It is a balmy evening in March. While a flock of birds settle in a nearby tree and chatter their good nights the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City is anything but sleepy. Curious children gather around a makeshift stage that has been erected in the Rova’s main square for a concert the following night while men hurry off to shul to catch a minyan for Maariv. Towering above them all is the rebuilt Churva Synagogue its magnificent white dome lending an air that is both authoritative and serene. It is such a normal scene that it is hard to imagine that once and not so very long ago the Jewish Quarter was filled with the sounds of war and not music tears and not laughter. Yet that is how it was on that fateful day on May 28 1948 when the Old City’s Jewish residents were marched out of their homes and thrust into exile with little more than the clothes on their backs and the words ofDovidHamelech on their lips.
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