Shimon HaTzadik

Shimon HaTzadik is a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem , established around the tomb of Simon the Just , after whom it was named.¹ The tomb and surrounding lands (a plot of approximately 18 dunams) was purchased in 1876 by the committee of the Sephardic community and the Ashkenazi Assembly of Israel.² Homes for poor Jews [about 20 very small homes] were built by the community committee on the cliff over the cave in which the traditional tomb of Simon the Just is located. The neighborhood or "quarter" was abandoned briefly during the Arab Revolt in 1936, but the families returned and lived there until December 1947 when they were forced out through Arab aggression.³ In fact, starting shortly after the UN General Assembly recommended partition of the country into a Jewish state and an Arab state, the Shimon haTsadiq and Nahalat Shimon neighborhoods, close to the Tomb, on the way to Mount Scopus, came under attack.⁴ These attacks by Arab irregular forces under the leadership of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine (headed by Haj Amin el-Husseini) lasted throughout December 1947 until all but one of the Jewish families fled on the night of 29 December 1947. The remaining family, surnamed Mizrahi [now קזמי Kedmi/Qedmi], fled on 7 or 8 January 1948 (exactly which day is missing from a diary kept by a family member). Jewish traffic passing through the neighborhood on the way to Mount Scopus, location of the Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University, also came under attack in that period as did south Tel Aviv and Jewish residential areas elsewhere in the country. It is significant that Shimon haTsadiq became the first neighborhood in the country from which the population was driven out and did not return after the War. Jews had likewise fled Arab attacks on south Tel Aviv in December 1947, but returned after the War, whereas Shimon haTsadiq remained under Arab control, as did the nearby Nahalat Shimon and Siebenbergen Houses quarters. From January 1948 until June 1967, the neighborhood and surrounding Sheikh Jarrah area were occupied by Arab irregulars and then by the Arab Legion of Transjordan (now Jordan). The city of Jerusalem was divided as was the country as a whole, and this division was given a provisional legal status in the 1949 Rhodes armistice accord between Israel and Transjordan. Despite a stipulation in the armistice accord that Jews could visit Jewish holy places under Jordanian control --such as the Tomb of Simon the Just-- they were not allowed to do so in fact and that provision of the armistice accord remained a dead letter until June 1967. Arab families were allowed by Jordan to move into the abandoned Jewish homes on the Shimon haTsadiq plot. In 1955, approximately, Arab refugees from elsewhere in the country were allowed to move into newly built houses on previously undeveloped, unbuilt parts of the 18 dunam plot. The Jewish community committees retained ownership over the real estate, confirmed after the 1967 Six Day War. The Sephardic committee required rental payments from the Arab residents on its land. Those who refused to pay rent to the owners, the Sephardic communal committee were evicted by court order executed in the summer of 2009. The plot of land in and around the Tomb of Simon the Just is now a source of dispute on a local and international level. While major Western powers, particularly Britain and the United States, support Arab rights to the housing in question, the Jewish families continue in their long campaign to reclaim their land. It may be noted that Britain, the ruling authority in the country in December 1947 and January 1948, did not protect the Jews living in Shimon haTsadiq, Nahalat Shimon, and the Siebenbergen Houses from attack by Arab irregular forces.⁵