Sheikh Jarrah, neighborhood in Jerusalem located north of the Old City. Since coming under de facto Israeli control during the Six-Day War in 1967, the neighborhood has been the center of a high-profile dispute over land ownership. The controversy heightened in 2009 when Palestinian families were evicted from the neighborhood for the first time and were replaced by Jewish families.

Location and history

The neighborhood is situated around the tombs of Simeon the Just (Shimon HaTzadik), a Jewish religious leader from the 3rd century bce who was associated with the Kneset ha-Gedola (Great Assembly), and Ḥussam al-Dīn al-Jarrāḥī, an emir of the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th century ce. The latter tomb is located along Nablus Road, which was historically a part of the main route between Jerusalem and Damascus. In premodern times vineyards (Arabic kurūm; singular karm) and summer homes (quṣūr) for Jerusalemite notables occupied much of the area.

The area’s modern settlement followed the Ottoman Land Law of 1858, a land reform law that secured the ownership and development of private property (see Tanzimat). One of Jerusalem’s most prolific land merchants of the time, Rabāḥ al-Ḥusaynī, built a luxury villa (now the American Colony Hotel) on property adjacent to Jarrāḥī’s tomb about 1870. In 1882 Salīm al-Ḥusaynī, the mayor of Jerusalem (1879–97) and Rabāḥ’s brother, followed suit and built his own villa next door. Other members of the Ḥusaynī (Husseini) family also began building modern homes in the area, as did members of other prominent families, such as the Nashāshībīs. Meanwhile, in 1876 two Jewish trusts purchased land around the tomb of Simeon the Just. Beginning in the 1890s, the trusts built housing for religious scholars and Jewish migrants from Yemen, Syria, and Georgia.

Controversy over land ownership

The first Arab-Israeli war (1948–49) transformed the landscape of Jerusalem altogether. The area was split between Jewish control in the west and Arab control in the east. The Jews living in Sheikh Jarrah, which was located in the eastern section, were forced to leave. After Jordan annexed the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1950, it settled in Sheikh Jarrah several Palestinian families that had been forced out of Israel. With the assistance of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), their housing units were constructed on empty land that had been owned by one of the Jewish trusts before the war.

During the Six-Day War (1967) Sheikh Jarrah came under the de facto control of Israel after its forces occupied East Jerusalem. In 1972 the Jewish trusts laid legal claim to the land they had left behind in Sheikh Jarrah, but their documentation did not satisfy the legal requirements to complete the registration process. The trusts attempted to assert ownership nonetheless, and in 1982 they filed a lawsuit to evict many of the Palestinian residents. The residents’ attorney concluded a procedural agreement, without the residents’ full knowledge or consent, that accepted their status as tenants. That procedural agreement served as the legal basis for subsequent attempts at eviction.

Litigation continued through the remainder of the century, but several decades passed before any evictions were carried out. In 2003 the trusts sold their property rights to Nahalat Shimon International, an organization based in the United States that was created to facilitate moving Jewish Israelis into Sheikh Jarrah. In 2008 the organization stepped up legal efforts to evict Palestinian residents, and in 2009 it effected the eviction of two families and on the same day it moved in new Jewish residents. In May 2021 an imminent court ruling on the eviction of four families from Sheikh Jarrah sparked a major escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians that left hundreds of people dead. The ruling was delayed, and in March 2022 Israel’s Supreme Court for the first time ordered the Ministry of Justice to sort out the legal ownership of the land.

Are you a student?
Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.
Adam Zeidan
Hebrew:
Yerushalayim
Arabic:
Bayt al-Muqaddas or Al-Quds

Jerusalem, ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly under the rule of the State of Israel.

Long an object of veneration and conflict, the holy city of Jerusalem has been governed, both as a provincial town and a national capital, by an extended series of dynasties and states. In the early 20th century the city, along with all of historic Palestine, became the focus of the competing national aspirations of Zionists and Palestinian Arabs. This struggle often erupted in violence. The United Nations (UN) attempted to declare the city a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”)—and, thus, avert further conflict—but the first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, left Jerusalem divided into Israeli (west Jerusalem) and Jordanian (East Jerusalem) sectors. The following year Israel declared the city its capital. During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jewish state occupied the Jordanian sector and shortly thereafter expanded the city boundaries—thereby annexing some areas of the West Bank previously held by the Jordanians—and extended its jurisdiction over the unified city. Although Israel’s actions were repeatedly condemned by the UN and other bodies, Israel reaffirmed Jerusalem’s standing as its capital by promulgating a special law in 1980. The status of the city remained a central issue in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, who claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Area 49 square miles (126 square km). Pop. (2022 est.) 981,711. (For more information on the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, see Israel; Palestine; West Bank; Arab-Israeli wars.)

Character of the city

Jerusalem plays a central role in the spiritual and emotional perspective of the three major monotheistic religions. For Jews throughout the world it is the focus of age-old yearnings, a living proof of ancient grandeur and independence and a center of national renaissance; for Christians it is the scene of Jesus’ agony and triumph; for Muslims it is the goal of the Prophet Muhammad’s mystic night journey and the site of one of Islam’s most sacred shrines. For all three faiths it is a holy city, a center of pilgrimage, and an object of devotion.

Despite a rapidly changing demography, Jerusalem has retained a diverse and cosmopolitan character, particularly in the walled Old City with its Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters: Arabs in traditional and modern attire; Christians, Western and Eastern, in their infinite variety of secular garb and monastic vestments; Jews in casual and Orthodox dress; and hosts of tourists combine in colorful, kaleidoscopic patterns. Synagogues, churches, mosques, and dwellings in various styles make up the city’s unique architectural mosaic. Sunlight falling on the white and pink stone used for all construction gives even quite mundane buildings an aura of distinction. The scent of cooking and spices, the peal of church bells, the calls of muezzins from minarets, and the chanting of Jewish prayers at the Western (Wailing) Wall all add flavor to the life of the city. The absence of vehicular traffic within most of the Old City helps preserve its special character. In recognition of its central place in the traditions and histories of numerous peoples, the Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. Yet outside the walls Jerusalem is in every sense a modern city, with its network of streets and transportation, high-rise buildings, supermarkets, businesses, schools, restaurants, and coffeehouses. The persistent mingling of Hebrew, Arabic, English, and other languages in the streets brings to mind the multicultural and political complexities of life in this revered city.

Tower Bridge over the Thames River in London, England. Opened in 1894. Remains an Important Traffic Route with 40,000 Crossings Every Day.
Britannica Quiz
Guess the City by Its River Quiz