Another Building in the Yemenite Village

Previous related posts:

Part 1: The Priestly Blessing
Part 2: Walking Through The City of David
Part 3: Into Silwan
Part 4: Homes in the Yemenite Village

And now, on to the second, completed structure. This building, about seven stories, was first completed by an Arab contractor, who then sold the building to the Jews. The contractor then disappeared into Ateret Cohanim's "witness protection" program to prevent retaliation from his neighbors.

The new structure, from the bottom looking up.

Photographs of the desecrated shul (synagogue) after the 1929 riots

The new shul

The stairwell is adorned with a photograph of Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah, who was the major spiritual impetus behind the settlement movement after the Six Day War in 1967. Also a ghostly reflection of me taking the photograph.

There's a playground on the roof. While Jews can go shopping and talk to their neighbors, it's still too dangerous to let the children play in the streets.

A better view of the old city from the roof

Me with one of Steven's boys

Our guide and his kid

And now, to walk back to the Old City of Jerusalem.

Above the widnshield of this car, a dome peeks over the parapet of the rooftop. This is the original Yemenite shul. Ateret Cohanim has its eye on this building.

On the way back, our guide points out the original Yemenite shul, today occupied by Arab "absentee tenants." Our guide asks us not to point, to avoid offending the neighbors, who also know what this building was.

Yours truly on the streets of Silwan. Here I'm standing in front of some Al-Aksa decorations on someone's walls.

It' a busy day. Open-air zoomobiles bring tourists through Silwan.

A ground-level view of the excavations in the City of David.