A Thousand Years of History in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter

War—or rather two wars—made possible the current golden age of discovery in Jerusalem, at the City of David, at the Temple Mount and in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. In 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, the occupants of the Jewish Quarter surrendered to the Arab Legion following a long siege. Some houses had been damaged in battle, but most of the destruction occurred when the Arabs dynamited the Quarter’s institutions—synagogues, yeshivas (religious schools) and hospitals—after the surrender. For 19 years the Quarter stood empty and silent.