Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem)

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The Jewish Quarter, or HaRova HaYehudi, is one of the four quarters of Jerusalem’s Old City. It sits in the southwestern part of the walled city, stretching from the Zion Gate in the south to the Street of the Chain in the north, with the Armenian Quarter on its west and the Western Wall and the Temple Mount to the east.

In the early 1900s about 19,000 Jews lived there. During the 1948 war, the Jewish Quarter fought against the Arab Legion. The Hurva synagogue was destroyed, and the quarter faced heavy damage. The Jewish residents surrendered in May 1948 and were evacuated; the area was then looted and largely destroyed.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967. After that, the Jewish Quarter was set for reconstruction as a sightseeing and residential area. A major restoration and conservation project followed, along with archaeological excavations that uncovered many remains from the First and Second Temple periods, such as the Israelite Tower, the Broad Wall, the Burnt House, and the Herodian Quarter, as well as later remains like the Byzantine Cardo and the Nea Church.

Today, the quarter is home to about 3,000 residents and 1,500 students. It hosts many yeshivas (religious schools) and synagogues, including the Hurva Synagogue, which was rebuilt in 2010 after being destroyed several times. There are also two historic mosques in the area—Sidna Omar and Al Dissi—which have been closed since 1967.

In medieval times, the southwest part of what is now the Jewish Quarter was called Haret el-Yahud. The modern boundaries of the quarter may have come from an 1841 British Royal Engineers map or a later labeling by Reverend George Williams. Under Ottoman rule, many homes were rented from Muslim property owners.

After the 1948 war, Palestinian refugees lived in camps in the area. Following the 1967 war, Israel expropriated many properties to create a Jewish neighborhood, while some Arab residents remained. The quarter was rebuilt to fit the dense traditional style of the Old City, and many archaeological finds from earlier eras are displayed in museums and parks around the area.