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Last update - 06:44 11/03/2008
Israel cements ownership of Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Jewish, Jerusalem, Old City 

More than 40 years after it gained control of East Jerusalem, the State of Israel is now registering Jewish-owned property in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter as such, in a bid to legally assert Jewish and Israeli control over the area the Israel Defense Forces seized in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The registration is the result of a lengthy inspection, which was initiated after the Housing Ministry decided to register the property under Jewish owners five years ago. The registration process is being managed for the state by the government-owned Firm for the Development of the Jewish Quarter. CEO Nissim Arazi says the process is complex and involves many difficulties.

According to Arazi, some of the difficulty owes to the fact that many buildings and plots inside the Jewish Quarter were registered as part of other plots. The process of registering buildings is particularly complex in the Jewish Quarter, Arazi says, because real estate there is divided into four subdivisions of ownership: bloc, plot, sub-plot and building. All other real-estate assets in Israel are divided into the first three criteria only.
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Over the past five years, the buildings in the Jewish Quarter have all been renumbered and mapped ahead of the registration process. So far, more than 120 buildings out of a total of 600 have been registered by Jewish owners in the Land Administration.

The process revealed a large number of building violations. Many residents built cellars under their houses to expand them - without bothering to receive approval. Arazi said the process of registration in not meant to find violations. "Registering these real-estate assets has national and historic significance," he told Haaretz.

The inspection process and registration served to increase the value of the assets surveyed, with prices increasing in direct relation to the asset's proximity to the Western Wall.

The quarter itself, which stretches across 133 dunam (approximately 40 acres), was largely destroyed during Israel's War of Independence in 1948. It remained under Jordanian rule until it was seized by Israel. The quarter constitutes 15 percent of the entire area of the Old City and has undergone massive restoration and renovation over the past 40 years.

But Jews have also bought property elsewhere inside the Old City's three other quarters; the Armenian, Christian and Muslim quarters.

The Old City is 870 dunam in area. Twenty-four percent of it belongs to the Waqf, which is a form of endowment in Islam, typically devoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes.

Twenty-eight percent of the Old City belongs to private Arab residents, while the state owns some 19 percent of the lands in the area, or 170 dunam. Christian institutions hold 29 percent of the property in the Old City.

The assets are naturally not arranged according to ownership, which is to say the Old City is checkered with buildings belonging to all these various owners.

In a recently-published research, Dr. Israel Kimchi from the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and several colleagues identify a "trend of Jews purchasing property across the Muslim Quarter," which is the largest and most populous of the four quarters, situated in the northeastern corner of the Old City.

According to Kimchi's research, the acquisition of land there is designed to create contiguity of Jewish-owned buildings all the way up to state-owned land around the Flower Gate area.

Like the other three quarters of the Old City, the Muslim quarter had a mixed population of Jews as well as Muslims and Christians until the riots of 1929, and was previously called the Mixed Quarter. Today the Muslim Quarter is home to a few dozen Jewish families and a few yeshivas.

At the same time, Kimchi's team point to a "penetration of Muslim residents into the Christian Quarter," which is situated in the north-western corner of the Old City.

He also says these trends and others will probably mean that some buildings, which are defined as religious institutions will receive a different designation. "Some of the residential areas in the Christian Quarter will become religious institutions or hotels, as the number of Christian residents within the quarter continues to dwindle," he says.



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      1.   Jewish Quarter and old city 07:36  |  Rabbi Ashkenazi 11/03/08
      2.   Jerusalem is Jewish and will remain Jewish. 08:39  |  Jean Van Daem 11/03/08
      3.   Co-existence 11:03  |  Joseph 11/03/08
      4.   Legalising theft 11:24  |  sean 11/03/08
      5.   re: non-Jews "owning" parts of Eretz Hakodesh 11:40  |  Devash 11/03/08
      6.   Jerusalem, a Jewish city. The muslims can worship in Mecca 11:52  |  Benjamina 11/03/08
      7.   sean, you are right 12:22  |  ash 11/03/08
      8.   # 5 Bejamina and they can take their two bit mosque with them 12:58  |  petra 11/03/08
      9.   #1 Jean EXACTLY!!!!!!!! 13:00  |  petra 11/03/08
      10.   to ash the colonist 13:17  |  phil 11/03/08
      11.   jerusalem 13:21  |  danny 11/03/08
      12.   Israel can divide the city or lose the city 13:21  |  Natallie Durson 11/03/08
      13.   How to make Land Theft Legal, Israeli style. 13:34  |  POP 11/03/08
      14.   #7 - To Phil (cc: Sean) 13:48  |  JES 11/03/08
      15.   Despite Haaretz`s efforts, Jews will thrive in Old City 14:26  |  Kenny 11/03/08
      16.   Jerusalem Has Lost Its Special Quality 14:34  |  Yaakov Sullivan 11/03/08
      17.   The Jewish majority in the Old City in 19th Century 14:35  |  E A Green 11/03/08
      18.   #13 Jes 14:36  |  Merlot 11/03/08
      19.   #12 pop and what would have happened if israel had lost in 1948 14:45  |  v hardman 11/03/08
      20.   Nattalie, quick question!!! 15:15  |  JDM 11/03/08
      21.   Jewish Jerusalem - the dullest, most uncultured and boring town 15:31  |  Chanalau, Tova 11/03/08
      22.   @ 5 - Benjamina 15:45  |  Bo Brummie 11/03/08
      23.   #19 Logic has no place in Nut a lees world 15:47  |  petra 11/03/08
      24.   and next - throw out the Christians 16:16  |  asadcase 11/03/08
      25.   to Chanalau 16:18  |  ezra 11/03/08
      26.   #18 - Merlot 16:25  |  JES 11/03/08
      27.   and israel wants peace....? 16:29  |  ravi 11/03/08
      28.   BRAVO!!! - long overdue 16:39  |  felix 11/03/08
      29.   Natalie, you must have been on Vacation did you go to Gaza? 16:40  |  Robert/Montreal 11/03/08
      30.   #16 Yaakov Check under the temple mount 16:44  |  Robert/Montreal 11/03/08
      31.   Chanalu dull and boring as it is you have made it even more so 16:47  |  Robert/Montreal 11/03/08
      32.   #21 - Tova 16:50  |  JES 11/03/08
      33.   #24 Christians do not make bombs. 16:52  |  Robert?montreal 11/03/08
      34.   #27 Ravi Punjab India has its own Problem 16:54  |  Robert/Montreal 11/03/08
      35.   33. Robert: Christians 20:21  |  asadcase 11/03/08
      36.   If They Were Owned By Arabs... 20:28  |  ARTH 11/03/08
      37.   RE:#33 Christians = biggest bomb maker 20:56  |  Dave 11/03/08
      38.   One Jerusalem 23:04  |  Salty 11/03/08
      39.   It says Jewish quarter, not Israeli quarter, or zionist quarter 23:28  |  John 11/03/08
      40.   Ownership of land in Old City 01:39  |  David V Elliott 19/04/08
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