The fall of the Old City, 1948

May 25/26 is Jerusalem Day
The Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem fell to the Jordanian Legion
on May 27, 1948, only days after the announcement of the founding of the
State of Israel by David Ben Gurion. We heard a dramatic presentation of
the battle for the Old City from Gershon Bar Kochba, a resident of Hebron,
who is a military historian, who uses computer graphics and original
photos compared to the present day scenes to illustrate his talk. It was a
fascinating and dramatic presentation, with a detailed account of the
fighting in the days preceding the fall. Many of the photos were from a
special book (which I have) entitled "The will to survive" by John Phillips,
who was there at the time, and contains the only photographic record of
the fighting and the subsequent surrender of the Jewish Quarter.
There were two main large synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, the Nisan Bak
(built 1872) and the Hurva ("ruin," 1864) built on the site of a much earlier
synagogue destroyed in a Muslim riot. Both were completely and deliberately
destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948. There were also many
smaller synagogues, including a combined set of four low synagogues in
which most of the Jewish Quarter's 1,800 inhabitants, mostly old people,
took shelter during the fighting. The defense guard of the Jewish Quarter
consisted of 150 fighters, most of them in their teens, some as young as 14,
and many without any training whatsoever.
Initially, the British controlled the area under the British Mandate, and they
showed almost total bias towards the Arabs, allowing them to hold arms and
train openly, while the they refused to allow the Jews to have arms. When they
found the hiding site of the only mortar that the Jews had, and confiscated
it, this lead to a clash that resulted in the start of the fighting a few days
before the British were due to leave. A British patrol of 14 soldiers was
surrounded by the Jewish fighters and in order to extricate them the British
signed an agreement to return the confiscated arms and to stop their
harassment. But, this was only days before their withdrawal, and they left
the Jewish Quarter in a very perilous situation, surrounded by thousands of
armed Arab irregulars. Notwithstanding this the Jewish defenders fought
with incredible bravery, but they lost many men, women and children (the
youngest fighter killed was 10 years old). The Jewish Quarter was
isolated from Western Jerusalem and was under siege.
In order to break the siege a patrol of 17 Palmach fighters captured the
Zion Gate and linked up with the Jewish Quarter. However, they
were extremely tired after days of constant fighting and then decided to
withdraw, leaving the Gate undefended! At the same time the Jews were
unaware that a whole Jordanian Arab Legion battalion was infiltrating the
Jewish Quarter from the Muslim side and were able to take over the Zion
Gate without a fight. They then systematically invaded the Jewish Quarter,
destroying everything as they went. They dynamited the two main synagogues
and desecrated everything of Jewish value, included the looting of all Jewish
homes and institutions.
In order to save the maximum number of lives, the Mayor of the Jewish Quarter
agreed to surrender to the Jordanian officer, but he insisted that it must be
the leader of the defense force who surrendered the Quarter. This was
arranged and the Jews were then expelled from their own Quarter, and the
fighters were interned in Jordan for a year. One British soldier fought with
the Jews and was captured, but disappeared and was never seen again
Jews were not allowed to enter the Old City for 19 years, until it and much
else was captured by the IDF in the 6 Day War of 1967. They found the
Jewish Quarter completely destroyed, but it was reconstructed, and as a
last act in that renovation, the Hurva synagogue is now being re-built and
will soon arise again to its former glory, 60 years after its complete
destruction.
Happy Jerusalem Day!