JEWISH QUARTER

:''For the article on Jewish Quarters throughout the Jewish diaspora, see Jewish Quarter (diaspora)''
The 'Jewish Quarter' (, ''HaRova HaYehudi'' or the ''Rova'') is one of the four traditional quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. It lies in the southeastern sector of the walled city, and stretches from the Zion Gate in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west, up to the Cardo in the north and extends to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in the east.
The quarter has had a rich history, with a nearly continual Jewish presence since the eight century B.C.E. In 1948 its population of about 2,000 Jews was besieged, and forced to leave en masse.
Colonel Abdullah el-Tal, one-time commandant of the Jordanian Arab Legion, in describing the destruction of the Jewish Quarter, wrote in the volume of his Memoirs (Cairo, 1959):

Under the Jordainisn occupation all but one of the thirty-five Jewish houses of worship that graced the Old City were wantonly destroyed. The synagogues had been razed or pillaged and stripped and their interiors and used as hen-houses or stables.LETTER DATED 5 MARCH 1968 FROM THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ISRAEL TO THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
The quarter remained under Transjordanian occupation until its capture by Israeli paratroops in the Six-Day War of 1967. During the 1960s American town planners, together with the Jordanian authorities, planned that the quarter be transformed into a park.^[1] The quarter has since been rebuilt and settled, and has a population of 2,348 (as of 2004) [1], and many large educational institutions have taken up residence.
Before being rebuilt, the quarter was carefully excavated under the supervision of Hebrew University archaeologist Nahman Avigad. The archaeological remains, on display in a series of museums and outdoor parks to visit which tourists descend two or three stories beneath the level of the current city, collectively form one of the world's most accessible archaeological sites.

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1. Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem, , Naomi, Shepherd, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988, ISBN 0060390840