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)

[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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[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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Break the BDS

Restoring the Old

There are times when you are expecting the future to arrive at some point and there are other times when the future becomes the present, when time catches up to you.  Today was one of those moments when past, present, and future combined into a unitary continuum.

Two weeks ago the rest of the Old Yemenite Synagogue the heart of the Old Yemenite Village in what is today Silwan had once again restored to its rightful owners. I merited to be one of the first people back at the newly redeemed synagogue.  Despite my arrival I did not get to go inside.

Today I traveled once again into the winding streets of what the world considers Silwan to enter into the Beit Knesset.  Besides Daniel Luria, the Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim, I was joined by Tommy Waller and Ken Groat of the HaYovel Organization.  The four of us made our way and witnessed the beginning of the demolition of the illegal walls that hide the old walls of the synagogue. The revealed outer walls are like a time machine, drawing the viewer back to 1883 when it was built. The four of us were awestruck at the history and profound sense of redemption underway in front of our eyes.

Ken Groat, Tommy Waller, Daniel Luria, David Mark (Left to Right) gazing at the newly revealed original wall of the synagogue.
Ken Groat, Tommy Waller, Daniel Luria, David Mark (Left to Right) gazing at the newly revealed outer wall.

The Yemenite Jews who came to Jerusalem believed they were coming to witness redemption, yet their redemption was cut short in the Arab riots of 1929 and 1936, with the community ultimately being abandoned in 1937.  Now we have come full circle, the aborted redemption has been renewed 78 years later.

Despite the inside of the synagogue in a state of disrepair, volunteers from Ateret Cohanim seemed focused and joyful in beginning the restoration. My two friends from HaYovel, an organization founded by Tommy Waller and dedicated to bringing pro Israel Christians here to aid vineyard owners in Samaria, left renewed, with a sense of purpose and a deeper connection to the redemption and closeness to their mission.

Daniel Luria covering the history of the Old Yemenite Village and the Ohel Shlomo Synagogue.
Daniel Luria covering the history of the Old Yemenite Village and the Ohel Shlomo Synagogue.

I myself feel a sense that we as a Nation are beginning to realize that the redemption is not a fairy tale. We are living in it.  With each new house we buy and property restored we are rectifying a historic wrong and coming that much closer to the day when “And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets. (Zechariah 8:5)”

The Southern third of the original wall of Ohel Shlomo now exposed.
The Southern third of the original wall of Ohel Shlomo now exposed.

Truth Will Bring Peace

I have been in Israel for over 14 years now.  I still remember my second Shabbat in Israel spent in Hevron where my friends and I were shot at with a spray of bullets as we walked back from our Shabbat meals. That Shabbat I spent in doors as the IDF and the terrorists from the Palestinan Authority battled back and forth. It was an eye opener for me.  The 2nd intifada continued. Suicide bombings increased and my wife and I, newly weds willing to grit it out here made our peace with the idea that our lives would be a simple extension of our relatively peaceful upbringing.

Numerous terror attacks and few wars later Israel is at it again. Jerusalem is also once again at the heart of this current round of violence. Arab claims that some sort of status quo has been broken are ridiculous once one studies the issue.  If anything the breakers of the fabled status quo are the same Arabs threatening everyone else who dares utter a prayer or even walk on the Temple Mount.  Arabs continuously deny our connection to Jerusalem, rewriting history as if they have been here for centuries.

The key to settling this conflict is Jerusalem.  The Arabs know that if we the Nation of Israel succeed in returning to our property that has been taken from us over the last century and we succeed in getting over our fears and really reunite and redeem our former Jewish neighborhoods, then their claims on the rest of Israel fall apart.  

This is why neighborhoods like the Old Yemenite Village located in what the Arabs have renamed Silwan as well the Flowers Gate neighborhood in the Old City, among others are so important to redeem and settle.  By restoring the rightful heirs to their land, the unjust actions of the past can be reversed.  Peace flows from truth.  

Below are some images of the Yemenite Village as it was a century ago.  The hill Silwan is on now is empty save for the Yemenite Jews that lived there.  Those Arabs that have claimed to have been there for centuries are nowhere to be found.  That is because they cannot be found in the vicinity.

Truth will win!