Work with what you got - and then with what you have left
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.
He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.
The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Don't talk to me about justice... Israel's "black hole"
Justice / The railway station ministry
Haaretz, November 30, 2006
By Yuval Yoaz
More than any other ministry, the Justice Ministry has suffered in recent years from an insufferable turnover, with ministers coming and going at a train station tempo. Haim Ramon put his finger on it in the speech he gave when taking office, just seven months ago, telling senior ministry officials that "this is the fifth inauguration of a justice minister in seven years. Ministerial handovers at that pace harm the government's ability to perform." Since then, there has already been another inauguration - for acting minister Meir Sheetrit.
Moreover, in appointing Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is essentially announcing not one, but two, new justice ministers. Cabinet members declare they are waiting for Ramon to return to office, if and when he is acquitted. But not every acquittal will let him walk back through the doors of the ministry.
So formally Livni has only been appointed for one month, leaving us questioning why Sheetrit - who is familiar with the office - didn't just stay on. The conclusion seems to be that even Olmert's circle is not entirely convinced that Ramon will be back, making this an important appointment: not a one-month job until the Ramon verdict, but a minister for the next four years.
But Livni is the only cabinet member of whom "four more years at Justice" cannot be said: while Sheetrit and Isaac Herzog could hold the portfolio in conjunction with their other functions, Livni can clearly not serve both at the justice ministry and as well as Israel's foreign minister. She doesn't even want to.
In this sense, Olmert demonstrated his loyalty to his friend, handing the portfolio to the one member of his cabinet who isn't interested in holding it more than a month. Ramon benefits from this, the public and the professional performance of the ministry benefit less when the cabinet really does appoint a permanent minister in another month. Not to mention the criticism from Attorney General Menachem Mazuz of the "black hole," in which no one held the portfolio for a full week.
The great unknown is what kind of justice minister Livni will be as the sand slips through the political hourglass. Will she take an active stance and, for instance, appoint her kind of Supreme Court justice? From her last stop at the justice train station, we learned that Livni decided to push appointments just when she found the timing to be inappropriate.
Haaretz, November 30, 2006
By Yuval Yoaz
More than any other ministry, the Justice Ministry has suffered in recent years from an insufferable turnover, with ministers coming and going at a train station tempo. Haim Ramon put his finger on it in the speech he gave when taking office, just seven months ago, telling senior ministry officials that "this is the fifth inauguration of a justice minister in seven years. Ministerial handovers at that pace harm the government's ability to perform." Since then, there has already been another inauguration - for acting minister Meir Sheetrit.
Moreover, in appointing Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is essentially announcing not one, but two, new justice ministers. Cabinet members declare they are waiting for Ramon to return to office, if and when he is acquitted. But not every acquittal will let him walk back through the doors of the ministry.
So formally Livni has only been appointed for one month, leaving us questioning why Sheetrit - who is familiar with the office - didn't just stay on. The conclusion seems to be that even Olmert's circle is not entirely convinced that Ramon will be back, making this an important appointment: not a one-month job until the Ramon verdict, but a minister for the next four years.
But Livni is the only cabinet member of whom "four more years at Justice" cannot be said: while Sheetrit and Isaac Herzog could hold the portfolio in conjunction with their other functions, Livni can clearly not serve both at the justice ministry and as well as Israel's foreign minister. She doesn't even want to.
In this sense, Olmert demonstrated his loyalty to his friend, handing the portfolio to the one member of his cabinet who isn't interested in holding it more than a month. Ramon benefits from this, the public and the professional performance of the ministry benefit less when the cabinet really does appoint a permanent minister in another month. Not to mention the criticism from Attorney General Menachem Mazuz of the "black hole," in which no one held the portfolio for a full week.
The great unknown is what kind of justice minister Livni will be as the sand slips through the political hourglass. Will she take an active stance and, for instance, appoint her kind of Supreme Court justice? From her last stop at the justice train station, we learned that Livni decided to push appointments just when she found the timing to be inappropriate.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
New strategy - first provide your own service...
No clinic? No school? We'll open one
Haaretz, November 28, 2006
By Aryeh Dayan
At the end of the period of Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem, and even during the early years of Israeli control, many Palestinians referred to Kafr Aqab as "millionaires' row." The neighborhood has deteriorated since then. Today, three years after the construction of the [security] wall there, the signs of neglect and disorder are clearly apparent, even at the entrance of the neighborhood, which is right after the Qalandiyah checkpoint. That checkpoint, and the wall that runs south and north of it, give the once-fashionable Palestinian suburb the look of a slum in a Third World city.
Kafr Aqab, with its current population of 25,000, is officially within the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem, and is supposed to receive services from the city. As part of the Israeli decision in 1967 to annex East Jerusalem, the redrawn northern extremity of the municipal boundary was the northern edge of Kafr Aqab, giving those who lived there the status of Jerusalem residents. As a result, they hold "blue" Israeli identity cards, pay taxes to the city of Jerusalem, are eligible for the services of the National Insurance Institute, and are entitled to travel and work anywhere in Israel.
The separation fence has left Kafr Aqab outside Jerusalem. To reach other parts of the city, its residents need to go through the Qalandiyah checkpoint. They can get to the West Bank cities of El-Bireh and Ramallah, on the other hand, without encountering any Israeli checkpoint. In this way they have fallen between the cracks: the Jerusalem Municipality (and the State of Israel) have stopped providing services to a neighborhood that is beyond the wall; while the municipality of El-Bireh to the north, whose jurisdiction borders Kafr Aqab, refuses to provide services to a neighborhood that is part of Jerusalem.
The reaction of the residents of Kafr Aqab to the situation in which they found themselves was completely different from that of other Palestinians in similar situations in other areas. Initially they did exactly what the others did: appealed the land-seizure orders for the construction of the wall, petitioned the High Court of Justice against its construction, organized demonstrations, sent demands to the Jerusalem Municipality and organized various lobbying activities. They soon realized, however, that they could expect to gain no benefit from all that, and opted for a different strategy.
At the initiative of several groups of young residents, a new neighborhood committee was established, which elbowed aside the existing, more conservative representative body. The new committee established a new organization called "the Kafr Aqab Development Company," officially registered it in Israel, and set about raising funds within the neighborhood (which is still home to quite a few well-heeled Palestinian businessmen).The company forged a connection with two associations that deal with matters concerning Arab residents of Jerusalem (the Israeli Ir Amim and the Palestinian Media and Development Institute), put its plans on a business basis, and began to promote several basic projects in fields that usually fall under the responsibility of the municipality and of government ministries.
Less than two years since the company was founded, many Kafr Aqab residents already see the results of its activity. Some 500 local children who, in the previous school year, had to be at the checkpoint before 6 A.M. to make it to school before classes began at 8 A.M., now study in a school established by the company in the center of the neighborhood.
Thousands of residents who regularly pay into the NII, and are entitled to medical attention under the National Health Insurance Law, were forced to traverse the checkpoint every time they needed to exercise their rights. Now they have at their disposable a clinic that the company has set up in the neighborhood, which operates as a licensee of the Clalit Health Services. Hundreds of local youngsters, who until recently aimlessly wandered the streets of the neighborhood, now come daily to the community center the company created. Dozens of houses, which for years the Jerusalem Municipality had refused to connect to the city's sewage system, have been connected by the company (without authorization), employing residents who work or have worked in the past for the municipal company that manages the system.
"After the wall was built, we understood we had only two choices: to live in a garbage dump or to take matters into our own hands," explained Samih Abu-Rumeileh, the moving spirit behind the neighborhood committee and the Kafr Aqab Development Company. "The wall created an entirely new situation here. Before it was built we received only a small part of what we were entitled to. After it was built, we got nothing. And the daily crossing at the checkpoint to get to school or to a clinic was simply destroying our lives."
License from Clalit
"We have no intention of giving up on the city and the state's fulfilling their obligations toward us," says Fawaz Tamimi, Abu-Rumeileh's colleague in the leadership of the residents committee, and appointed by him as vice-principal of the school. He is 38, the son of a jewelry merchant, and studies business administration at a college in Ramallah. "We pay municipal taxes like every Jerusalem resident, and the city has to give us the same services it gives everyone else. We simply decided to reverse the order of things. Instead of waiting until the government gives us services, we first provide the services ourselves and then make demands of the government."
In the many meetings they had with the municipality regarding the education system, they repeatedly heard the claim that most of the buildings in the neighborhood were illegally built, and the government is prohibited from renting an illegal structure for establishing a school.
"We have no problem renting a building that was erected without a license," says Tamimi with a smile. And that is exactly what they did. With contributions from the parents, and a large endowment from the Ford Foundation (through the mediation of Ir Amim), the Kafr Aqab Development Company rented a three-story building on the main street of the neighborhood, renovated it, furnished it and turned it into a school. Today it boasts 497 students in 15 classes, from first to 12th grade. The teachers were drawn from educators who live in the neighborhood, and who, in the past, were compelled to deal with the checkpoints to go to work. Only then, just as the school year was about to begin, did they turn to the Education Ministry and to the municipality with a demand for recognition and funding. The recognition has been given; the funding, they hope, will start coming through next month.
That is, more or less, the way they handled the clinic. The Kafr Aqab Development Company organized a group of businessmen and a few doctors from within the community. They invested $100,000 in procuring equipment for a clinic that would be able to provide most of the services that most HMO clinics provide. After they had rented an appropriate building, they approached the Clalit HMO and requested a license to operate the clinic in its name. Clalit operates several clinics on this basis elsewhere in Israel. The licensee receives a monthly payment for every member of the HMO living in its district, and the HMO determines the medical standards and supervises the professional operation of the clinic. "Economic calculations show that a clinic that serves 3,000 members can maintain itself," says Abu-Rumeileh, who once renovated buildings, then drove a truck, and is today the clinic's administrative director. "There are 3,000 members of the HMO in Kafr Aqab, so I hope it will start showing a profit in another few months."
Even if there was not a direct political motive, the "declaration of independence" of the residents of Kafr Aqab is not divorced from political considerations. "Kafr Aqab is part of Jerusalem, and we are all part of the Palestinian people, and we all oppose the occupation," says Abu-Rumeileh. "But there is no reason for us to suffer the occupation in silence, and just wait for it to go away." He believes that Israel is moving in the direction of a "long-term transfer" of Palestinian residents [out of] Jerusalem, that it hopes the Palestinians will break down and move away. He says that everything they have done in Kafr Aqab has been intended, among other things, to fight that trend.
It is a new strategy, and both Israel and the Palestinian organizations still have difficulty assimilating it. "At the beginning they accused us, especially Fatah, of collaborating with Israel," Abu-Rumeileh relates. "Later both Fatah and Hamas began to understand our activity is for the benefit of the people."
The response of the Jerusalem Municipality was that "the municipality gives the residents the best services it can under the present circumstances," and that it is the intention of the municipality "to integrate the Kafr Aqab Development Company and other local organizations in its activities.”
Haaretz, November 28, 2006
By Aryeh Dayan
At the end of the period of Jordanian rule in East Jerusalem, and even during the early years of Israeli control, many Palestinians referred to Kafr Aqab as "millionaires' row." The neighborhood has deteriorated since then. Today, three years after the construction of the [security] wall there, the signs of neglect and disorder are clearly apparent, even at the entrance of the neighborhood, which is right after the Qalandiyah checkpoint. That checkpoint, and the wall that runs south and north of it, give the once-fashionable Palestinian suburb the look of a slum in a Third World city.
Kafr Aqab, with its current population of 25,000, is officially within the municipal jurisdiction of Jerusalem, and is supposed to receive services from the city. As part of the Israeli decision in 1967 to annex East Jerusalem, the redrawn northern extremity of the municipal boundary was the northern edge of Kafr Aqab, giving those who lived there the status of Jerusalem residents. As a result, they hold "blue" Israeli identity cards, pay taxes to the city of Jerusalem, are eligible for the services of the National Insurance Institute, and are entitled to travel and work anywhere in Israel.
The separation fence has left Kafr Aqab outside Jerusalem. To reach other parts of the city, its residents need to go through the Qalandiyah checkpoint. They can get to the West Bank cities of El-Bireh and Ramallah, on the other hand, without encountering any Israeli checkpoint. In this way they have fallen between the cracks: the Jerusalem Municipality (and the State of Israel) have stopped providing services to a neighborhood that is beyond the wall; while the municipality of El-Bireh to the north, whose jurisdiction borders Kafr Aqab, refuses to provide services to a neighborhood that is part of Jerusalem.
The reaction of the residents of Kafr Aqab to the situation in which they found themselves was completely different from that of other Palestinians in similar situations in other areas. Initially they did exactly what the others did: appealed the land-seizure orders for the construction of the wall, petitioned the High Court of Justice against its construction, organized demonstrations, sent demands to the Jerusalem Municipality and organized various lobbying activities. They soon realized, however, that they could expect to gain no benefit from all that, and opted for a different strategy.
At the initiative of several groups of young residents, a new neighborhood committee was established, which elbowed aside the existing, more conservative representative body. The new committee established a new organization called "the Kafr Aqab Development Company," officially registered it in Israel, and set about raising funds within the neighborhood (which is still home to quite a few well-heeled Palestinian businessmen).The company forged a connection with two associations that deal with matters concerning Arab residents of Jerusalem (the Israeli Ir Amim and the Palestinian Media and Development Institute), put its plans on a business basis, and began to promote several basic projects in fields that usually fall under the responsibility of the municipality and of government ministries.
Less than two years since the company was founded, many Kafr Aqab residents already see the results of its activity. Some 500 local children who, in the previous school year, had to be at the checkpoint before 6 A.M. to make it to school before classes began at 8 A.M., now study in a school established by the company in the center of the neighborhood.
Thousands of residents who regularly pay into the NII, and are entitled to medical attention under the National Health Insurance Law, were forced to traverse the checkpoint every time they needed to exercise their rights. Now they have at their disposable a clinic that the company has set up in the neighborhood, which operates as a licensee of the Clalit Health Services. Hundreds of local youngsters, who until recently aimlessly wandered the streets of the neighborhood, now come daily to the community center the company created. Dozens of houses, which for years the Jerusalem Municipality had refused to connect to the city's sewage system, have been connected by the company (without authorization), employing residents who work or have worked in the past for the municipal company that manages the system.
"After the wall was built, we understood we had only two choices: to live in a garbage dump or to take matters into our own hands," explained Samih Abu-Rumeileh, the moving spirit behind the neighborhood committee and the Kafr Aqab Development Company. "The wall created an entirely new situation here. Before it was built we received only a small part of what we were entitled to. After it was built, we got nothing. And the daily crossing at the checkpoint to get to school or to a clinic was simply destroying our lives."
License from Clalit
"We have no intention of giving up on the city and the state's fulfilling their obligations toward us," says Fawaz Tamimi, Abu-Rumeileh's colleague in the leadership of the residents committee, and appointed by him as vice-principal of the school. He is 38, the son of a jewelry merchant, and studies business administration at a college in Ramallah. "We pay municipal taxes like every Jerusalem resident, and the city has to give us the same services it gives everyone else. We simply decided to reverse the order of things. Instead of waiting until the government gives us services, we first provide the services ourselves and then make demands of the government."
In the many meetings they had with the municipality regarding the education system, they repeatedly heard the claim that most of the buildings in the neighborhood were illegally built, and the government is prohibited from renting an illegal structure for establishing a school.
"We have no problem renting a building that was erected without a license," says Tamimi with a smile. And that is exactly what they did. With contributions from the parents, and a large endowment from the Ford Foundation (through the mediation of Ir Amim), the Kafr Aqab Development Company rented a three-story building on the main street of the neighborhood, renovated it, furnished it and turned it into a school. Today it boasts 497 students in 15 classes, from first to 12th grade. The teachers were drawn from educators who live in the neighborhood, and who, in the past, were compelled to deal with the checkpoints to go to work. Only then, just as the school year was about to begin, did they turn to the Education Ministry and to the municipality with a demand for recognition and funding. The recognition has been given; the funding, they hope, will start coming through next month.
That is, more or less, the way they handled the clinic. The Kafr Aqab Development Company organized a group of businessmen and a few doctors from within the community. They invested $100,000 in procuring equipment for a clinic that would be able to provide most of the services that most HMO clinics provide. After they had rented an appropriate building, they approached the Clalit HMO and requested a license to operate the clinic in its name. Clalit operates several clinics on this basis elsewhere in Israel. The licensee receives a monthly payment for every member of the HMO living in its district, and the HMO determines the medical standards and supervises the professional operation of the clinic. "Economic calculations show that a clinic that serves 3,000 members can maintain itself," says Abu-Rumeileh, who once renovated buildings, then drove a truck, and is today the clinic's administrative director. "There are 3,000 members of the HMO in Kafr Aqab, so I hope it will start showing a profit in another few months."
Even if there was not a direct political motive, the "declaration of independence" of the residents of Kafr Aqab is not divorced from political considerations. "Kafr Aqab is part of Jerusalem, and we are all part of the Palestinian people, and we all oppose the occupation," says Abu-Rumeileh. "But there is no reason for us to suffer the occupation in silence, and just wait for it to go away." He believes that Israel is moving in the direction of a "long-term transfer" of Palestinian residents [out of] Jerusalem, that it hopes the Palestinians will break down and move away. He says that everything they have done in Kafr Aqab has been intended, among other things, to fight that trend.
It is a new strategy, and both Israel and the Palestinian organizations still have difficulty assimilating it. "At the beginning they accused us, especially Fatah, of collaborating with Israel," Abu-Rumeileh relates. "Later both Fatah and Hamas began to understand our activity is for the benefit of the people."
The response of the Jerusalem Municipality was that "the municipality gives the residents the best services it can under the present circumstances," and that it is the intention of the municipality "to integrate the Kafr Aqab Development Company and other local organizations in its activities.”
Discoveries beneath the Hurva...
Byzantine arch found at renovated Jerusalem synagogue
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Discoveries beneath the Hurva...
Byzantine arch found at renovated Jerusalem synagogue
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Discoveries beneath the Hurva...
Byzantine arch found at renovated Jerusalem synagogue
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
Haaretz, November 29, 2006
By Nadav Shragai
A high arch which had been part of the skyline of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem since the Six Day War has recently disappeared. It belonged to the Hurva Synagogue, Israel's grandest, most important synagogue until the War of Independence.
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress.
Excavations at the site, directed by archaeologists Hillel Geva and Oren Gutfeld, have exposed findings from various periods of the synagogue's history. The most significant is an entire arch standing along remnants of a stone-paved street from the Byzantine period, which split from the Cardo (one of Jerusalem's main streets during the Roman and Byzantine period) and ascended east to the center of the Jewish Quarter. The arch - 3.7 meters wide, 1.3 meters thick and five meters high - is built of one row of large hewn stones. Geva believes it formed the entrance gate to the Byzantine street.
"This arch is unique, because in excavations there so far only wide domes that walled the shops along the Byzantine Cardo were found," says Geva. "It shows where the street split from the Cardo, and has been recovered intact."
Yuval Baruch, the archaeologist of the Jerusalem District of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), also believes "this is a rare and important finding."
The excavations, which began in 2003, also unearthed structures and pottery from the First Temple period, remnants of rooms from the Herodian period (Second Temple), burnt wooden logs (evidence of fire that took place after the destruction of the Second Temple), and three plastered ritual baths carved in rock from the Second Temple period.
The diggers also found a small weapons arsenal, where defenders of the Jewish Quarter stashed mortar shells and grenades during the Independence War.
The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier, and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah scrolls it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
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