Sixty-nine years after they were forced to leave their homes in the Old City of Jerusalem, sisters Shoshana Kurtz and Chaya Cohen on Wednesday made an emotional return to the Four Sephardic Synagogues, where the two hid for two weeks in 1948 following the Jordanian conquest of the Jewish Quarter. "We grew up in the Jewish Quarter, and we loved the atmosphere there, until the Old City fell and we were forced to leave our homes with nothing," Kurtz told Israel Hayom, on what was her first visit to the site since her forced exile in 1948. "We were in the synagogue in the Jewish Quarter for two weeks, because there was great danger," she said. "The most difficult moment was when the Arabs arrived at the gates of the synagogue and then they [the adults] hid all the children inside the Torah ark. The mothers were crying and yelling, and later we left through Zion Gate. They were constantly shooting at us, from all sides, and they burned down all the houses in the surrounding area. I thought they were taking us to slaughter," she said. Kurtz said she had been unable to sleep the night before her visit to the site. "I remembered all the alleyways and the days when we were girls and played jacks." Cohen, who has already returned to the compound, said, "There used to be 1,000 people here. We laid down and the soldiers who guarded us would pass by. It was crowded, and every once in a while we would hear that people we knew from the quarter had been killed." Both women said they planned to return with their grandchildren and they recommended others, younger people especially, visit the Sephardic synagogues, which they emphasized comprise an important part of Jewish history. The Four Sephardic Synagogues -- the Yochanan ben Zakai Synagogue, the Eliahu Hanavi Synagogue, the Emtsai Synagogue and the Istanbuli Synagogue -- were destroyed by the Jordanians and restored following the city's reunification. The Yochanan ben Zakai Synagogue, which holds a shofar and a pitcher of oil that await the messiah, is now a tourist site and the place where the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel is traditionally installed. Shimon Gantz, director of the compound, has invited the public to visit the site "where Jewish tradition began, and where it continues to this day."
Sisters expelled from Jerusalem return after 69 years
Sisters return to Four Sephardic Synagogues, where they hid for two weeks following Jordan's conquest of the Jewish Quarter in 1948 • The Four Sephardic Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians and restored by Israel following the city's reunification.
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