The Old Synagogue in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter

The Shim`on haTsadiq and Nahalat Shimon quarters in Jerusalem have been much in the news in the past few weeks. They are quite close to the Shepherd's Hotel plot, formerly owned by the Nazi-collaborationist Haj Amin el-Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem who spent most of the World War 2 years in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in the Nazi-fascist domain. The names of both these quarters refer to Simon the Just, an ancient Jewish high priest believed to have met Alexander of Macedon during his conquest of Israel from the Persian Empire.

Here is a photo of a memorial dedication inscribed above the door of the synagogue in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter in Jerusalem adjacent to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood inhabited by some of the leading Arab families. Poor Jews lived in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter [also spelled Shimon haTzadik, etc] near wealthy Arabs, including Husseinis and Nashashibis, up to 29 December 1947, when the Jews fled their homes after attacks by Arab irregular forces under the command of the Husseinis through the Arab Higher Committee. George Antonius, the Arab nationalist propagandist, rented his home on a nearby property called Karm al-Mufti [the Mufti's Vineyard], from the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, a collaborator with the Nazis and instigator of the mass murder of Jews.

[click on photo to enlarge]
Note in the photo the Hebrew inscription above the arch above the door. It is hard to read the inscription because of the angle of the shot. However, the last word of the inscription --in the lower left corner-- is clear. It is an acronym in Hebrew תנצבה . This stands for a standard Jewish memorial phrase, quite commonly found on gravestones, although here it is used in the dedication of a synagogue in someone's memory.
תהי נפשו צרורה בצרור החיים

It means: May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.

For women, the word נפשו [= his soul] is replaced by נפשה [= her soul]. The acronym remains the same in either case.

Tentatively reading the first line of the inscription, from right to left, I think I see
קידש לה' נדבת
Consecrated to the Lord an offering of . . .

This would, I think, have to be followed by the name of the donor and the name of the remembered deceased person. I think I see the name ישעיהו [= Yesha`ayahu = Isaiah]. I think I also see the acronym ז''ל which stands for זכרונו לברכה, meaning "May his memory be for a blessing" [a suitable change is made for a woman]. This acronym ordinarily follows the name of a deceased person. The letters standing for the number of the year on the Hebrew calendar may also be present.

A magen david מגן דוד [= shield of David] is seen below the inscription as part of the arch over the doorway at its crest. Also note five black iron hooks or bent rods around the inscription. Originally there were six such bent rods. Two each on the right and left, and two below. They once held a smooth stone plaque with a secondary memorial inscription carved on it. That is, an inscription in memory of a second person had been placed over the first inscription. This seems to indicate the poverty of these Jews, which we know of in any case. It seems that the community needed money later on and allowed someone to memorialize his departed loved one in return for a contribution or financial support. I saw the secondary inscription on the plaque when I visited the site in 1995. However, by the time that Jews took the synagogue back in the fall of 1998, the overlying plaque had altogether disappeared except for the iron rods or hooks. What provoked the Jewish return was that an Arab living adjacent to the synagogue on the east [about two, three, or four meters away] had begun to destroy the eastern wall of the synagogue in order, apparently, to expand his own home into the small synagogue building, which Arabs had not formerly settled into.

Be that as it may, the photo was taken between the summer of 1995 and the fall of 1998. The change in appearance in that time was that the plaque/secondary inscription --already cracked and partly broken off in 1995, had entirely disappeared. The building was restored to use as a synagogue in the fall of 1998 and is still in use.

This area of Jerusalem came into the news lately because of strenuous objections by the US State Department, the UK Foreign Office, and the European Union to Jews living in or building homes in what they like to call "East Jerusalem," a part of the city whence Jewish inhabitants were driven out during the Israeli War of Independence [1947-1949] by Arab irregular forces and the Arab Legion of the Kingdom of Jordan [then Transjordan]. These foreign powers do not want a Jewish return to a part of a city that has a meaning in history deriving from its role in Jewish history and religion. Jerusalem has also had a Jewish majority population since 1853, if not earlier. In 1853, the whole population of the city lived in the Old City which is considered part of "East Jerusalem." That is, in 1853, Jews were the majority in East Jerusalem.

More False History -- Sandra Mackey invents a never-was fake history of British help for the Jews in Israel

There is a genre of romantic novel that is called "trashy." There is also a genre of dishonest book writing about the Middle East, and Israel in particular, that very much deserves to be called trashy. Sandra Mackey's latest crime against the trees fits that description.Here is one of her big lies:

The Zionist organizations, creatures of the West and largely funded by Western Jews, quickly established themselves as the favored elite of the British mandate. [Sandra Mackey, Mirror of the Arab World (New York: Norton 2008), pp 78-79]

There are two big lies in that one sentence. First, the Zionist organizations were founded, created, organized, and led by Jews, many if not most of them from the Russian Empire, although Theodore Herzl was a native of Budapest whose grandfather came from a suburb of Belgrade where he heard the sermons of Rabbi Alkalai. Hardly the West. The Zionist organizations were not created by the West. Nor were they created by the Russian state, which did want to get of its Jewish population one way or the other.

Second, the old Arab upper crust were the favored elite of the British mandatory government, next to the British themselves of course. There is the notorious fact that the chief social salon of the highest ranking British officials in the country was the home of Katy Antonius, widow of George [here & here]. A more reliable historical account than that of Mackey, based on knowledge rather than prejudice, tells us that Katy Antonius'

celebrated salon. . . [was] frequented by British officials, Arab notables and intellectuals, and occasional non-Zionist Jews.
[Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917-1929 (London: Royal Historical Society 1978), p 186]

One of the more noteworthy visitors to Katy's salon was one Evelyn Barker, the high commander of British occupation forces in Israel [1946-1947]. Since Israeli forces captured files from the Antonius home during the War of Independence, we know that General Barker and the good widow were amorously attached and exchanged Judeophobic billets doux [ici]. One of his billets-doux offered his military expertise to the Arabs against the Jews:

British commander, Evelyn Barker. . . wrote in Dec. 1947 to his Arab mistress Katy Antonius, offering his services to the Arabs: "As a military man he had no doubt: the Jews would not be able to withstand the force of the entire Arab world, and in the end they would all be eradicated. They (the Arabs) had to unite, to be more cunning, to work according to a plan. He would willingly fight at their side in order to exterminate Zionism, he reiterated." [quoted by Peter Lubin, here]

In retaliation for a Jewish underground attack,

Lieut.-General Sir Evelyn Barker issued an order forbidding British troops in Palestine from buying in Jewish shops. He added the sarcastic comment that the boycott would punish "the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any and where it would hurt them most; by striking at their pockets and showing contempt for them." [from Theodore Huebner & Carl Hermann Voss, This Is Israel (New York: Philosophical Library 1956), p 89]

When Katie's husband George was still alive in the 1930s, one of his friends and admirers was Thomas Hodgkin, private secretary to the High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope. This doesn't much sound like the Jews being "the favored elite of the British mandate," as Mackey would have it.

Getting away from George and Katie Antonius, here's another vignette of British "favoritism" for the Zionists:

Chief Secretary for Palestine, Sir Henry Gurney. . . blandly told Golda (Meir) Meyerson, "You know, Mrs. Meyerson, if Hitler persecuted Jews, there must be some reason for it." He was puzzled that she took offense. And he described one Jewish attack thus: "(Bergen) Belsen 'pales' besides the bestialities of (the Jewish attack at) Deir Yassin." He also threatened Ben-Gurion: "If the fighting in Jaffa did not cease, the RAF would bomb Tel Aviv." [Peter Lubin, ibid, link above]

It's curious that Gurney's gross distortions of history and experience are still going on. Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghetto. Palestinian Arabs are the "new Jews," etc. Only a deeply Judeophobic mind can produce garbage like that, both in Gurney's time and now.

While correcting Sandra Mackey's lies, let's not forget that the Arab Legion of Transjordan [now Jordan], was the most effective Arab military force in Israel's War of Independence. It was British-trained and most higher officers were British. The commander was General Sir John Bagot Glubb, known as Glubb Pasha.

It's remarkable how such drivel as Mackey wrote gets published. By the way, her book is on sale in the bookstore of the Sackler-Freer Gallery in Washington, part of the Smithsonian Museum complex. This is a US Government institution.