place

North Africa Jewish Heritage Center

Asian museum stubsCommons category link is locally definedHistory museums in IsraelIsraeli building and structure stubsMuseums in Jerusalem
North African-Jewish culture in Israel
David Amar Centre P1140883
David Amar Centre P1140883

The David Amar Worldwide North Africa Jewish Heritage Center is a cultural centre and museum in Jerusalem, opened in 2011. It is located in the heart of the Mahane Israel (also Mahaneh Yisrael) neighborhood established in 1865, and is housed in the quarter's oldest building, built in the mid-19th century by David ben Shimon, who founded the community of North African Jews in Jerusalem.The museum has permanent and temporary exhibitions focused on the history and heritage of the Jewish communities of North Africa, particularly Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.The restoration was funded by the Casablanca, Morocco-based businessman David Amar, and was renamed in his honour. Work took four years and required a team of Moroccan craftsmen to create the intricate zellige mosaic tile work.Reconstructing the building in an authentic Moroccan style was controversial, as some saw it as "importing foreign architecture and damaging a historic building", but it is expected to become one of Jerusalem's top tourist sites.It was opened in June 2011 in the presence of President Shimon Peres and former President Yitzhak Navon.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article North Africa Jewish Heritage Center (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

North Africa Jewish Heritage Center
HaMaaravim, Jerusalem Nahalat Shiva

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: North Africa Jewish Heritage CenterContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 31.7763 ° E 35.2215 °
placeShow on map

Address

HaMaaravim
9419008 Jerusalem, Nahalat Shiva
Jerusalem District, Israel
mapOpen on Google Maps

David Amar Centre P1140883
David Amar Centre P1140883
Share experience

Nearby Places

Mamilla Cemetery
Mamilla Cemetery

Ma'aman Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery (Arabic: مقبرة مأمن الله) is a historic Muslim cemetery in West Jerusalem that dates back to the Crusades, and lies just to the west of the north-west corner of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, near the New Gate. The cemetery, at the center of which lies the Mamilla Pool, contains the remains of figures from the early Islamic period, several Sufi shrines and Mamluk-era tombs. The cemetery grounds also contain the bodies of thousands of Christians killed in the pre-Islamic era, as well as several tombs from the time of the Crusades. Its identity as an Islamic cemetery is noted by Arab and Persian writers as early as the 11th century, and it has been characterized as "the largest and most important Muslim cemetery in all of Palestine". It was used as a burial site up until 1927 when the Supreme Muslim Council decided to preserve it as a historic site. Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the cemetery and other waqf properties in West Jerusalem fell under the control of Israeli governmental bodies. The Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs stated in 1948 that the cemetery is: "one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin’s] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars... Israel, will always know to protect and respect this site."A number of buildings, a road and other public facilities, such as a park, a parking lot and public lavatories have since been constructed on the cemetery grounds, destroying grave markers and tombs. A plan to build a Museum of Tolerance on part of the cemetery grounds, announced in 2004, aroused much controversy and faced several stop work orders before being given final approval in July 2011.

King David Hotel bombing
King David Hotel bombing

The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on 22 July 1946 by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured.The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. When planned, the attack had the approval of the Haganah, the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine, though, unbeknownst to the Irgun, this had been cancelled by the time the operation was carried out. The main motive of the bombing was to destroy documents incriminating the Jewish Agency in attacks against the British, which were obtained during Operation Agatha, a series of raids by mandate authorities. It was the deadliest attack directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).Disguised as Arab workmen and as hotel waiters, members of the Irgun planted a bomb in the basement of the main building of the hotel, whose southern wing housed the Mandate Secretariat and a few offices of the British military headquarters. The resulting explosion caused the collapse of the western half of the southern wing of the hotel. Some of the deaths and injuries occurred in the road outside the hotel and in adjacent buildings.Controversy has arisen over the timing and adequacy of any warnings. The Irgun stated subsequently that warnings were delivered by telephone; Thurston Clarke states that the first warning was delivered by a 16-year-old recruit to the hotel switchboard 15 minutes before the explosion. The British Government said after the inquest that no warning had been received by anyone at the Secretariat "in an official position with any power to take action."

Consulate General of France, Jerusalem
Consulate General of France, Jerusalem

The Consulate General of France in Jerusalem (French: Consulat Général de France à Jérusalem) began its tumultuous history in the early 17th century. In 1535, the date of the first Capitulation between France and the Ottoman Empire, France was granted the right to appoint consuls in the cities of the Empire. The Capitulations constituted the legal basis of the French protectorate over the Holy Places, Catholic Christians, and by extension, Orthodox Christians. In 1623, King Louis XIII appointed the first consul in Jerusalem "for the Glory of God and to relieve the pious pilgrims who by devotion visit the Holy Places." The presence of consuls in Jerusalem was intermittent until 1843. Amidst the growing competition between European powers over the exclusive protectorate that France was entitled to exercise over Christians, the rank of the Consul in Jerusalem was raised to that of a Consul General in 1893. Despite the abolition of France's protectorate over the Latins and the Turkish-ruled Holy Places in 1914, the Consulate General tried to maintain and expand its influence in Palestine. Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Consulate General of France in Jerusalem has held the status of a quasi-embassy. The consulate is responsible for the area of the corpus separatum and the occupied territories. The consulate's districts include Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Consulate General is independent from the Embassy of France in Tel Aviv and does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel. All contacts with the State of Israel lie exclusively within the jurisdiction of the embassy in Tel Aviv. Since its establishment in 1994, the consulate has been the French diplomatic representative to the Palestinian National Authority.