Talk:Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem)

In the diaspora
Shouldn't the "In the diaspora" section be replaced by a link to the much more thorough Ghetto article?--Doron 14:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Top importance?
I think this article should be 'demoted' to high importance. It's very important, but certainly not a core topic of Israel. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistent area figures
The lead gives the area of the Quarter as 45,000 sq. meters. At 1,000 sq. meters per dunam, this would be 45 dunams. A few paragraphs later the text gives 129 dunams as the area of the Quarter or a portion therof—nearly triple the figure in the lead. This is an inconsistency that should be looked into and corrected. In addition, the conversion given of 129 dunams as "about 22 acres" is incorrect. At the ratio of approx. 4.05 dunams per acre, 129 dunams is about 32 acres; going the other way, 22 acres is about 89 dunams. Which of the figures—if any—are correct? Looking for help from someone with a reliable source. Hertz1888 (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Second problem has been corrected. Hertz1888 (talk) 15:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Western Wall a rubbish dump.
I have added a 'citation needed' to this statement since I have two photos of the Jewish Quarter published in 1963. One of which shows the Western Wall with the pavement well swept and all the Hebrew writting, visible in pre 1948 photos, removed from the wall.Padres Hana (talk) 13:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the story is mistakenly linked to the Jordanian Occupation of East Jerusalem. wikipedia's entry for the Western Wall during the Ottoman Period 1517 - 1917 states R. Eliezer Nachman Puah, (ca. 1540), wrote during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520 - 1917) about the discovery of a custom to carry rubbish to a particular place. Excavations revealed the wall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_wall#Roman_Empire_and_rise_of_Christianity_100.E2.80.93500_CE

which is credited to the following book in footnote 19 on that page:

Vilnay, Zev (2003). "How the Wall was discovered". Legends of Palestine. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 61–2. ISBN 0-766141284

I'd like to replace the sentences at the end of the paragraph, "The Western Wall, one of the most sacred sites in Judaism, was used as a garbage dump. Tombstones were used as paveing stones," with the following sentence:

The Mount of Olives, mentioned in the New Testament as the place where Jesus wept, was the location of a road dug through the ancient Jewish cemetery, destroying graves from the First Temple Period, which were used in the construction of a hotel.

(Please scroll to the right to see the whole sentence.)

There is a description of the Mount of Olives and the Jewish graveyard on the wikipedia page for the Mount of Olives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_of_olives#History

My reasons for including this information is the connection with Christianity in a memorable passage from the Bible. Jesus is said to have wept on two occasions on the Mount of Olives: the resurrection of Lazarus and the vision of Jerusalem's destruction. Most people, not only Jews, will recognize defiling a cemetery and the use of tombstones to build a mere hotel as an injustice. Students of history will also note the antiquity of the area destroyed.

Because part of my sentence refers to the New Testament, on which I am no expert, I think we should take time for others to note this addition; but deleting the reference to the Western Wall as soon as it can be verified. Labellesanslebete (talk) 16:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

POV
The current text reads: "To enlarge and 'purify' the Jewish Quarter, thousands of Arabs were expelled." Not only is this POV speculation as to motives and a rather inflammatory statement, but its cited source is an anti-establishment tourism guide. Seriously? J21 (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Requested move
moved. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 03:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Jewish Quarter → Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem) — So that this current title can be a disambiguation page. Although not particuarly developed, Jewish Quarter (diaspora) is of similar notability to this article, and the expression "Jewish Quarter" can refer to a large number of city quarters around the world.

Analysis of the first 20 hits (excluding 2 hits from Wikipedia for this article and the diaspora article) if you google "Jewish Quarter":


 * Jewish Quarter, Jerusalem (this article) - 6 hits
 * Jewish Quarter, Prague (Josefov) - 6 hits
 * Jewish Quarter, Kraków (Kazimierz) - 2 hits
 * Jewish Quarter, Třebíč - 1 hit
 * Jewish Quarter, Rome (Roman Ghetto) - 1 hit
 * Jewish Quarter, Córdoba - 1 hit
 * Jewish Quarter, Paris (Pletzl, in the Le Marais district) - 1 hit

This hopefully shows that there is no one unambiguous primary meaning for the phrase "Jewish Quarter". YeshuaDavid •  Talk  • 17:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Support per nom. Chesdovi (talk) 20:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Support 76.66.197.30 (talk) 00:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Rich History
For a subject that claims to have had a rich history not much seems to have happened between the Romans and 1948. Room for improvement perhaps? Padres Hana (talk) 16:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The History section has "mostly owned by WAQFS" yet in Post War developments its "Jewish houses". I would like to drop the "Jewish". Padres Hana (talk) 23:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Revert war
I have restored this, added by an IP editor, deleted by Gilabrand as vandalism, restored by Nasseriya with an unfortunate edit summary (I know you are new but its best to comment on content not people's intellectual capabilities), deleted again by Hertz1888 and then restored by me. I don't see any problem with these changes. Those who have a problem should express it here so that we can come to an agreement on how to proceed with its incorporation ( or not ).  T i a m u t talk 22:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this page about the Moroccan quarter, or the Jewish Qtr? Chesdovi (talk) 00:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Shortly following the destruction of the Moroccan Quarter, its land were included in an expanded Jewish quarter, so its clearly relevant to this page (see p. 42 of Michael Dumper's The politics of sacred space: the old city of Jerusalem in the Middle East.  T i a m u t talk 08:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You should first reach consensus before making contested changes and not force it through edit war.Also removing Jordan Occupation is a clear POV push.--Shrike (talk) 05:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, people deleting the material should explain why here, so that we don't have. sterile revert war. Thanks for explaining one problm you have. The events discussed happened during the 1948 war and should be described as such, no?  T i a m u t talk 08:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No the WP:BURDEN is on those who insert the material that didn't gain consensus also there WP:BRD if the material it reverted is should be disucssed in talk.There are also events that were happening during 1960 so Jordan occupation is correct title.--Shrike (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * BRD is a guideline referring to bold, revert, discuss. After someone reverts, they should explain why.  T i a m u t talk 08:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Those who want to insert the change should explain.--Shrike (talk) 08:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * One of the sources is a tourist guide not reliable source about the historical events.The second source written by Michael Prior (theologian) not reliable source either on historical events.--Shrike (talk) 07:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If the problem is the sources, the one I linked to above has a whole chapter devoted to this issue (chapter 4). There are many others as well. I'll draft a new summary with better RS. okay?  T i a m u t talk 08:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Go ahead.Present you changes in talk.--Shrike (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I will. I will be using Dumper and this source, which indicates that ten months following its demolition, the Moroccan quarter was incorporated into the newly expanded Jewish Quarter.  T i a m u t talk 08:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Please present the text in talk first--Shrike (talk) 08:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The expulsion of 6000 Palestinians must be included
Thisscholarly source,, already cited a few times in the article, also mentions the fact that around 6000 Palestinian have been evicted and frankly, exiled from their homes. The source is quite thorough, so I don't see why there was an attempt to remove it, with only the reason "contradictory information cited to the same source" without explaining the reasoning behind doing this, nor what contradictory information was in question, nor why it's not okay to cite from the same source.

I think the expulsion is a necessary inclusion for this article, as the uprooting of 6000 inhabitants to make way for new ones seems like a rather significant part of the documented history of this neighborhood. There is no reason why it can't be incorporated more thoroughly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Solntsa90 (talk • contribs) 08:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

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1931 census
The population of Haret el Yahud, according to the census, consisted of: 1,119 Muslims (665 males, 526 females), 3,844 Jews (1,830 males, 2,014 females) and 35 Christians (21 males, 14 females). Total 5,070 people (2,516 males and 2,554 females).--ארינמל (talk) 12:02, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Reliability of government spokespeople
There is a claimed quotation from Abdullah Tall here, but no reliable source for it. The claims made by Israel before the UN are just claims and do not have any probative value. You can look at the source and see that it is propagandistic and starts with a lie disproved by historians (that Jordan was the first to attack the Old City in 1948). Regarding the "quotation", a proper examination would require (a) were these words written?, (b) is the translation fair?, (c) do the five deletions (...) change the picture? Ask yourself: if the only source we have for something nasty written by an Israeli commander is the public assertion of an Arab country, would we accept it as reliable? Honestly, anyone who can't see this is an open-and-shut case doesn't belong here. Zerotalk 18:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * An official statement of a country to the UN is a reliable source, IMHO. Moreover, the source here is actually "Colonel Abdullah el-Tal, one-time commandant of the Jordanian Arab Legion", who is not Israeli. Debresser (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Two false statements in two sentences. Amazing. Zerotalk 18:14, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But, hey, if "an official statement of a country to the UN is a reliable source", I have a large file of statements made by Syria, Egypt and Iran to the UN that I can now push as facts into articles and you won't complain. Great, now I can throw away my high sourcing standards because you said it is ok. But you know what you are doing and you know that I know. It is quite impossible that this will stand. Zerotalk 18:37, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Debresser, the problem is that Israeli spokespersons/leaders have a history of misquoting Arab leaders, see eg. Maximos_V_Hakim. If A and B is at war, it is rather gullible (to say the least) to take B's word about A (or vice versa) as "the truth". I thought this was just common sense? Huldra (talk) 21:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello, Huldra. Thanks for avoiding the sarcasm. I mean that.
 * I see no reason why an official document would misquote people. In any case, regarding it a priori as unreliable is definitely not supported by historical facts or Wikipedia guidelines.
 * Regarding Maximos_V_Hakim. Perhaps Hakim's 1961 statement was a lie...? I can image quite some scenarios in which that would be the case. Debresser (talk) 00:43, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem is that, eg, Israeli spokespeople for years talked about how Arab broadcast were urging the Palestinian Arabs to flee in 1948. No such broadcasts have ever been documented. (See Blaming_the_Victims) Or Benny Morris, eg, cites memos from IDF members, bragging about how they had convinced the UN people that no Israeli soldiers were present during the Eilabun massacre. Under these circumstances it is rather absurd to take Israeli official statement about the 1948 war as "facts". Huldra (talk) 21:36, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are talking about a few specific cases. That still doesn't mean that any official statement is unreliable. If that were true, we could disregard most of the statements of warring countries and scrap a nice part of a lot of Wikipedia articles. Debresser (talk) 22:34, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If there are other places where a government is used as a reliable source for anything other than the views of that government then those too are misuses. A government spokesman is not a reliable source for anything other than the views of that government, full stop.  nableezy  - 16:26, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Israeli official statement is reliable as to what is the Israeli position, just like the PNA's official statement is reliable as to what is the PNA position. But I don't think we should quote a PNA official statement as to what is the Israeli position, do you? If not, the why the opposite? (What is good for the goose, is good for the gander, etc,) Huldra (talk) 20:29, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That would be fine with me. As it is, the statement specifies who aid it, and makes apparent any possible POV. I have no problem with an addition representing other points of view, if such exist, something like "According to King Feisal the Jewish citizens left the Jewish Quarter of their own accord, and in order to prevent looting by the English, the Jordanian forces peacefully marched in." Debresser (talk) 15:53, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
 * And even if there were some cases of deliberate misquoting, does that establish a rule that all official information is false? Or unreliable? Do we have a way to decide how much lies make an official source unreliable? Do you have any idea how many lies are told in Russia to cover up government crimes, etc.? May I remind you of Chernobyl_disaster, e.g. So now all Russian official information is unreliable? Debresser (talk) 00:46, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So, the source is a 1968 Israeli government document that purports to translate, using frequent ellipses, a section of a memoir written by Abdullah Tal and published in Cairo in 1959. It seems to me that both the Israeli government statement and the memoir of a combatant are primary sources. If this description of the siege of the Jewish Quarter has been discussed by competent historians in secondary sources, then perhaps it might be worthy of mention. Otherwise, I think that it should be excluded. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  01:29, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

A government foreign ministry (or UN mission) is not a reliable source for anything other than the views of that government. We've gone through the same argument several times. Eg here.  nableezy  - 02:21, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * We should be wary of such blanket statements, as reliability varies among governments. However, I have replaced the source used with a 2018 book published by Wiley (publisher) which I trust should allay concerns here. Icewhiz (talk) 05:18, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Erm, Balfour sources the quote in his book (which I have had the misfortune to read) to, surprise, surprise:

"Yosef Tekoah (Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations) quoting Abdullah el‐Tall. This was in a UN session in which Israel was condemned by Jordan. Letter dated 5 March 1968 from the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary‐General https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/A8138AD15B0FCAC3 85256B920059DEBF Accessed July 16, 2018." Selfstudier (talk) 09:59, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I was just about to write the same. The problem is that every statement made by Israel is copy-pasted without checking by multiple obliging authors. If this means that all statements made by Israel have to be accepted here as fact, our procedures are badly broken.  The minimum we should demand is a reliable secondary source whose author has visited the memoir and verified that the "quotation" is a fair report. An author who merely quotes the Israeli statement as fact is demonstrating their own unreliability. In this example, those five ellipses are like five big red flags that cry "beware". They remind me of the "quotations" in "From Time Immemorial". Zerotalk 10:32, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * We have a scholar, in a reliable publisher Wiley (publisher), using this. We should assume that they had performed the required vetting. Icewhiz (talk) 10:52, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with Wiley. All that has been done is to replace a suspect source with the exact same source, once removed.Selfstudier (talk) 11:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Then problem solved. Using what can be seen as a WP:PRIMARY source is challenge-able. Balfour@Wiley is a reputable secondary source, one that we generally trust to appropriately vet and verify their own sources. I'll note that in the body of their text they attribute this directly to Abdullah el-Tal's memoirs, not seeing fit to mention the citation. Icewhiz (talk) 11:22, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's also in Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.Selfstudier (talk) 11:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It is a wiki-myth that publishers verify claims made in the books they publish. It simply isn't true. The most that happens is that they give it to someone to read with a very short time frame. I have extensive personal experiences of this. And, as I said, since the book has just quoted verbatim from an unreliable source we can see that it is an unreliable book. And this isn't the only example in the book either. Nor is the book a secondary academic source, since the most "primary" of the sources it draws on are UN documents on the web. It is a tertiary source. This is not surprising, since Alan Balfour is not a Middle-East scholar, nor is he trained as a historian. He's an architect. Geez. Zerotalk 13:18, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Architects study spaces of conflict, and in this case our article is on an urban neighborhood - within his zone of expertise. Furthermore, Balfour has written on spaces of conflict and their history throughout his career, e.g. Balfour, Alan. Berlin. The politics of order 1737-1989. 1990. has been cited 101 per google scholar. The book is a secondary source and is academic. Calling it "an unreliable book" since an editor does not like its citations... Well. That's an interesting one. Icewhiz (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Architects study spaces of conflict", you are in good form today and we should learn from you. If anyone ever challenges a book about this matter written by a plumber we can counter "plumbers study connections and pressures and our article is all about connections between opposing forces". The part about a book on one topic being reliable because the author's book on a different topic is cited is pretty clever too. Zerotalk 17:22, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Do plumbers publish in a peer reviewed setting? Ignoring hydrodynamics (practitioners, oddly, generally reject the plumber adjective), it seems they mostly do not. As for "spaces of conflict" - the term is used in the literature - e.g. see this upcoming conference in October. As for "different topic" - I presented a book on the same topic area (intersection of conflict and architecture) in a different setting (Jerusalem vs. Berlin) by the same author. Icewhiz (talk) 17:41, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The book on Berlin is perfectly relevant for an architect to write. No wonder it is cited. It isn't remotely similar to this one. And even if this book has some material relevant to architecture, you know, I know, and everyone here knows that the "quotation" was copied from the Israeli statement. Balfour is open about it. Yet, instead of working to preserve the integrity of the article by showing the real source of material we post, you make up arguments for hiding that information. Why don't you show us the Arabic text of Tal's statement? What is in the ellipses? Zerotalk 18:00, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Apart from the above, I have in addition tagged the whole section as non neutral pending addition of new material/sources.Selfstudier (talk) 14:42, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

See the memoirs here

do you have time to take a look?

Onceinawhile (talk) 19:36, 25 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I have regretted for many years now that I don't speak Arabic. By the way, Zero, you may be right that not all writers check their sources. But unless proven otherwise, Wikipedia guidelines allow us to assume that reliable source do check their sources. If we would go by what you say, there would be no end to what sources can be discarded as potentially unreliable. Debresser (talk) 20:57, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There is a section headed 1948, the majority of which is devoted to something an Israeli diplo said in 1968 while commenting on complaints being made about Israel at the UN about events in 1948 recorded in someone's memoirs written 19 years after the event. Ridiculous. As for Balfour, my google searching turns up Balfour as the only "scholar" willing to treat this material as worthy of inclusion in a book, most of the rest would appear to come from Wikipedia itself and then quoted and requoted by the usual suspects.Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, "the more controversial subject → the more scrupulous sourcing". I think we can accept not brilliant sourcing of more uncontroversial subjects, but on this subject I think we are in our right to demand first class sources. And books by architects are not even close to becoming "first class source" on the 1948 war; I thought that would be obvious? Huldra (talk) 21:36, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That is going to be difficult to go through, it would take reading the whole damn thing tbh. I would say using the Wiley source is fine for what it actually is, a report from an Israeli spokesman attributing some quote to another person. It is not reliable for saying that el-Tal said anything because it very clearly sources it to Yosef Tekoah, not to el-Tal (and Icewhiz maybe note the source saying el-Tal is quoted as saying, not that el-Tal said).  nableezy  - 03:40, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * And that spaces of conflict line is a special type of silly lol. Jesus.  nableezy  - 03:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Your personal opinions on the academic field of spaces of conflict and architects, while interesting, carry little weight. Wiley is generally regarded as reliable on Wikipedia - falling under "well-regarded academic presses" in WP:SCHOLARSHIP. The book by Wiley does not attribute, in-text, to Tekoah but rather attributes directly to el-Tal. Icewhiz (talk) 04:46, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Icewhiz, to me it looks as if you think you are dealing with a bunch of editors who are about 19, still living in mom and dads home, doesn't know what an architect is, never having hired one, or worked with one,.....well, if so: you are totally wrong. The architects I have hired have actually been experts on older history (as I live in a house built before the US was an independent country): they would know, say, the difference in the style of Louis XIV and Louis XVI...but they wouldn't  know a thing about Louis XIV or Louis XVI...not to  mention about the "field of spaces of conflict". Again, for anyone who has ever dealt with an architect (or two), to think that they have any expertise in an area like the 1948 War is just plain laughable. When you make such contrived arguments like this, I can no longer  take you seriously. Huldra (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * lol, my personal opinions on field of spaces of conflict and architects? Try harder. Maybe even google the word architect, where you can see we even have an article on the topic. Where it, unlike the bs above, defines it as a person who plans, designs and reviews the construction of buildings. Not spaces of conflict whatever that is supposed to mean. The book, in the very next paragraph, says in another context he is quoted, and the book cites Tekoah. You dont have to pretend we are all idiots here and do not understand something as basic as what the word architect means. We can use Balfour for what he actually supports, which is Tekoah says el-Tal wrote this.  nableezy  - 13:39, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Proof that Balfour didn't check the memoir is provided by himself. Immediately after this copy-pasted "quotation" he writes "In another context he is quoted as saying.." and repeats something from a book that cites it to the same section of the same memoir. So it was the same context, not another context. I'm guessing that he didn't realise that the book his second source named in Arabic is the same book as his first source named in English. Zerotalk 13:30, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Those 35 houses of worship
As is now in the article, Israeli's letter to the UN is the source of the oft-repeated claim "all but one of the thirty-five Jewish houses of worship in the Old City were destroyed". I've often wondered how so many synagogues could exist in such a small area, so I searched quite hard for any real evidence (which would be a pre-1948 mention or a later explicit list). I bought a book devoted to synagogues in the Old City, and it wasn't there. I looked at the Annex to Israel's letter, which is supposed to have details, and it wasn't there. I looked at a large number of maps and found a Hebrew map ca. 1947 that marks (from memory) a bit more than a dozen synagogues. I found that even more extreme claims had been made officially, such as 56 out of 58 synagogues. I wonder if "houses of worship" is a choice of words that encompasses places like yeshivot as well as synagogues. Can anyone find something more substantial? Anyway, this 35 claim has to be attributed. Also I don't find Robert Fisk particularly reliable even though his writing on Lebanon is massively impressive. Zerotalk 08:16, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It actually isn't that unlikely - if you compare this to similar Orthodox oriented places (e.g. some areas in Safed, or modern Ultra Orthodox concentrations) - you can easily have a synagogue per 20-100 adult shul goers (this is quite different from what you have in the US, UK, or Australia where many shuls are "mega shuls" with adjoining community centers (and even Jewish day schools) - with hundreds and even thousands of members).. However this can include very small places as well as makeshift places (e.g. kindergarten than doubles up as a synagogue). It does need to be attribued if sourced to a letter. JVL does repeat the claim - . Icewhiz (talk) 10:47, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * And - this Indiana University Press by Tessler book attributes this to a clergyman and scholar in the city. Icewhiz (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That Balfour fellow doesn't even try to find sources, takes the two claims and says, without qualification, that "between 35 and 58 synagogues – some hundreds of years old – were demolished, their contents looted."(unsourced). "Between 35 and 58", must be an architect thing.Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I was citing Tessler page 329 above. If Balfour has this as well (and architecture scholars are the foremost experts on buildings - and published, lest we forget, by Wiley) - then we have two RSes. The actual gap between 35 and 58 is rather slim - a bit like "who is a Jew?", "what is a Synagogue?" (goes down as low as any place 10 or more Jews semi-regularly meet to pray) has some variance. Icewhiz (talk) 12:58, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Dore Gold telling the UNSC in 1998 "Fifty-eight synagogues, including the 700 year old Hurva Synagogue, were destroyed and desecrated". That Hurva place just gets older every time they tell it. Didn't bother with 56 out of 58, just rounded it up.Selfstudier (talk) 17:30, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Architecture scholars know bugger all about blowing up buildings; Icewhiz you've had your fun misrepresenting architects, please give it a break. And the huge difference between 35 and 58 proves only that both are unreliable. You are of course correct that synagogues can be very small, even just one room, but we are expected to believe that the Jordanians would destroy such places just when they needed to house the Palestinians expelled from West Jerusalem. It doesn't wash. I'm disappointed with Tessler for citing Oesterreicher's polemic "Jerusalem the Free", which starts with a page-long attack on the Quran and concludes "Jerusalem is Jewish". Oesterreicher just quotes the official claims and doesn't pretend to be a witness, so that's not independent evidence. Zerotalk 21:38, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't you believe so? Such believe is support by their deeds past and present. Debresser (talk) 22:35, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I represented Balfour accurately in the section above - please strike your incorrect assertion of "misrepresenting" which is a personal attack. You seem to have a dislike of the field of architecture, however this is published by a reputable publisher. Architecture scholars surely are the foremost experts on buildings in the modern era. Your disappointment with another RS (not an architect) - Tessler - is also of little weight. Icewhiz (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , I suggest removing Gold and putting numbers given by the eyewitness as per your source --Shrike (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I found the Chief Rabbi Herzog on record at the time in 1948 (I suppose he might well know how many synagogues there were) as saying that there were 27 synagogues in the Old City and that as of that time, 22 had been destroyed.Selfstudier (talk) 13:02, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , If various WP:RS say different things we should put all of them or give a range per WP:NPOV --Shrike (talk) 13:29, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * As you can perhaps see, I have been putting in all of them.Selfstudier (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Another issue is the difference between destruction during the fighting and destruction afterwards. Lots of sources say that the JQ suffered extreme damage during the battle (e.g. NYT May 28: "Most of the Jewish quarter is now a complete ruin.") But Israeli propaganda wants us to believe that all the synagogues were destroyed afterwards. Zerotalk 14:10, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , If you find a source that make such distinction go ahead and add it to the article otherwise we don't want to parrot Jordanian propaganda Shrike (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I assume we do not want to parrot propaganda, full stop, regardless of its source.Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Now I have a hi-res 1945 map of the Old Ciy that shows the outline of every building and identifies many of them. It shows 14 synagogues, 11 mosques, 16 schools, and quite a lot of churches, monasteries, etc.. I don't see how to include this source in the article within the rules, but I mention it to indicate why I still believe that the 35/58 claims are just propaganda. Perhaps someone out there has actually investigated properly, but if so I can't find it. Zerotalk 03:28, 5 October 2019 (UTC) I also found a 1936 compilation of names of institutions in the Old City (for buildings as well as markets, roads, etc). There are 17 buildings indicated as synagogues. Zerotalk 03:54, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

A DEFINITION is the foremost requirement (see size, property, etc. stats)
Khalidi's "original quarter" (means what?) covers 16,200-20,250 m2 ("four or five acres"), Kollek's 116,000 m2, so 6-7 times as much (!!!): as so often in I/P in particular and Wiki in general, shifting the definition makes statements become useless at best and biased & misleading at worst, while comparisons become impossible to make.

W/o a proper definition, the conflict-driven part of the edits become useless garbage. 'Proper' means: evolution, current state, diverging opinions, with most weight given to mainstream academic opinion. Arminden (talk) 09:19, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The definition of, say, Haret el-Yahud has to be fluid according to the period covered.
 * I wuz gunna redo this yonks ago, but as usually I got distracted (or feeble/senile). The problem is sources that just take names on maps as an indicator of what is Armenian/Jewish/Christian or Moslem, as if history were static, versus the dazzlingly intricate slippage over a thousand years between named ethnic/tribal quarters and who actually from period to period, populated them. It gets even messier from the 1840s, when both Christian redevelopment and Jewish influxes extended into other quarters, the Jews into the Armenian quarter (Mind you, a large part of these 'rented' from Arabs, so you have to distinguish property ownership from ethnic inhabitants. I believe a lot of the post 67 'Jewish quarter' ignored the diff between property ownership and renting community. If Jews were somewhere in dense numbers, it was redefined, unless I'm mistaken, as part of the Jewish Quarter) The big expansion went on outside the traditional Old Quarters, only then to see the larger Jerusalem redefined. Etc etc. If you want to take this on, and haven't yet read it, chuck a slow shufti over the details in Adar Arnon's  'The Quarters of Jerusalem in the Ottoman Period,'  Middle Eastern Studies    28: 1 January 1992 pp.1-65 Nishidani (talk) 15:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Mentioning mosques in lead
I was going to undo this revert by on the grounds that if it is OK to include destroyed synagogues then it surely must be OK to mention closed mosques. Still, before I do so, anyone know has the Sidna Omar mosque actually been reopened? Selfstudier (talk) 10:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for highlighting this. I have reverted it. I don’t know whether they have been reopened. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Synagogues in 1948
The extent and cause of the damage to synagogues in the 1948 war is disputed. See for example:


 * David Hirst, “Rush to Annexation: Israel in Jerusalem.” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, 1974, pp. 3–31: "The Israelis lost no time in demonstrating that. In the Jewish Quarter, 34 synagogues - or 58, for the Israeli propagandists gaily alternate between these two equally definitive figures - were destroyed or desecrated by the Arabs... In Jerusalem, the Israelis frequently appear to work on the principle that the bigger the lie the better. They count - and with considerable success - on the partisan gullibility of supposedly responsible newsmen to substantiate the lie in the outside world. A little research would expose the glibly disseminated "facts" about desecration in the Jewish Quarter for the brazen nonsense they are. For one thing there were only three or four structural synagogues proper. The rest were no more than rooms set aside for prayer, in the devout Jewish fashion, in houses that were mainly rented from Arabs. For another the real damage was brought about by the Jews themselves. As Glubb Pasha, the commander of the Arab Legion, recalls, Jewish snipers used synagogues, with their domes that overlooked the whole quarter, as strongholds in the war of 1948. The local Arab commander tried to spare them; he warned the snipers that unless they desisted his men would return their fire; after the passage of forty-eight hours without a reply, they did so."

See also the discussion from 2021 at Talk:Islamization of Jerusalem.

I have removed the sentence added earlier today by Tombah: Under Jordanian rule, much of the quarter, including its multiple synagogues, was destroyed by the authorities. This is not even a dispute – in the post-war Jordanian rule period I am not aware of any such destruction being claimed.

Onceinawhile (talk) 20:57, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 July 2023
Change population from 2,000 to 3,000. 2,000 is unsourced. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/demography-in-jerusalems-old-city-319724 says 3,000. 71.230.163.181 (talk) 16:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Lightoil (talk) 04:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)