Since 1967, there has been an ongoing concretization of the current quarter system in Jerusalem. Official maps can be found across the Old City showing an official delineation between the “four quarters.” Of course this bolsters the false notion that the current size of the Jewish Quarter is historically accurate.

It is not.

Up until the 1929 Arab riots Jews lives across what is today known as the “Muslim Quarter.” Main street for the Jews up until the riots was known as Hebron Street, which is now Khaladia Street. Jews also lived throughout today’s “Christian Quarter”, making up many of the shop keepers until the riots.

So why are the boundaries of the present Jewish Quarter so small?

Today’s Jewish quarter is the last area the Jewish population retreated to in the face of deadly riots and pogroms in the first half of the 20th Century and was the final place they defended against the onslaught of the Jordanian Legions.

In order for the Jewish people to have an authentic and honest connection to ancestral homeland they need a very real historical account of Jerusalem and that includes the very uncomfortable truth that most of the “Christian and Muslim Quarters” were in fact Jewish not so long ago.