15 Families Enter New Jewish Homes in Silwan

A group of fifteen Israeli families last Thursday entered new compounds in the Silwan (Kfar HaShiloach  neighborhood in Yerushalayim, situated below the walls of the Old City.

According to sources in the Jewish community in eastern Yerushalayim, the Ateret Cohanim Association is the one that purchased the four new housing complexes in the village.

These families entering the new complexes are joining the 22 existing Jewish families in the Yemenite neighborhood, and another 100 families in the adjacent neighborhood of Maale HaZeitim.

The association’s activities near Har Hazeisim and the City of David began in 1996 with the establishment of the Maale HaZeitim neighborhood and continued in 2004 when the association started the establishment of a community in the Yemenite Village, and now the newly acquired complexes form a sequence starting at the Yemenite Village towards Maale HaZeitim.

The Jewish presence in the area dates back to 1881 when Yemenite Jews came to Yerushalayim and established a community, and at its height, ran five shuls and numbered some 160 families.

Encountering Arab violence and attacks for several years, the community was forced to abandon the area in 1939, and the shuls were desecrated by Muslim rioters.

Jews began to return to the area some two decades ago, reacquiring one property after another.