Arabs Meet Jews at the Kotel June 1967

From Childhood Memories of a Jerusalemite by Nazmi al-Jubeh 

As soon as the curfew was lifted for an hour to enable residents to get food supplies,

my father rushed to gather us from all around the house, like a shepherd gathering his

flock, announcing that we will return to our house outside the gates in Wadi Hilwa in

Silwan, amidst the protests and dismay of everyone, horrified by my father’s irrational

and irresponsible decision. My father, however, was ill with worry over his new house

which he had not yet enjoyed, and that is why he insisted on going back. He said that

he would die only in his house and that he would never leave it, and neither he nor any

of his offspring would ever become refugees anywhere. We left my grandfather’s house

quickly to face the unknown. Afraid, we headed slowly and cautiously north towards

Bab al-Silsila Street. We went down the steps, steps we had trodden thousands of times

in the past, and knew so well that we could walk down even blindfolded. We saw nothing

suspicious along our way: we did not see any soldiers or any destruction despite the

sound of bulldozers and explosions that we had heard while at my grandfather’s house.

We did encounter, however, people running silently without uttering a word, with anger

and fear written all over their faces. Some of them were carrying heavy suitcases, while

others were dragging children behind them and even an older woman who couldn’t walk.

Given the circumstances none of this raised our suspicions. As soon as we reached Bab

al-Silsila Street we turned right toward the east, and continued for fifty meters before

turning south to enter Abu Madyan al-Ghawth’s Ascent, where we walked through a

small alley and then began descending down the stairs.

What we saw upon reaching Zawiyat Abu Madyan al-Ghawth, facing east, was

indescribably horrific. Right there, at the bottom of the stairs, we saw soldiers, so many

of them, heavily armed from head to toe, dancing and singing in a language that we did

not understand, and behind them − emptiness. The Moroccan quarter no longer existed.

The fig and pomegranate trees were gone, and so were the alleys I used to walk and

play in. Muhammad, Sa‘id, Si Yusif, Masluhi and his fig tree were not there, the only

thing visible under June’s hot sun was a cloud of dust hovering over a heap of rubble.

Bulldozers, which I had never seen before in my life, were roaring along their metal

chains to the tunes of victory music, completing a job as yet unfinished. That day I saw

Ashkenazi rabbis for the first time; they were there in their black attire and strange hats

(shtreimels), dancing over the rubble … dancing over my memories, over the homes of

my friends and the paths that I so often frequented. For the first time in my life, I saw

the Buraq Wall so huge. It looked unfamiliar, because it had been small, and difficult to

see without going down an alley and through a gate first. But now the wall was in the

center of the scene, and it was even possible to see al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of

the Rock from that point, which had never been possible before, blocked by the crowded

buildings in the Moroccan quarter.

I cannot say that any of us, the twelve people walking in the ruins of the Moroccan

quarter, grasped what was going on, and I still don’t know how it was that no one fainted, other than the fact that we were already expecting the worst. Within seconds soldiers surrounded us, raising their guns to our faces. They forced us to stop and bombarded us with words that we did not understand. Arrogantly, a soldier whose face was blue and indistinguishable from the dust that covered it, inspected us slowly and finally selected my eldest brother, who was in his late-twenties, and pulled him away from us, blindfolded him, and ordered us to continue walking. We walked without my brother, heading towards Bab al-Maghariba, leaving behind us a neighborhood reduced to rubble, dancing soldiers, a huge jarring wall, rabbis swaying their heads in front of it, bulldozers razing what was left of the quarter, and an arrested brother whose fate was unknown. We carried with us our humiliation, disgrace, tears and defeat, glancing back every now and then until the whole scene disappeared from behind us as we descended to the unknown, down the hill to the southern gate to leave the Old City through Bab al- Maghariba. Soldiers were everywhere. 

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