The lost history of Gaza's Jewish quarter
A look into the history of a neighborhood in Gaza City that was once home to a Jewish population
In the Gaza Strip's Jewish Quarter, old and dilapidated buildings have a jagged structure coated with silvery zinc plates. The 4,000 square meters (1 acre) in the Zaytoun District (Harat az-Zaytoun), southeast of Gaza City, holds its name for being inhabited until the late 1960s by a Palestinian Jewish family.
Today, the features of this neighborhood are no longer different from the rest of Gaza. They all share the same architectural and demographic character.
Few of this quarter’s residents even know that it was called the Jewish Quarter. Those who do, think the name is due to a few Jewish graves that existed in the quarter in 1963, and not because it was once inhabited by Jews.
But the truth may not be to the liking of many Gazans who can hardly believe that this land once housed a quarter for the Jews who reportedly worked in agriculture and trade at a time when the community was not divided by political and religious differences.
