The Ateret Cohanim organization has moved several Jewish families into a building in Jerusalem's Old City, where former prime minister Ariel Sharon owns an apartment.
The private security guards refused to open the complex's iron doors yesterday and none one of the neighbors would answer any questions.
Consipracy of silence
A conspiracy of silence seemed to envelop the building on the juncture of Tariq al-Wad street and Via Dolorosa, which has become one of the blatant marks of the Jewish settlement in the Old City in particular and in East Jerusalem in general, since Sharon bought the apartment in the 1980s, mainly as a political statement.
Sharon never actually lived in the house. However, he still owns it.
After celebrating the purchase with an ostentatious party, Sharon rarely returned to the building, leaving state-financed security guards at the building's entrance.
People in the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva (also known as Ateret Yerushalayim) building a few hundred meters away could not or would not say anything about the building's residents.
Even the Arab merchants, whose stalls are adjacent to the building, refused to talk yesterday.
"Are you sure the apartment there belongs to Ariel Sharon?" a young yeshiva student asked eagerly, oblivious of the building's heyday.
Today the building has a pronounced Jewish presence - a large menorah stands on the roof and small Israeli flags hang from the windows.
But a large stone wall and an iron door cut the apartment complex off from the street.
Avishai Zruya, one of the residents, swipes his electronic card - without which residents cannot enter the building - in front of the intercom and enters swiftly. "Speak to the Ateret Cohanim people," he says, refusing to answer questions about his neighbors.
