Mandelbaum Gate
Encyclopedia
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian sectors of Jerusalem, just north of the western edge of the Old City along the Green Line
Green Line (Israel)
Green Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...
. The first checkpoint for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan/Israel Mixed Armistice Commission was the United Nations organisation of observers which dealt with complaints from Jordan and Israel to maintain the fragile cease fire along the demarcation line between Israel and Jordan...
at the Mandelbaum Gate, from the close of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
in 1949 until August 1952, was moved from the Israeli side of the Gate to the Demilitarised Zone after the "Barrel Incident". The second checkpoint existed until the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
.
The Gate was named after the Jewish merchant whose house stood where the Gate was built. Its location was determined by the entrance into the city of the Anglo-Jordanian Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
following the withdrawal of British troops in May 1948. The Jordanians pushed Jewish defenders west and out of the Sheikh Jarrah
Sheikh Jarrah
Sheikh Jarrah is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem on the road to Mount Scopus.-History:Sheikh Jarrah was established on the slopes of Mount Scopus, taking its name from the tomb of Sheikh Jarrah. The tomb, dated to 1201, is the burial place of Husam al-Din al-Jarrahi, an...
area.
The Gate became a symbol of the divided status of the city, and to the Israelis of geographic isolation.
Tourists and United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
personnel used the Gate to pass through the concrete and barbed wire barrier between the sectors, but Jordanian officials allowed only one-way passage for non-official traffic. The Jordanians permitted a once-weekly supply convoy from the Israeli sector to access Jewish property on Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
. The original sites of Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital were technically under the protection of the United Nations, but despite the "Mount Scopus agreement" the institutions were not permitted to reopen.
The last person to pass through the Gate was the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist Flora Lewis
Flora Lewis
Flora Lewis was an American journalist.Lewis was born in Los Angeles and was a 1941 summa cum laude graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1942.She wrote for The...
, shortly before the outbreak of the Six Day War in June 1967. Jordanian forces joined the war on June 5, with a massive bombardment of the Israeli sector of the city.
Israeli forces captured the Jordanian part of Jerusalem within two days and soon tore down the Mandelbaum Gate. Only a historical marker remains.
See also
- The Mandelbaum GateThe Mandelbaum GateThe Mandelbaum Gate is a novel written by Scottish author Muriel Spark published in 1965 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize that year. The title refers to the Mandelbaum Gate in Jerusalem around which the novel is set...
, a novel by Muriel SparkMuriel SparkDame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
(1965) - MandelbaumMandelbaumMandelbaum is the surname of:* Fredericka Mandelbaum , New York entrepreneur and "fence" operator* Frederic Morton , Austrian writer* Kurt Mandelbaum, Development Economists...