In the Old City, Hagai Street and its tributaries perfectly represent the ultimate Jerusalemite mosaic -- it is a path of blood and terrorism while simultaneously being a path of life and coexistence. It is terrorist-weary, steeped in the blood of victims -- just this past week, a knife-wielding terrorist stabbed two yeshiva students and an Israel Border Police officer there -- while simultaneously being full of life and power, colors and smells. Today's Hagai Street passes through the ancient route of the Tyropoeon Valley, or Valley of the Cheesemakers. It is also a street leading to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. It houses much of the Waqf's and the Gulf states' efforts to cement Muslim control over the area between Damascus Gate and the Western Wall. It is also the home to Jewish activism, like the work of Jewish organization Ateret Cohanim, which is slowly restoring the Jewish presence in the Muslim Quarter. On an average day, this street is a sight to behold. A vibrant mosaic of Jews, Muslims and Christians. Monks with cylindrical hats; knitted, embroidered and black kippot; sheikhs in robes and keffiyehs, and a colorful Middle Eastern market featuring everything from candy to hummus to antiquities. A restaurant bears the name of al-Buraq, the Prophet Muhammad's winged horse, alongside a kosher Jewish restaurant named Between the Arches, where diners can step onto the Second Temple-era floors. But on days when the conflict "erupts," this street becomes an axis of suspicion, bitterness and even hate. This hate reared its ugly head about a year and a half ago, when a knife-wielding Palestinian terrorist pounced on Adele and Aharon Bennett as they walked their two children in strollers along the street, making their way home from the Western Wall. Adele, who was seriously wounded, managed to muster her last remaining strength and flee. She called for help, but the Arab merchants and passersby turned their backs on her, preferring to close their eyes. Some of them even wished her death. Her husband Aharon, who fought the terrorist, fell into a puddle of his own blood and later succumbed to his wounds. Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, who heard Adele's cries, grabbed his gun and rushed to help. But he, too, was stabbed to death by the terrorist. This week came rather close to seeing that tragedy reprised. Terrorist Ahmed Razal, 17, from Nablus, arrived at the exact same route and managed to stab three people -- two young ultra-Orthodox men and a police officer, all of whom sustained light to moderate injuries. This time, too, the merchants turned their backs to the victims. They didn't see and didn't hear. But thanks to Israeli preparedness, no lives were lost. The terrorist, who fled into a nearby house, was shot to death after trying to stab his pursuers. Razal's attack came days after a failed attempt at a stabbing attack at the nearby Damascus Gate. The terrorist, 49-year-old Rateb Nimir, tried to stab police officers with scissors but was shot before she could carry out her plan. These incidents are only the most recent of a long list of attacks and attempted attacks in that area since the start of the so-called lone wolf intifada at the end of 2015, and an even longer list of attacks inside the Old City, along Hagai Street and its tributaries, since the 1980s, some of them deadly. In September 1981, terrorists hurled a grenade near the New Gate. Two Italian pilgrims were killed in the attack. A yeshiva student was murdered nearby five years later and another man was killed in 1987. One of the most traumatic events for the Old City's Jews occurred on Purim, 26 years ago. Elhanan Attali, a son of French immigrants living in the Jewish Quarter of the city, was murdered by two terrorists who ambushed him on the corner of Hagai Street and Shaar Habarzel Street. The house the terrorists used to hide his body was later converted to a police station, which secures the path to the Western Wall. Six years later, Gabriel Hirschberg was murdered on Hajabsha Street. Nowadays, the Gabriel House, built nearby and named after him, houses Jews. Others followed with another fatality in 2002 and one in 2005. In retrospect, many of these murders became milestones in the history of the Jewish settlement in the Muslim Quarter, serving to motivate the movement. After the murder of Haim Kerman in 1998, the Jews of the Muslim Quarter populated two compounds: one near Herod's Gate and another on Via Dolorosa. In October 2015, after the murder of Aharon Bennett and Nehemia Lavi, we expected a similar Muslim Quarter settlement to follow. Now, more than a year later, we know that the people of Ateret Cohanim did indeed make one of their most significant purchases after those murders, populating the Beit Hanof house near Herod's Gate. Beit Hanof is the tallest building populated by Jews in the Old City outside the Jewish Quarter. The Israeli flags waving atop its roof serve to accentuate that fact. On the roof, a patio has been built and named the Nehemia Outlook, after Lavi. Neta, Nehemia's wife, and their family dedicated this unique spot, overlooking the Temple Mount and Damascus and Herod's gates. The Tzelem house, up until now the tallest Jewish building in the area, looks small from the Nehemia Outlook. The families living in the Beit Hanof house have already been paid a visit by Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, who was visibly impressed by the discreet purchase of the extremely expensive house. Alsheikh was particularly pleased with the house's strategic location, which can be used by the police to look out over the area and control it, should the need arise. This four story building features ornate Arab floor tiles and spacious rooms. In the basement, wells have been dug into the ground. Another, more modest Jewish outpost in the Muslim Quarter, purchased and populated after the murders of Bennett and Lavi, is a shop on Hagai Street. The shop, named by the Bennett family, is operated by Jewish youths living in the Muslim Quarter and serves as a resting area for Jewish police officers and soldiers engaged in security activity. These outposts are only two of the dozens of houses populated by Jews in the Muslim Quarter over the years. Additional compounds have already been purchased but have not yet been populated. Approximately 80 Jewish families currently live in the Muslim Quarter. In old maps, the quarter is often called the Mixed Quarter. Together with the students attending the Jewish schools in the quarter, they comprise about 1,200 people -- a quarter of the number of Jews who lived in the Muslim Quarter a century ago, during the Jewish golden age in the area. Inspired by Al-Aqsa One of the most famous houses on Hagai Street, the first in the area to house Jews since the Six-Day War in 1967, is the Torat Chaim yeshiva, purchased and founded by Rabbi Yitzhak Winograd. The structure housing the yeshiva, like dozens of similar buildings in the area, was originally chosen by Jewish residents for its proximity to the Temple Mount. Before the 1929 riots, the yeshiva boasted some famous students. Today, the building is home to the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva, better known as Ateret Cohanim. The yeshiva building and its inhabitants came under severe attack in the 1920s. Of the 80 synagogues and yeshivot in the Old City before the 1948 War of Independence, this was the only building whose contents, the belongings of the Jews who lived in it, remained intact. This was thanks to Abdul Raani, an Arab guard who was also a British sergeant and married to a Jewish woman. After his death, his brother, Mohammed Abdul Raani, a guard at Al-Aqsa mosque, continued to safeguard the Jewish property. The brothers hid the books and original furniture of the yeshiva and the synagogue in a small room and prevented anyone from entering. The guard furnished the yeshiva with his own personal furniture to make it look lived in. Raani didn't even let the Jordanian electric company inspector, who would visit every month to record the house's electricity intake, come inside. Instead, he would write the number from the counter on a note and hand it to the inspector outside. After the Six-Day War, when Jews returned to the yeshiva, they were shocked to find more than 2,500 books in a tiny room, all completely unharmed. Other sites across the Muslim Quarter where Jews resided before the establishment of the state did not fare as well as the Torat Chaim building. Houses and places of worship were torched, demolished, seized and overrun. The guards at Al-Aqsa mosque today also play an entirely different role than the late Abdul Raani. Two Al-Aqsa clergymen were arrested this week as part of the investigation into the stabbing attack on Saturday (a gag order has been placed on the details of the investigation). The stabber, like other terrorists in the wave of lone-wolf attacks that has befallen us, was inspired by Al-Aqsa. The 17-year-old from Nablus who tried to stab people on Hagai Street was apparently taken in by modern blood libel suggesting that Israel is planning to somehow destroy Al-Aqsa. Next week we will celebrate Passover, and after that we will mark Independence Day and the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem, which coincides with the first week of Ramadan. Last year, the Israel Police banned Jews from traveling on Hagai Street after dark during Ramadan, thereby preventing them from arriving at the Western Wall from Damascus Gate. This year, again, the expected friction between Muslims and Jews is no small headache for the police. The six gates through which Muslims enter the Temple Mount are all along the western wall of the mount, at the end of alleys facing east from Hagai Street. Hagai, or Al-Wad as it is called in Arabic, is the main route for Muslim worshippers from Damascus Gate to Al-Aqsa. It is also the main route for Jews, residents of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem, coming from Damascus Gate to the Western Wall. The police know that every terrorist attack on this route is strategic as it instantly destroys all the tourism in the area. It also profoundly diminishes the number of visitors at the Temple Mount and forces the security forces to enact measures that necessarily increase the tension around Al-Aqsa. After a period of relative calm, the tension erupts anew at the Temple Mount around the holidays. More Jews than ever before are visiting the Temple Mount these days. Under Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Police Commissioner Alsheikh, the treatment of Jews visiting the Temple Mount has greatly improved. According to police data, 14,164 Jews visited the Temple Mount in 2016 whereas 10,766 Jews visited the site in 2015 -- an increase of more than 30%. Judging from the first few months of 2017, this year will also see a marked increase. Keeping away the provocateurs from the Northern Chapter of the Islamic Movement has contributed to the relative calm there. The Jordanians, whose role on the Temple Mount has increased profoundly in recent years with Israel's encouragement, are calm for now. In Jerusalem, the hope is that the recent events on Hagai Street won't reignite the Temple Mount, where the damage, as we've seen, can be great.
