History
The quarter has had a rich history, with a nearly continual Jewish presence since the 8th century BCE. When, in CE 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built the city of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of ancient Jerusalem, the Tenth Legion had their camp on the land that is now the Jewish Quarter. At the start of the 20th century, the Jewish population of the quarter reached 19,000. At no time was its population purely and homogenously Jewish - such a rule being neither desired by the Jewish inhabitants nor enforced by the Ottoman or British rulers; in fact, there had always been a considerable non-Jewish population living among its Jews. Almost all the properties in the Quarter were rented by their occupants from Muslim endowments (Waqfs), which owned them. This is one of the reasons for the growth of buildings West of the city in the last years of the Ottoman Empire since land outside the city was freehold (mulk) and easier to acquire.
| Old Yishuv |
| Jewish life in the Land of Israel before Modern Zionism |
| Key figures |
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| Joseph Nasi • Levi ben Jacob • Haim Abulafia • Yehuda he-Hasid Haim Farhi • Menachem Mendel • Jacob Saphir |
| Economy |
| Kollel • Halukka • Etrog |
| Communities |
| Musta'arabim • Sephardim • Perushim • Hasidim Read more about this topic: Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem) Famous quotes containing the word history:“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.” “It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.” “In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.” |