Yemenite-Jewish village south of Silwan, housing project built by a charity in the 1880s (1891)
The Old Yemenite Synagogue, known to its congregation as Beit Knesset Ohel Shlomo (lit. "Solomon's Tent Synagogue"), is a restored synagogue[1] from the nineteenth century[2] Yemenite Village (Harat al-Yaman in
Arabic),[3] the Kfar Hashiloach (
Hebrew: כפר השילוח) neighborhood in the Jerusalem district of
Silwan.
History
Jewish community in Silwan (1884-1938)
Between 1885 and 1891, 45 stone houses were built for the
Yemenite Jews which had arrived in Jerusalem in 1882[4]
In 1936, during the
1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, the Yemenite-Jewish community was removed from Silwan by the Welfare Bureau of the Jerusalem Community Council (Va'ad ha-Kehillah), the local counterpart of the
Jewish National Council (Va'ad Leumi), into the
Jewish Quarter as security conditions for Jews worsened.[5] and in 1938, the remaining Yemenite Jews in Silwan were evacuated by the Jewish Community Council on the advice of the police.[3][6]
According to documents in the custodian office and real estate and project advancement expert Edmund Levy, the buildings of the Yemenite Jews were occupied by Arab families without registering ownership.[7][8]
Jewish reclaim (2015)
In May, 2015
Ateret Cohanim, a Jewish group that had established legal ownership of the old synagogue, moved into the building.[9][10][11] Local residents threw rocks at the activists as they moved in.[9]
References
^American Friends of Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Chai,
The Yemenite Village, from a September 2015 newsletter. Accessed August 2020.