My Word: The tale of one Jerusalem neighbourhood teaches resilience and hope - opinion

I went for a walk down memory lane this week. It was a collective memory rather than a personal one and not all the memories were pleasant.

The walk was one of a series of tours of Jerusalem neighborhoods under the auspices of Ginot Ha’ir Community Center’s excellent program for senior citizens. The guides, also seniors, are specially trained volunteers sharing their knowledge.

This tour, led by Yoram Krechin, was of Mekor Haim, a neighborhood in southwestern Jerusalem. It’s a few minutes’ stroll from my home, on the other side of train tracks dating back to the Ottoman era that have been turned into the attractive Train Track Park (Park Hamesila).

Before the day properly got started, I was woken by Home Front rocket alerts on my phone followed by the distant crump of a missile landing. 

It was September 15, and the Iranian-funded Houthis in Yemen had decided to mark Muhammad’s birthday by sending a rocket toward the center of the Jewish state. 

Fortunately, there were no injuries and the country soon resumed its normal wartime routine (however oxymoronic that might sound). It was a reminder of the ongoing rocket fire residents of the North have been dealing with for nearly a year. 

Tuesday’s extraordinary exploding pagers’ attack, attributed to Israel, on thousands of Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon was still in the realm of a sci-fi script during our trip.

Going back in time to 'different days'

The tour of Mekor Haim took us back to different days, but the dangers of having enemies on your doorstep were very apparent – as if any of us needed a reminder after the Hamas and Islamic Jihad invasion and mega-atrocity of October 7.

Mekor Haim is unusual in that basically the whole neighborhood stretches along one eponymous street. The area was named for oil tycoon and philanthropist Haim Cohen (with his own fascinating tale of marriage at 14.) He donated money to purchase land in Jerusalem in 1913, but died before seeing his dream coming to fruition.

Established parallel to the train tracks in 1923, Mekor Haim differed from “garden city” neighborhoods such as Rehavia and Beit Hakerem. 

The design, by German-Jewish architect Richard Kaufman, called for 20 small farmsteads with land for orchards and vegetable plots, chicken coops and cowsheds. 

The first residents were members of the religious-Zionist Mizrahi Movement, most of whom lacked experience in farming, particularly in the harsh conditions on the then-fringes of Jerusalem, without running water.

Our meeting point was outside the Mekor Haim Central Synagogue, an old stone building with a strange rooftop and a memorial outside dedicated to the defenders of Mekor Haim who fell in 1948.

Even before the birth of the state and the War of Independence, the Jewish neighborhood came under attack from marauding residents of the nearby Arab villages Beit Safafa and Malha. In 1929, Arab riots – ostensibly triggered by the Jewish prayers at the Western Wall on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – resulted in the murder of more than a hundred Jews, many of them killed by their Arab neighbors in Jerusalem’s Old City, Hebron, and Safed. Many of the victims were mutilated and sexually abused. 

Hamas terrorists may be armed with modern weapons but they are fueled by an ancient hatred and mimic the barbarity of the past.

In Mekor Haim, before the attackers reached the neighborhood, the Jews sought shelter in the synagogue and adjacent building. 

Later, the garrison-like roof was added to the synagogue, giving it an incongruous look. Among the surprise defenders of Mekor Haim was a group of students from Oxford University on an archaeological dig at nearby Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, although overall the British Mandate favored arming the Arabs rather than Jews and restricting Jewish immigration.

In 1930, a “covenant of peace” – “brit shalom” or “sulha” – was signed between the Mekor Haim neighborhood committee and the mukthar (village leader) and residents of Beit Safafa, the latter probably fearing a revenge attack rather than feeling regret. 

The peace agreement did not last long. There continued to be attacks on this Jewish community and others in the 1930s, including the Arab riots of 1936.

Losses sustained during the War of Independence 

In the War of Independence, launched by the Arab world on the nascent Jewish state, the neighborhood suffered heavy losses – each of the 12 names on the memorial deserves to have their own story told.

After months of siege conditions, the neighborhood was saved in the 1948 war after the heroic battle by Jewish forces at San Simon. But Mekor Haim was damaged and depleted and continued to suffer from sniper fire until the victory of the Six Day War ended its isolation, especially with the development of the Talpiot Industrial Zone, which now overshadows the smaller neighborhood.

TODAY, THE remaining low, stone, red-roofed houses continue to tell a tale to those willing to look and listen. Pension Vardi, at the Rosenbaum family home at No. 21 Mekor Haim, once offered guests what were considered modern amenities. In more recent years, it housed Yeshivat Mekor Haim, led by the late Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and then the Sudbury Democratic School.

At No. 29, Berlin House, there still operates a free dental clinic established by Holocaust survivors Trudi and Zev Birger, where many Jewish dentists from the Diaspora have volunteered their services over the years. 

The home of the first neighborhood rabbi later became the dining room of a sanatorium for TB patients.

We met vivacious veteran local resident Hava Aharoni. She has lived most of her life in a stone building with beautiful, tiled floors that once served as the home and office of the Greek consul in Jerusalem. 

The outer walls still bear the scars of war – pockmarked by bullets.

Born at Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in 1946, Hava spent the first four years of her life in a neighborhood building surrounded by open fields, before moving with her family to the house she so clearly cherishes at Mekor Haim 12. 

The garden is filled with her artwork, made from recycled objects. It is there she shares some of her stories and family secrets concerning her parents, professional musicians, and her two much-loved older brothers.

Her pianist father, David Aharoni, played in hotels in Amman, Damascus, and Beirut, and before Hava was born the family even spent two years living in the Lebanese capital as he played with the Beirut Orchestra. 

He also served for a while as the Jewish “mukhtar” for Mekor Haim.

At one point the Hagana hid revolvers in a secret cache (a “slik”) in the Aharonis’ bathroom. Hava’s mother, Ziporah, forewarned of a British raid, managed to get rid of them, throwing them into the open field, just in time. The frustrated British soldiers smashed the violin of Hava’s aunt to vent their fury.

Our tour also included a poignant plaque on the wall of the “Tunisian Synagogue.” It records the names of the victims of an air crash in November 1949. These are some of the “Oslo Children,” Jewish children immigrating to Israel from Tunisia via Norway. 

One plane carrying three counselors, four crew members, and 28 children crashed in transit near the Norwegian capital killing all aboard except for one child. 

The Norwegian king offered to adopt the survivor but the boy preferred to continue his journey to his new life in Israel.

As we stood near the plaque, tour guide Krechin summed up what we had seen and asked us what we thought had become of the dreams of the original Mekor Haim residents. 

Sometimes history hits close to home. We had heard of tales of heroism and disaster, dedication and sacrifice.

As I contemplated my reply, I realized that despite the wars – past and present – the neighborhood is growing. 

New buildings, much more luxurious than the original abodes, are attracting new residents – including immigrants from France and the US. Along the paths of Train Track Park, I had noted women in traditional Arab dress chatting as they strolled in the direction of Beit Safafa while a Jewish man in sports gear ran past. 

Someone had spray-painted the word “Hope” on a wall, not far from a poster of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose family lives in nearby Baka. Many homes are decorated with Israeli flags.

Before I could formulate an answer, a better response was heard. It’s the month of Elul, leading up to the Jewish New Year. Rising up to the Heavens, came the sound of the shofar, the distinctive blast of a ram’s horn. 

It is the sound of Jewish freedom in Jerusalem.