Musrara is a neighborhood that sits directly on the seam line that divided Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967. During the years of division, the houses on the eastern edge of Musrara faced the Jordanian border, and residents lived with snipers, barbed wire, and the constant threat of gunfire. Today, Musrara is undergoing rapid gentrification, its stone houses attracting artists, galleries, and young professionals, but the scars of its border-town past are still visible in the walls.
The Border
From 1948 to 1967, the armistice line between Israel and Jordan ran along the eastern edge of Musrara. The houses closest to the border were in constant danger, and bullet holes from Jordanian snipers can still be seen in the building facades. The residents, mostly Jewish immigrants from North Africa who were settled in the neighborhood after its original Palestinian residents left in 1948, lived in poverty and fear. The neighborhood became a symbol of the Mizrahi (Eastern Jewish) experience in Israel: marginalized, neglected, and literally on the front line.
The Black Panthers
In 1971, a group of young Mizrahi activists from Musrara founded the Israeli Black Panthers, a protest movement demanding equality and social justice for Jews from Arab countries. The movement, inspired by the American Black Panthers, organized demonstrations, clashed with police, and forced Israeli society to confront the discrimination that Mizrahi Jews faced. Golda Meir famously dismissed the Black Panthers as “not nice people,” a comment that became a rallying cry for the movement.
Musrara Today
Musrara is home to the Musrara School of Art, one of Israel’s leading art schools, and the annual Musrara Mix Festival, which fills the neighborhood with art installations, performances, and music. The combination of border-town history, Mizrahi culture, and contemporary art makes Musrara one of the most interesting neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
Musrara tells the story of Jerusalem’s divided past and its social struggles. Hoshen Tours walks the border-line buildings and tells the story of the neighborhood that lived in the shadow of war.