The Old Yemenite Village is in Our Hands Again

After nearly 80 years of having Arab squatters live within its walls as well as severe vandalism and desecration, the Old Yemenite Synagogue had a rededication ceremony yesterday.  Built in the 1880s by Yemenite Jews who walked to Israel on foot, it quickly became the central focus of the growing Jewish community outside of the Old City walls.

The Yemenite Village was built upon a barren hillside across from the City of David and stood their until consecutive Arab pogroms chased the Jews out. By 1948 the whole neighborhood was taken over by Arabs that had moved from outside of Jerusalem as well as Jordanian forces.  This village was renamed Silwan.

Today, the Yemenite Village is being rebuilt through acquisitions in Silwan facilitated by Ateret Cohanim.  With 21 families and 8o children it appears that the Yemenite Village now hidden within the Arab occupation of the hillside is set to grow. With all the positive events in the neighborhood over the last few years, yesterday’s dedication was by far the most impactful and emotional.

The Yemenite synagogue is a three domed structure.  The Arab squatters encouraged by EU funded organizations held onto 2/3 of the building, with the first domed room having been bought a few years earlier.  The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the squatters had to leave. Now a few years later and some basic renovations, a full renovation is being prepared.

Ministers Zeev Elkin and Miri Regev spoke at the ceremony yesterday and Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas was in attendance.

Watch Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim speak about the importance of the Synagogue below.

 

Danny Moskowitz (Ateret Cohanim photographer Matanya Ofir)
Mike Huckabee (Ateret Cohanim photographer Matanya Ofir)
Yemenite Beit Knesset (Ateret Cohanim photographer Matanya Ofir)
Rav Amar (Ateret Cohanim photographer Matanya Ofir)
Ministers Zeev Elkin and Miri Regev (Ateret Cohanim photographer Matanya Ofir)

Jerusalem Arabs Still Simmering as Silwan Residents Firebomb a Jewish Vehicle Overnight

Police are reporting that three Arab residents of the Silwan were arrested overnight as a result fo a targeted operation.  The three are suspected of being responsible for throwing molotov cocktails at a Jewish security vehicle in the neighborhood.  Although the vehicle burned, the security team escaped unharmed.

“Immediately after the incident, a targeted operation was carried out in the village. The area was closed and evidence was collected from the site. Investigators and police detectives soon arrived to identify the suspects and arrested them while they were at home.,” a statement from the Israeli police said.

Incidents in the Yeminite Village now renamed Silwan by the neighborhood’s Arab squatters have increased since the beginning of the riots over the Temple Mount.  The neighborhood was built in the 1880s by Jews coming from Yemen. The Yemenite Village ultimately destroyed by marauding Arabs in the riots of the 1920s and 1930s.  The British colonists agreed to eventually return the Jewish population, which never happened.

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In recent years Jews have begun to move back into the neighborhood, most times under great difficulty and danger. Despite this, the Jews of the Yemenite Village have succeeded in reclaiming a number of buildings as well as the original Synogogue built in the 1880s.

Daniel Luria, Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim said the following concerning the incident:

“Why the silence from the authorities when the Jewish residents Shiloach (Silwan neighbourhood)  which number over 100 of the Shiloach in the heart of Jerusalem near the Temple Mount, Ir David and the Old City, are under constant attack from some of the local hate-driven, violent and intolerant Arabs? I say enough is enough.”

The latest attack comes after five Jewish vehicles were firebombed in recent weeks.  Despite the neighborhood being a national landmark, the government has never put in the kind of infrastructure needed to ensure the violent Arab clans would have less leverage on the residents.

“The time has come for a major switch in thinking in the heart of Jerusalem near the Old City. If we are truly the sovereign body here in united Jerusalem, then a message of strength and conviction must be given to the Arabs in these neighbourhoods. The weakness and capitulation recently shown by the Government has not helped in the slightest and in fact has caused great damage,” Daniel added.

[watch] “The Arabs are the Occupiers!”

Watch the unedited interview by Daniel Luria from Ateret Cohanim with Aljazeera English news, about recent building permits given to the Yemenite Hekdesh (Sanctified Trust) in the old Yemenite Village of Shiloach (Silwan). Israel Rising has been very fortunate to be on the front lines alongside Daniel and Ateret Cohanim as they have secured the return of stolen Jewish property from neighborhoods resettled after 1967.

Below are some front line videos of Jewish return last year to the Old Yemenite Village:

Rowdy Arab Youth in the Heart of the Old Yemenite Village aka …

Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim encounters a bunch of rowdy Arab youth towards the end of a day of filming in the historically Jewish neighborhood of the Yemenite Village in Jerusalem. Since its decimation in 1936-37 it has been taken over by Arabs and renamed Silwan. Now more than 17 Jewish families have moved back. The old Synagogue has been brought back into Jewish hands as well.

Posted by Israel Rising on Saturday, January 30, 2016

Redeeming the Old Yemenite Synagogue

Redeeming the Old Yemenite Synagogue from Arab Squatters

Wondering what is really behind the Arab illegal building? Sometimes the greatest gifts of all remain hidden until the right time.

Posted by Israel Rising on Thursday, February 4, 2016

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BREAKING NEWS: Arab Terrorist from Silwan Shoots 8 at Jerusalem Light Rail

An Arab terrorist, a squatter living in the Yemenite Village, a formerly Jewish neighborhood now called Silwan, shot 8 Jews at two different light rail stops today. Two of the injured have been pronounced dead and another is in critical condition.

The attacker who was released from jail last year first shot at bystanders at the Ammunition Hill train stop, which is across the street from the Jerusalem police headquarters and then drove to the next stop at Shimon HaTzadik and kept shooting.

He reached the the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood where he was said to be eliminated by a special police task force.

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[Video] Rowdy Arab Youth in the Heart of the Old Yemenite Village

Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim encounters a bunch of rowdy Arab youth towards the end of a day of filming in the historically Jewish neighborhood of the Yemenite Village in Jerusalem. Since its decimation in 1936-37 it has been taken over by Arabs and renamed Silwan. Now more than 17 Jewish families have moved back. The old Synagogue has been brought back into Jewish hands as well.

Obama and His Plan to Islamify Jerusalem

There is nothing more central as a focal point to Jews and Christians than the Temple Mount.  It is the place where Jews pray towards three times a day.  The Temple Mount is the site where the first and second Holy Temples once stood, and the third is to be rebuilt in the future, ushering in peace throughout the world. For Christians the Temple is a central part of the story of Jesus and serves as hope in the future of a more perfect era.

One would assume that as President of the United States, Obama would urge a policy for his administration that supported freedom of worship at a site that is Holy to three religions.  The fact that this is not the case is even more bizarre since the backbone of American culture is freedom of religion. Obama and his administration could have urged the Jordanian Waqf to change its attitude to Jewish and Christian prayer on the Temple Mount, but instead they supported the current trend of Islamification of the Holy City.

Early on in its involvement with the latest round of violence, State Department spokesperson Admiral John Kirby said the following: “Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.”

After a lot of condemnation, Kirby retracted.

Despite the retraction, the focus has remained on Jerusalem’s need to keep what can only be described as a self imposed apartheid on non-Muslim prayer at its holiest site as a prerequisite to calming tensions. This point has become more than just clever policy for Obama.  It is in fact bordering on obsession.

By reminding the players over and over again of the administration’s support for the Status Quo, it enables Muslims to continue rewriting history and teaching their followers that they must die for Al Aqsa. Of course now the Arab street believes that the entire Temple Mount is considered a Mosque and furthermore they believe the Kotel Plaza is as well as evidenced in their failed attempt to get UNESCO to rename the Kotel Plaza to Buraq’s Plaza.Break the BDS

The Temple Mount is really one part of the administration’s plan to enable the Muslim world to continue to change history. Part of the goal of the Obama administration is to force Israel to relinquish large areas of Jerusalem in order to give hope that a Palestinian State will have access to the Old City in some future agreement.  Yet a deeper more obvious reason exists. Obama, ever since his rise to the Presidency, has sought to reframe the American outlook on Islam.  From his famous Cairo speech to recent statements that Islam is part of the American story, to suggesting that the USA is no longer a Christian country, Obama has been determined to cut America from its roots. The attack on any sort of Jewish occupancy in formerly historic Jewish neighborhoods is far less connected to a future Palestinian State and is rather an attempt to deny a Jewish connection to its capital and by extension disconnecting Judeo-Christian culture from its source.

The areas known to Jews as Ir David (City of David), Shiloach, and Kfar Temani (Yemenite Village), are called by a later Arab name Silwan.  The world has pretty much adopted the Arab narrative that these areas are a centuries old village known by that name. With recent private purchases in these areas by Jews to reclaim stolen property, the administration goes out of its way to claim these are settlements and of course illegal.

Yet history says otherwise.  These neighborhoods were thriving areas of Jewish life up until the Arab riots of 1929 and 1936. In fact the neighborhood of Shiloach was home to a community of Jews from Yemen that boasted 5 synagogues and thriving commerce. After 1936 all was destroyed.

By opposing the reclamation of this property unlawfully stolen from Jews by followers of Obama’s “religion of peace”, the administration is actively supporting the Islamic Apartheid policies we see so much across the Arab and larger Muslim world.

The idea that an American administration would be opposed to a reclamation of an old Yemenite Synagogue that was stolen and populated by squatters is at the least absurd and more accurately described as immoral.

The administration’s policy can only be described as supersessionist in regards to Islam being the dominant kin of Judaism.  Yet, this is part and parcel of an administration that has sought to “right the wrongs” of American history through outreach to the Muslim world.  

The dangers of erasing and the rewriting of history cannot be overstated, however the most dangerous aspect of all is the reconfiguring of America’s connection to the Judeo-Christian principles that have made it so great.

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