Insights into Mea Shearim: A Distinctive Enclave in Occupied Jerusalem

Here in the occupied Palestinian territories, specifically in the city of Jerusalem, there's a neighborhood that not everyone may know about, and that's the one where between two and five thousand Israelis reside.

This neighborhood stands out from the rest.

It's called "Mea Shearim," which means "One Hundred Gates" in Arabic. The reason behind this name is that it had a hundred entrances in the past.

So, what's the story?

Mea Shearim was established between 1874 and 1882, making it one of the first five Jewish neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Originally from Hungary, its residents migrated to Palestine in the 19th century. Initially, they were ordinary religious Jews, but they adopted an ultra-orthodox religious character over time and became part of the Haredi Jewish community. They live their daily lives according to the minutiae of Jewish law.

For example, they have specific clothing and hairstyles for both men and women, enroll in Jewish religious schools, adhere to gender segregation in various activities, and refrain from using modern technology.

But what sets the residents of Mea Shearim apart from other Haredi Jews in the occupied Palestinian territories?

Simply put, the Jews of this neighborhood belong to the Neturei Karta group, which means "Guardians of the City." This group emerged in the 1930s as a reaction to the aspirations for establishing an Israeli state, distributing its members mainly between Britain and the United States, and there are thousands of them.

Despite being Israeli citizens, as every Jew has the right to, they oppose the idea of establishing an Israeli state because they believe that Jews were expelled from Israel due to their sins and their return to the land should not be through force or human means but through the coming of the Messiah.

Their ideas are similar to those of new Israeli historians, a group of Jewish historians and sociologists. They consider Judaism as a race rather than a religion, and they argue that Israel was established merely to gather Jews from around the world to form a Western fortress in the Middle East. 

They advocate for a reevaluation of the Israeli-Arab conflict and believe that the establishment of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians from their lands were part of a systematic plan, not a spiritual one, accompanied by genocidal operations against the Palestinian people.

Moreover, Israeli Independence Day is a day of mourning for the Neturei Karta members, and they burn Israeli flags on this occasion. Additionally, its members do not serve in the Israeli army, do not exercise their right to vote, and sometimes communicate with Palestinian authorities in support of the Palestinian cause.

Despite the closed nature of Mea Shearim to outsiders, its residents are constantly subjected to persecution and harassment by the authorities and the Israeli police, leading to occasional confrontations due to their beliefs and their rejection of Israeli state policies.