIAL JERUSALEM ISSUE
*
SEGULA
T hE JE WISh JOurnE y T hrOugh hIS TOry
Six- Day War | Old C it y Walls | T ifer et Isr ael Synagogue | Jewish Quar ter | Second Temple Floor
RACE TO
THE WALL
IN THE
SIX-DAY WAR
UNITED FOUR
THOUSAND
ZION
YEARS OF
HISTORY
STAYING
HOLY
BEHIND THE
OLD CITY WALLS
Six- Day War | Old C it y Walls | T ifer et Isr ael Synagogue | Jewish Quar ter | Second Temple Floor
www.segulamag.com
September 2017 T ishr ei 5778 3330 fr om E xo dus
VISIT OUR NEW
S E G U L A WEBSITE
Contents Issue 39
Special
JEruSALEM
Issu
Declassified
Comments
14
e
Fifty years after the Six-Day War, the ministerial
committee protocols from those critical days in June
1967 have been released for publication, shedding
new light on the victory
18
Through Lions’ gate
Paving the Past
Painstaking reconstruction of fragments sifted
from debris illegally removed from
the Temple Mount has revealed some very
fancy flooring, enhancing our appreciation
of Herod’s magnificent renovation of the
Temple // Assaf Avraham
Guardians
of Jerusalem
From the Archives
32
The Orthodox Jews of the Old City saw themselves
– and the walls surrounding them – as defenders
of their faith against the inroads of modernity.
No longer vital for security, the walls became
boundaries of holiness instead // Reuven Gafni
40
The Kaiser’s Cap
Who added the dome to Jerusalem’s Tiferet Israel
Synagogue, and why was its color so controversial?
A variety of illustrious visitors to Jerusalem left their
mark on the synagogue roof // Tamar Hayardeni
new Life
among the ruins
48
Demolished under Jordanian occupation, the Jewish
Quarter of the Old City awaited renewal. Fresh from
the Six-Day War, religious graduates of the Fighting
Pioneer Youth awaited their next assignment. The
rest is history // Barak Brenner
4
56
Though the Israeli government may have had
no intention of conquering the Old City, the
commanders directing their troops through
Jerusalem had different ideas. Amid mounting
international pressure to reach a cease-fire,
they raced against time to secure a united
Jerusalem // Yagil Henkin
September 2017
72 First publication: a 19th-century French
Orientalist’s report on his visit to the Holy
Land includes statistics on Jerusalem’s Jewish
populace // Yochai Ben-Ghedalia
Columns
6 Snapshots
9 History Repeats
10 This Month in History
12 Jerusalem Timeline and Demographics
64 History Live
77 Heads and Tales
80 Portrait of a People
82 What’s Next
Cover: Paratroopers lean against the
Western Wall just after its liberation
Photo: Bamahane magazine, courtesy of the
IDF Archive in the Ministry of Defense
www.segulamag.com
September 2017 // Tishrei 5778
e
At a Glanc
ing from
What ’s miss
th
tury
this 19 -cen
e
photo of th
ll?
Western Wa
. 74
Answer on p
Editorial:
Tel. +972-2-500-4351
segula@segulamag.com
Advertising:
Ohad Yazdi
ohad.yazdi@tmags.co.il
The Jewish Journey through History
Subscriptions and
Customer Service:
segula@segulamag.com
www.segulamag.com
www.tmags.co.il
Also avail
able
in Hebrew
Subscribe now!
someone you love
*a Buy
gift subscription
segula@segulamag.com
www.segulamag.com
Tishrei 5778
5
Old City Walls
Guardians of
Jerusalem
As neighborhoods developed outside the Old City,
Jerusalem’s ancient wall lost its protective significance
and came to symbolize the local Jewish community’s
spiritual, social, and cultural conservatism in the face of
modernity // Reuven Gafni
When British artist David Roberts visited
Jerusalem at the end of the 1830s, nothing
had yet been built beyond the Old City.
Its wall and David’s Tower were the first
landmarks glimpsed by travelers approaching
Jerusalem from the west. David Roberts,
Citadel of Jerusalem, without the Walls, Tower
of David, color lithograph, 1839
32
September 2017
www.segulamag.com
Old City Walls
A
nd don’t I live in Jerusalem?
said I to her. Is Nahlat
Shiv’ah not Jerusalem?
Heaven forbid, said Tillie, who says
not? On the contrary, Jerusalem is
destined in the future to expand on
every side even as far as Damascus,
yet the eye that has seen Jerusalem all
established within the walls cannot
accustom itself to viewing anything
built beyond the walls of Jerusalem
as though it were Jerusalem itself.
The whole of Eretz Israel is holy,
not to mention the surroundings of
Jerusalem, and yet all within the walls
is sanctified in even higher sanctity. (S.
J. Agnon et al., Tehilla and Other Israeli
Tales [Abelard-Schuman, 1956], p. 25)
In this excerpt from his short story
“Tehilla,” Agnon describes how
Jerusalem’s Old City wall was perceived
by the Jews who sheltered behind it at
the start of the 20th century. Agnon’s
hero relates to this Ottoman wall not
merely as a landmark, but as a spiritual
boundary, defining the sanctified areas
of Jerusalem and differentiating between
the holier (the Old City) and the less holy
(the new neighborhoods beyond it).
Boundaries of Holiness
Similar sentiments were aroused by the
gap created in the wall in anticipation of
Kaiser Wilhelm II’s much trumpeted visit
to Jerusalem in 1898. To accommodate
the royal carriage, a road into the Old
City was made by filling in the moat of
David’s Tower near Jaffa Gate, which
involved removing the low section of
the wall bisecting the moat. David Yellin
The Jewish Journey through History
wrote (as an “informed source”) in one
Hebrew daily:
Everyone now knows that the wall
of Jerusalem is purely superfluous,
affording neither protection
nor shelter under current battle
conditions; and not so long ago a
suggestion was made to remove its
stones and sell them to be used in
the new buildings. Nevertheless,
Jerusalem’s residents weren’t pleased
to see the [wrecking ball] raised over
the top row of stones in that section
of the wall between David’s Tower
and Jaffa Gate, cracking the wall and
smashing its stones – and those of the
rows below – down to the ground,
like something obsolete.
Granted, the wall of Jerusalem is
relatively new among its other ancient
buildings, not yet four hundred years
old. Nonetheless, it lends the entire
city an air of antiquity, summoning
the poetic visions of our early prophets
to the minds of all who see it, along
with a thousand memories, deeds,
and events that occurred against its
backdrop throughout the ages.
Rather than complete and united,
Jerusalem without a wall would be
a mere agglomeration of roads and
aged hovels heaped one upon another,
like a human body without its skin.
(“Letters from Jerusalem,” Ha-melitz,
October 5, 1898, p. 1)
The special status of the Ottoman wall,
built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the first
half of the 16th century, was by no means a
given. Toward the end of the 19th century,
Tishrei 5778
33
Old City Walls
Arab shepherd by the wall
of Jerusalem circa 1880
Photo: Library of Congress
Collection
34
September 2017
www.segulamag.com
Old City Walls
it was already clear that the wall added no
real defensive advantage to the city, nor did
it follow the same route as its predecessors.
A few decades later, Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel
Tukachinsky (1871–1955) wrote:
Many changes have befallen the wall
of Jerusalem, wrought by its various
builders, destroyers, and rebuilders
over many and varied periods […]. The
entire route of the walls built after the
destruction [of the Second Temple] […]
is of no interest to us, as our sole purpose
is [to identify] the sacred boundaries of
Jerusalem […] until Sultan Suleiman
built and erected the wall of Jerusalem
within the smaller boundaries it
occupies today. (The Holy City and the
Temple, vol. 2, pp. 59–66 [Hebrew])
Though its route had changed, the wall
was often presented as defining the holy
precincts of Jerusalem, symbolizing the
sacred city of old. The wall in this sense
governed certain aspects of Jewish law
in Jerusalem. When to celebrate Purim?
Where to plant trees? Could music be
played at weddings? All these questions
depended – at least according to some
rabbinic authorities – on whether one was
inside or outside the ancient city wall.
The wall shaped the consciousness of the
Old City residents as well as daily life in
Jerusalem, sometimes in surprising ways.
On the Lookout for Sinners
The Old City wall had considerable bearing
on the boundaries within which carrying
was permitted on the Sabbath. According
to Jewish law, the wall made the Old
City a single property, allowing Jews to
transport things freely from one home or
courtyard to another without violating the
prohibition of work – including carrying –
on the day of rest.
Once the first Jewish neighborhoods
were erected outside the wall, Old
City residents began visiting the new
city on the Sabbath. To prevent them
from unintentionally desecrating the
day, a number of Jerusalem rabbis
organized watchmen to stand by Jaffa
The Jewish Journey through History
Gate and ensure that no one leaving was
inadvertently carrying anything in his
pockets. These efforts weren’t always
appreciated, as Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (later
Israel’s first president) wrote:
I remember the appalling stories about
the “Sinner-Seekers” organization,
whose strong-armed members placed
guards by the King’s Gate on Fridays at
nightfall to check the pockets of those
passing through Jaffa Gate. (Yitzhak
Ben-Zvi, Recollections of the Way, p. 134
[Hebrew])
Things became even more complicated
after the aforementioned breach in the wall
pursuant to the kaiser’s visit. The opening
made for Wilhelm II’s carriage meant that
the wall no longer compassed the entire
city – and could therefore no longer serve
as a boundary (or eruv) uniting all the
households within it. A solution had to be
provided to enable life on the Sabbath to
continue as people were accustomed inside
the Old City. An artificial “entryway” was
made across the gap by stretching a string
from one side to another, held up by posts,
thereby transforming the breach into just
another of the Old City’s many “gates.”
In 1914 the Ottoman authorities
removed the strings. Fortunately, around
the same time, the Orthodox Jewish
The works of authors and
artists in the Holy Land
in the late 19th and early
20th centuries enhanced
the aura surrounding
Jerusalem’s wall. S. J.
Agnon and David Yellin
Agnon’s hero relates
to Jerusalem’s
Ottoman wall as a
spiritual boundary,
differentiating
between the Old City
and the less holy
new neighborhoods
beyond it
Tishrei 5778
35
Old City Walls
Before and after. View of the
Old City wall, Jaffa Gate, and
the moat of David’s Tower
from inside the city, 1870
Photo: Félix Bonfils, Library of
Congress Collection
In this photo, taken sometime
after 1898, the low wall has
been removed and the moat
filled in to create a new
street leading into the Old
City, granting Kaiser Wilhelm
II’s family carriage access to
Jerusalem’s holy sites
Photo: American Colony, Library
of Congress Collection
36
September 2017
community in the new city made a
virtual Sabbath wall around the entire
town – including the Old City – by
surrounding it with poles and string. At
one fell stroke, the Sabbath watchmen
stationed between the Old City and the
new became irrelevant, as carrying was
now permitted all over Jerusalem.
But the issue of carrying on the
Sabbath had given rise to interesting
customs in Jerusalem centuries earlier.
In order for dwellings and public spaces
to be considered a single property, within
which items may be carried on the
Sabbath, Jews must own the entire area,
even if only theoretically. Accordingly,
from at least the 17th century onward,
the Jewish community of Jerusalem
symbolically leased the entire city from
the Ottoman authorities, repeating the
procedure with each new sultan. The
transfer was sealed by the symbolic act
of handing over the keys to the gates of
Jerusalem to the Jewish leadership, which
handed them back a few hours later. Thus
the wall of the city came to represent the
Jews’ token ownership of their ancient
capital.
This ceremony too lost its relevance
over the years. As security became less
of a concern, the gates in the wall were
left permanently open, and new halakhic
solutions allowed Jews to carry on the
Sabbath.
When to Tear?
Jews have mourned the destruction of
Jerusalem for two thousand years. Certain
laws of mourning, specifically the symbolic
act of tearing one’s garment in grief, relate
to the city’s ancient wall. For instance, the
Shulhan Arukh, Rabbi Joseph Karo’s code of
Jewish law, specifies:
One who sees the ruined cities of
Judah should say: “Your holy cities
have turned to wilderness,” and tear
[his clothing]. On seeing the ruins
of Jerusalem, one should pronounce,
“Zion has become a barren wilderness,”
and at the sight of the Temple, “Our
holy house of glory, where our fathers
praised You, has been burned down
by fire, and all that we loved has been
destroyed,” and tear. (Orah Hayim
561:1–2)
www.segulamag.com
Old City Walls
The first neighborhoods outside the Old
City were built west of it in the 1860s, but
it was decades before Jerusalem expanded
eastward. Meanwhile, the Old City wall
remained the eastern border of the city. Boys
gazing at Jerusalem from the direction of the
Mount of Olives, 1860–80
Library of Congress Collection
This ritual required an exact definition
of the boundaries of Jerusalem. Clearly,
anyone visiting the Temple Mount had
to tear his clothing, but what else was
included in “the ruins of Jerusalem”?
Even the Ottoman Old City wall, built
roughly 1,500 years after the destruction
of the Second Temple but synonymous
with the ruined city itself?
Rabbi Tukachinsky’s answer was based
on centuries of responsa:
“Seeing Jerusalem” implies the
sanctified Old City (or even Mount
Zion, to its south), [or] even if he sees
only the wall around it. (Tukachinsky,
The Book of the Land of Israel [Hebrew],
p. 68)
Dozens of modern neighborhoods
surrounded the Old City when Rabbi
Tukachinsky issued this ruling in
1955. Nonetheless, as far as the rabbi
was concerned, though it didn’t
follow the exact route of the wall of
The Jewish Journey through History
ancient Jerusalem built by Herod and
his predecessors, the Ottoman wall
represented the boundaries of the Holy
City. The sight of it was enough to trigger
the obligation to bemoan Jerusalem’s fate.
But in 1955, the Old City was out of
reach, on the Jordanian side of Jerusalem;
only its wall was visible. The ramparts
therefore symbolized not just the ruins of
Jerusalem, but the loss of its holiest sites in
the War of Independence, which could well
be perceived as a reason for mourning. Yet
similar responsa appeared even before
1948, when the ancient capital was still
accessible. Clearly, then, the wall was
perceived as symbolizing the city’s
holiness. Other rabbis, however,
limited the rending of one’s
garments to those viewing the
Temple Mount itself.
After his father conquered the region in 1517,
A different slant on
Ottoman emperor Suleiman I the Magnificent
this practice appears
built a wall around Jerusalem in just four
in a letter written
years (1538–42). Statue of Suleiman I from
by Lubavitch leader
the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Istanbul
Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak
Photo: Shutterstock
Tishrei 5778
37
Solomon
Old
City Walls
Molcho
In a divided Jerusalem, the
Old City wall symbolized
the holy sites within.
David’s Tower as seen from
behind a “No Entry” sign
marking the border, 1951
Photo: Israel Government
Press Office
The sixth Lubavitcher
rebbe, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef
Schneerson, with local
dignitaries during his visit
to Jerusalem
Schneersohn (1880–1950) to his daughter
in 1929, while visiting Jerusalem. His
cynical report of the city’s spiritual state
implies that he himself tore his clothing
even as he approached Jerusalem, before
glimpsing either the Old City or its wall.
[…] as we neared Jerusalem, […] I waited
to see it for the first time and tear – it’s
written that one should tear [one’s
garment] on seeing Jerusalem – and for
Jerusalem in its present condition, with
its cinemas, one could tear twice over!
(Iggerois Koidesh, vol. 2, letter 459, p. 203
[Yiddish])
Another mourning ritual, regarding the
stations at which the Mourners’ Kaddish
prayer is recited during a funeral, involved
the Old City wall. When an inhabitant of
the Old City died, Kaddish was intoned
at his home, his synagogue, and the Old
City gate, on the way to the cemetery on
the Mount of Olives. This last stop also
suggests that for the Jewish community of
Jerusalem, the Ottoman wall defined the
boundaries of the sacred city, so Kaddish
was to be recited as the deceased left its
holy ground for the last time.
“For Jerusalem
with its cinemas, Voluntary Confinement
of Jerusalem rabbis endeavored
one could tear Anotnumber
only to live within the Holy City
[one’s garments defined by the Ottoman wall, but to leave
as little as possible. Legend has it that
in mourning] itwhen
Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810–1883),
founder
of the Musar movement, came to
twice over!”
Jerusalem for the first time, he stopped by
wrote Lubavitch the wall and kissed its stones. The rabbi
so knowing perfectly well that there
leader Rabbi did
was nothing inherently sacred about this
Yosef Yitzhak particular wall, and that the holy sites
far removed from Jaffa Gate, through
Schneersohn were
which he’d entered the city.
in 1929 Rabbi Yosef Hayim Sonnenfeld (1848–
1932), leader of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox
community, was said to have done all in his
power never to sleep outside the Old City,
and when forced to do so, never to stay away
more than thirty days.
Rabbi Tzvi Pesah Frank, Jerusalem’s
chief rabbi from 1935 to 1960, lived in the
38
September 2017
Old City for decades and refused to leave,
until the Arab riots of 1929 forced him out.
For the ultra-Orthodox, the wall
represented their zealous struggle against
modernity. Hence the name that Kollel
Ungarin, a group of devout Hungarian
immigrants, chose for their community
when they settled in the Old City a
century and a half ago: “Shomrei Hahomot” (Guardians of the Walls). They
based themselves on a midrash cited
in Lamentations Rabba, ascribing the
security of a town not to its watchmen,
but to its scribes and scholars. Yet the
community called its members guardians
www.segulamag.com
Old City Walls
Still a symbol of Jerusalem, the Ottoman
wall sometimes serves as a backdrop to
sound and light shows. Fifty years after
the city’s liberation, the municipality
celebrated by projecting historic photos
and videos on the wall, accompanied
by music
Photo: Sasson Tiram, courtesy of the
Jerusalem municipality
of the walls, not of the city.
They too tried at first to leave the Old
City as little as possible. Its wall was
not just physical, but ideological and
spiritual. As they battled to maintain
the strictest religious standards, even
boycotting new Jewish hospitals
and schools in order to avoid their
“enlightened” personnel, these Jews saw
both themselves and the ancient wall as
the last bastions of authentic Judaism.
Pure Nostalgia
Although the ultra-Orthodox community
within the Old City identified with its
wall most deeply, many others viewed
these stones with a different kind of
yearning after 1948 and the fall of the
Old City into Jordanian hands. The wall
became an almost concrete presence
in Israeli literature, particularly in the
poetry of Yitzhak Shalev, Yehuda Amihai,
The Jewish Journey through History
and Uri Tzvi Greenberg. Dominating
the skyline yet physically out of reach,
the wall came to symbolize renewal and
remembrance. Modern responsa and
other religious literature also spoke of the
Old City wall when discussing Jerusalem
as a divided city.
With the unification of Jerusalem, the
“real” holy sites – the Western Wall, the
Mount of Olives, and the Temple Mount –
became accessible, replacing Mount Zion,
David’s Tomb, and the Old City wall in the
national consciousness. The wall has once
again become little more than a landmark,
its weighty, centuries-old symbolism all
but forgotten. 
Dr. Reuven Gafni
A lecturer and tour guide, Gafni specializes in
Jewish communities, synagogues, and nationalism
in the land of Israel since the 19th century
Tishrei 5778
39
Solomon
Old
City Walls
Molcho
40
September 2017
www.segulamag.com
Solomon
Old CityMolcho
Walls
The Jewish Journey through History
Tishrei 5778
41