Here is a piece of lesser-known, yet still relevant Jerusalem history: in 1936, the last Jew left the Old City's Muslim Quarter. His departure marked the temporary end of about 120 years of continuous Jewish settlement in the neighborhood.
At the peak of its glory (in the early 20th century), the Jewish community in the "Mixed Quarter" (as it was then called) numbered 5,000 residents. According to the records kept by Yehoshua Yelin, 57 out of the 287 courtyards owned by Jews in the Old City were located outside the Jewish Quarter. Famous residents included Eliezer Ben-Yehuda; Israel Dov Frumkin; Reuven Rivlin, the grandfather of the current President of Israel, who is named after him; and Yosef Navon, the father of Israel's fifth president, Yitzhak Navon. The settlement was abandoned and destroyed in the riots of 1920, 1921, and 1929.
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In parallel, the Jewish community of the Jewish Quarter also declined to the point of extinction. In the early 20th century it numbered 15,000 Jews. However, years of hunger, economic hardship, poor sanitary conditions, attacks, and sieges depleted its population – on the eve of the British withdrawal from Palestine in May 1948 – to just 1,700. Later the city came under siege.
This forgotten historical development is relevant today. 53 years after the liberation of Jerusalem, the move of the US Embassy to the city and American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital should be put in proportion, and the enthusiasm surrounding these events should be curbed. The battle over the city's political future is far from being concluded. Jerusalem's fate will be determined not by symbols of sovereignty, important as they may be, but by facts on the ground – those that exist and those that don't. True, 220,000 Jews live at present in East Jerusalem's new neighborhoods, near the Old City or further away. However, the decisive battle will be won on the spot that is the "ultimate Jerusalem": in the heart of the historical city, that is, the area within the Old City walls. And, like it or not, our situation there could be much better.
Today, only 13% of the Old City's 35,000 residents are Jews, compared to about 35% in the early 20th century. About 3,000 live in the Jewish Quarter, with another 1,500 living in the other quarters, particularly the Muslim Quarter. As stated above, in the early 20th century the number of Jews in these areas was four times its current size – about 20,000. After 1967 the State of Israel returned to the Jewish Quarter, but not to the Old City's other areas. This is an "opportunity that makes the thief," a situation suggestive of the division of Jerusalem.
The state has left the enterprise of settling the Old City outside the Jewish Quarter to ideologues and NGOs. In recent years these have done God's work in settling hundreds of Jews and dozens of Torah learning institutions and educational facilities in these areas. Nevertheless, the endeavor continues to be seen s an "infiltration," lacking the requisite governmental powers and budgets.
The project of settling Jews in the Muslim Quarter has over the years taken a bloody toll on its participants. Terrorists have attacked the settlers repeatedly. Yet this Zionist project is no less heroic than the famed and celebrated City of David south of the Temple Mount.
A second and third generation of unsung heroes has been reviving what only 80 years ago seemed like a hopeless cause. This lesser-known enterprise is in need of a "father," yet the Netanyahu governments have kept their distance, extending only minimal help. Since the Eshkol and Golda governments that tried to redeem houses and plots of land in this area through the "amalgamation" branch operated by the Israel Lands Administration, no significant governmental involvement has been forthcoming.
This, then, is a task of critical importance for Rabbi Rafi Peretz, the new Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, who is deeply familiar with the Old City. Peretz should strive to change the government's approach to the areas of the Old City outside the Jewish Quarter and find a way to settle many more Jews there, rebuilding the Jewish community to a much greater extent than has been done so far.
