Within These Walls Page #2

Jerusalem's gates,

claiming the city as their own.

Muslims were to rule Jerusalem

for the next 1,300 years.

Except for two interruptions

when the Crusaders wrested

the city from them.

In the 20th century,

the flame of war again flared

in the Holy Land.

World War I:
The British march

into Palestine

to fight the Ottoman Turks.

As it has some 20 times in

its recorded history,

in 1917 Jerusalem falls.

The Holy City is surrendered

to the British.

Mindful that Jesus had walked

into Jerusalem,

General Sir Edmund Allenby humbly

enters Jaffa Gate on foot.

There are renewed stirrings

of Zionism,

the concept of a modern Jewish nation

In 1947,

the United Nations votes to end

the British Mandate

and partition Palestine into Jewish

and Arab states.

May 14, 1948:
David Ben-Gurion

citing"...

the fulfillment of the dream

of generations,"

makes a proclamation Jews everywhere

have long awaited:

"The State of Israel has arisen."

The next day, six neighboring Arab

countries invade,

determined to crush the infant nation

before it is born.

With Jerusalem under siege and the

Jewish Quarter ready to fall,

the Holy Books are removed.

Jerusalem is a divided city.

For 19 years the Old City will

be ruled by Jordan.

In 1967, as the Six Day War rages,

Israeli paratroopers storm through

St. Stephen's Gate.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan arrives

at the Western Wall...

in Jewish hands again for

the first time in 2,000 years.

According to ancient custom,

General Dayan writes a prayer

to place in the wall:

"May peace come to the Jewish people."

Today, a fragile peace reigns

in the Walled City.

The Supreme Muslim Council has remained

in charge of the Dome of

the Rock the Israelis

reclaimed the Western Wall,

cherished relic of their lost temple.

Jews from more than one hundred

cultural backgrounds

have come to live in their

ancient capital.

Many are Ashkenazi, from Europe

and the Americas;

the rest, Sephardic and Oriental Jews,

are from Mediterranean regions,

the Middle and Far East.

When the Jewish community in Yemen

heard of the establishment of Israel,

Joseph Zadok and his family decided

to emigrate immediately.

For them, the Biblical prophecy of

the return to Zion was fulfilled.

His grandson, Shalom, explains:

"My family knew from the Bible

and from our tradition that Jerusalem

was the Holy City.

When my family came from Yemen,

they wanted to live only in Jerusalem.

We call it center of the world."

Isolated in remote southern Arabia

for some 2,000 years,

persecuted by their Muslim rulers,

the Jews of Yemen had long dreamed

of redemption

in the promised land.

They clung to their beliefs,

and kept the ancient observances

in their purest form.

Now, celebrating Passover,

the Zadoks commemorate

the Jew's deliverance

from slavery in Egypt,

just ad Jesus did at what has come

to be known as "The Last Supper."

The Bible promised "They that wait

upon the Lord...

shall mount up with wings as eagles."

In 1949 the Zadoks joined the flood

of Jews

crossing hundred of miles

of desert on foot,

donkey back, and by truck to Aden.

Those who survived the

torturous journey

were flown to the Holy Land

by an airlift dubbed

"Operation Magic Carpet."

Restricted to certain

occupations in Yemen,

many Jews were shoemakers

weavers, jewelers.

Joseph Zadok was a court jeweler

for the King of Yemen.

"Our family has been making jewelry

for more than seven generations.

It is our heritage, our tradition.

When we came from Yemen,

we tried to keep our traditions."

"Most of the Yemenite brides

in Jerusalem

use our wedding dress and jewelry."

The bride, of European ancestry,

carries on her groom's

family tradition.

She wears the elaborate jewelry

and costume the Zakods lend

to bridal parties

for a ceremony called the "hineh"

that accompanied every Jewish

wedding in Yemen.

The henna from which the festivity

derives its name

has long been used as a talisman

of good luck.

If the henna applied to the hands

of the bride

and groom remains in the morning,

their wedding will take place.

Mr. Zadok, a relative of the groom,

is here to bestow a blessing.

Beginning a life together,

this young couple shares

the rich heritage

of their combined European,

Oriental, and Israeli cultures.

During the Jordanian occupation

of the Old City,

the Jewish Quarter had been

nearly destroyed.

When reconstruction began after

the War of '67,

Theo and Miriam Siebenberg

were the third family to build here.

"It was my dream to come to Jerusalem.

Jews have been praying for Jerusalem

throughout the centuries,

for thousands of years,

going back even to the time of

the exile in Babylon."

"The Jewish Quarter is full of our

history from 3,000 years ago.

When we came, the Jewish Quarter

was completely destroyed,

and now everything is built and clean.

The changes were immense."

"I was born in Antwerp, Belgium.

My family left Antwerp on May 11,

after the Germans marched into Belgium."

As the Nazi horror swept across Europe,

the Siebenberg family fled...

first by car,

finally even crossing mountains on foot

Always fearful and in hiding,

for months the refugees traveled

against the tide of invaders

until they made their way to safety.

After the war, as the Jewish people

struggled to create a homeland,

Theo joined the underground.

Eventually, he made his way here.

Like all Jews born in Israel,

Miriam is known as a "sabra."

"My parents came from Warsaw, Poland.

I was born in Tel Aviv and I went

to regular school

and then the high school.

And after high school I went to the army,

like all the sabras in Israel did.

I thought I'd never leave the army,

I liked it so much."

Miriam and Theo met at a party

Today they often entertain

visiting dignitaries,

drawn by the remarkable discoveries

the Siebenbergs have unearthed.

When Theo and Miriam completed

their house in 1970,

archeologists were digging all around

them in the Jewish Quarter.

Fired by the dramatic finds being made,

Siebenberg determined to build a

museum beneath his home.

As workmen removed 3,000 years of

accumulated debris,

tangible links with those who had

lived on this site

through the millennia began to emerge.

"These stones here are each made out

of one large block of stone.

They are sections actually of

the aqueduct

the passed here 2,000 years ago

and which brought water into the

city of Jerusalem."

"Now this is a mikvah or Jewish

ritual bath,

which is 2,000 years old

and belonged to the mansion

which stood above here.

And of course that was a

three-floor-high house."

The home probably burned

when the Romans sacked

Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

"Now if you look down here,

these rooms that you see

down below..."

"...they were hewn out of solid rock

about 3,000 years ago.

That's roughly King Solomon's time.

The openings that you see here were

called a nefesh, or the soul."

"The soul would actually rise out of

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