Another “Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem”, and this time – the Jerusalem Airport.
After conquering the land, the British decided to build an airport in the Jerusalem area.
Several options were considered, including a field in Allenby Camp in Talpiot.
The residents of Talpiot strongly opposed the plan, thus sparing us the option of eating hummus and then boarding a flight, though we avoided traffic and parking problems.
After a thorough examination, land was found belonging to a workers’ village called Atarot, near the then Arab village of Qalandiya.
The residents of Atarot also opposed the idea of waking up in the morning facing runways, and turned to the landowners who were then the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Colonization Association.
The negotiations became complicated and prolonged, and a lukewarm compromise was reached, so that in 1942 part of the village land was expropriated – a flat plot of land near the then Jerusalem-Ramallah road – and the airport was built.
Due to the constraint in choosing the location, a relatively short runway was built, which immediately disqualified the arrival of large, heavy passenger aircraft that required longer acceleration and takeoff runways.
The airport was not used for regular flights but mainly to transport the British senior administration in the Land of Israel.
On March 8, 1927, a special ceremony was held at the airport, attended by dignitaries of the country at that time – the High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel, heads of the Jewish National Committee, representatives of the Jerusalem Municipality and the Supreme Muslim Council, who were probably already considering the possibility of turning planes into flying bombs.
At the dignified ceremony, one of the planes was named “Kiryat Jerusalem” and served as a passenger plane operating commercially between London and the British colony in India, stopping over in Israel.
During the 1929 riots, the field was used to receive reinforcements of British soldiers stationed in Egypt who arrived by emergency flight from Cairo after the massacre had already ended.
In 1937 the airport also expanded for civilian flights.
As part of the rapid evacuation of the British Mandate from the Land of Israel and the departure of the Mandate’s senior officials from Jerusalem, the then High Commissioner flew from Atarot to the port of Haifa, where he boarded a ship to England and bid farewell to British rule in the country with a cup of tea on the deck.
Immediately after him came a contingent of the Arab Legion who demolished the airport and the nearby Atarot village whose residents had fled in advance.
After the War of Independence, the airport came under Jordanian rule.
The Jordanians demolished the remains of Atarot village and its cemetery in order to enlarge the area.
18 of the deceased who were buried in the cemetery were removed from their graves, most of them, and the rest of the deceased were collected in a mass grave near Atarot after their graves were desecrated and their bones scattered over a large area.
In the mid-1960s, foreign tourism began from Arab countries and Europe to reach East Jerusalem.
That year about 100,000 passengers passed through the airport flying to and from Arab countries.
After the Six Day War and the reconquest of the area by the Harel Brigade, the Israeli government and then Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek decided to include the airport within Jerusalem’s territory and make it the city’s official airport.
The airport was renovated, expanded, the runway was paved with asphalt and began serving as a stopover and passenger terminal on the Dov-Eilat line.
In July 1974, an El Al Boeing landed at the airport for the first time arriving from Frankfurt.
Due to the sensitive location of the airport in territories regained in the Six Day War, the plane from Frankfurt first landed at Ben Gurion Airport and continued without disembarking passengers to Atarot Airport, where it was welcomed by then Minister of Transport, Gad Ya’acobi, and the political correctness of the time, which essentially remains to this day.
Attempts by El Al to establish a flight route to the United States encountered a veto by the U.S. State Department.
Jerusalem Airport operated at low capacity until 1998, when flights were discontinued due to lack of economic viability.
In 2000, the Second Intifada broke out and the airport was closed for security reasons due to excessive proximity to our dear neighbors.
The Jerusalem Airport closed permanently and no longer exists.
In November 2021, the Jerusalem Municipality approved the establishment of a new 9,000-unit neighborhood and areas for employment and commerce.
Thus passes the glory of the world –
A new airport for the Holy City, which flew British dignitaries and soldiers,
An airport that did not arise in the Talpiot neighborhood and would have disturbed the rest of the neighbors,
Connection to India on curry-scented planes, a horde of Arabs destroying the airport, Atarot village and cemetery, a Jewish force rebuilding, a horde of Arabs destroying again and permanently shutting down the airport, and the resurrection of the area in the form of a new neighborhood that will arise on the ruins of the old airport, and its residents will not awaken to the roar of departing planes.
Shabbat Shalom to those near and far from Jerusalem, and good tidings for all Israel.
Photographer unknown
