Summary: The private (Jewish) owner of property brought eviction proceedings against Arab squatters and holdover tenants who failed to pay rent for decades. The current owner has a chain of title of voluntary purchases/sales that goes back to 1875, when two Jewish community trusts first bought the then-empty land. These ordinary eviction proceedings between private parties regarding 28 homes became a pretext to demonize Israel, perpetrate violent riots against Jews, and make bigoted demands that Israel override and ignore private property rights and discriminate against property owners simply because they are Jewish.
In 1875, Two Jewish Religious Trusts Purchased the Shimon HaTzadik Tomb and Surrounding Land: For centuries, Jews made pilgrimages to pray at the tomb of beloved 4th century BCE Kohen Gadol (high priest) Shimon HaTzadik (Simeon the Just), in Jerusalem, northeast of the Old City. In 1875, two Jewish trusts, the Sephardi Community Council and the (Ashkenazi) General Council of the Congregation of Israel (a.k.a the “General Committee of the Knesset of Israel”), purchased the tomb and nearby lands forming the “Shimon HaTzadik” and “Nahalat [Inheritance of] Shimon” neighborhoods. Palestine Chief Rabbi Avraham Ashkenazi and Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Meir Auerbach registered the property in the Ottoman land registry in 1875 and 1876. Dozens of poor Jewish families moved there and continued to live there.
In the late 1800s, wealthy Arabs (including the al-Husseinis) created a nearby neighborhood that the Arabs called “Sheikh Jarrah,” centered around the tomb of Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, a 12th century Muslim physician to Saladin.
The three neighborhoods existed side by side until 1948.
Pre-1948 Arab Attacks on Jewish Communities: Prior to 1948, Arabs periodically attacked and drove out Jews from Shimon HaTzadik and Nahalat Shimon, especially during the pogroms perpetrated by the Arabs in Jerusalem and throughout Mandatory Palestine in 1936-39. The Jews always returned to these neighborhoods, and continued to live there until 1948.
Vital Corridor to Mount Scopus; the 1948 Hadassah Medical Convoy Massacre: Shimon HaTzadik/Nahalat Shimon is a vital corridor to Mount Scopus, where Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University are located. On April 13, 1948, during the first half of Israel’s War of Independence, Palestinian Arab military forces seeking to prevent the re-establishment of Israel attacked and murdered 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and others, primarily civilians—and a British soldier on their way to bringing medical supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital, as the medical supply convey passed through Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah.
