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Malcha neighborhood – the 1930s.
More of once upon a time in Jerusalem.
Almost everyone knows the Malcha neighborhood, the shopping mall, Teddy Stadium or the Arena, but in Jerusalem as in Jerusalem, every building tells a story, and every stone rolls from the distant past to the present day.
On the original Malcha neighborhood there is evidence from the 6th century ACE of a Jewish settlement and Georgians who came from afar settled next to it and cultivated rose gardens there.
Later, in the 12th century, in addition to the limited Jewish settlement, Georgian monks also lived in the village who served in the monastery in the Valley of the Cross and cultivated the surrounding agricultural lands.
Later, in the 16th century, the Arab dervish clan took over the village and the settlements in the area.
With the return of the Jewish settlement to Israel, the land in the area was bought by the land dealer and Rabbi Nissim Elisher, and the ownership of the land returned to Jewish hands.
The Arab residents of the “Al Malcha” neighborhood (The Salty One) participated in the attack on the nearby Beit Vagan neighborhood in the events of 1929, and due to the strategic location of the village, the place became a base for the Arab fighters who came from the area to launch offensive operations against the nearby Jewish neighborhoods, joined by forces from Yemen and Jordan, long before the attack The Houthis revealed their ugliness to the world.
After the first lull in the war of liberation, it was decided to occupy the village, and on July 14, 1948, the village was occupied by Hatzel (IZ”L) fighters.
The next day, the Arabs responded with a counterattack, in which 18 of the Hatzel (IZ”L) fighters who captured the village the day before were killed.
After the occupation of the village, the Arab forces retreated and in memory of the fallen, a tombstone was erected on Golomb Street with the names of the fallen in the village engraved on it.
The Arab residents of the village and the other villages in the area abandoned their homes during the War of Independence.
In June 1949, the abandoned houses were inhabited by immigrants from Tunis, Kurdistan, and Morocco, and the village was defined as a workers’ settlement, and received a supply of animals and agricultural equipment from the agency.
Later, the agency claimed that the place would soon become an urban settlement and took back the agricultural equipment.
The living conditions in the neighborhood were difficult and the residents sold the goats they had and started working as employees and freelancers.
Only in 1953 was the village officially annexed to Jerusalem and the village was connected to the electricity grid only in 1959.
After the Six Day War, artists and the people of Jerusalem’s bohemia began to show interest in the village, in its intact Arab houses and in the narrow and magical alleys, and the process of restoring and renovating the houses began there.
The great transformation of the neighborhood took place in the 1980s during the development and expansion of the old neighborhood into a neighborhood of villas and houses, the sports stadium was built and later Malcha Mall, the Technological Park as well as the old train station.
This is OUR Jerusalem-
In the Rose Gardens, a shopping mall was built. The carts of the Georgian monks on their way to the monastery in the Crossroad Valley were replaced by the luxury cars of the wealthy of Jerusalem. The Sport Stadium was built where previously snipers took positions to shoot at the neighborhood of Beit Ve’Gan, where Adi Gordon was a sniper, and near the village the Technological Park was established, which centers the activities of high-tech and technological companies a product made in Israel including banks and academia.
And if the 18 Hatzel (IZ”L) fighters who fell for the occupation of the village had seen the transformations on the spot, exactly 76 years later…
Zionism, settlement and renewal of the Zionist movement on the ruins of the village that was founded already in the 6th century ACE.
Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom far and near and for the return of the hostages to their homes safe and sound together with all the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces.
the photographer is unknown to me. |
