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This 100-year-old man had not left the Old City of Jerusalem in 90 years. In May 1948, after a brutal siege, Jordanian forces — led & trained by British officers under Glubb Pasha — ethnically cleansed the ancient Jewish Quarter. The remaining residents, mostly elderly men like him, women, and children, were given mere minutes to grab what little they could carry before being driven out through Zion Gate. Everything they left behind was immediately looted by the victorious Arabs. Then came the destruction. This was no ordinary neighborhood. This was the unbroken heart of Jewish life in Jerusalem for 3,000 years — the center of prayer, study, and communal existence since the time of King David. Dozens of synagogues, some centuries old, including the majestic Hurva, stood here. Jews had prayed, studied Torah, and buried their dead on the Mount of Olives through exile, conquest, and persecution. Within days, the Jordanian forces and Arab irregulars dynamited and desecrated every synagogue. Torah scrolls were burned or trampled. The Western Wall was turned into a garbage dump and latrine. For the next 19 years, no Jew was permitted to set foot in the Old City or pray at the Wall. The Jewish Quarter was reduced to rubble and deliberately kept Jew-free. This man was ripped from the only world he had ever known — torn from the sacred stones his people had walked for three millennia. They tried to erase us from our holiest city. They failed.