Ateret Cohanim
| Predecessor | Atara Leyoshna |
|---|---|
| Type | Nonprofit organization |
| Headquarters | Israel, New York |
| Location | |
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Key people
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Matityahu HaCohen Dan - Chairman Daniel Lourie - Executive Director |
| Affiliations | American Friends of Ateret Cohanim (aka Jerusalem Chai) |
| Slogan | Making the old city young again |
| Website | www |
Ateret Cohanim (Hebrew: עמותת עטרת כהנים lit. "Crown of the Priests"), also Ateret Yerushalayim, is an Israeli Jewish organization with a yeshiva located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It works for the creation of a Jewish majority in the Old City and Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
Founded in 1978, it was originally known under the name Atara Leyoshna (lit. “[returning the] former glory"). After many disagreements about the nature of its activities, the organization closed and re-opened as a new association called Ateret Cohanim with a yeshiva. While the activities of Atara Leyoshna focused mainly on locating Jewish assets in the Muslim Quarter and transferring them into Jewish hands through legal means, the activities of Ateret Cohanim involves acquiring houses in the Muslim quarter or renting them from government companies and populating them with Jews. The association owns many buildings in the Old City, where over 80 families live. Some estimate that 1,000 Israeli Jews live in houses that Ateret Cohanim purchased in the Old City since 1978. It controls at least seven other organizations that are not registered in Israel, but they are registered in tax shelters, like the Virgin Islands and Guernsey.
The head of the association is Mati Dan. It depends heavily on donations from American Jewish businessman Irving Moskowitz and his wife Cherna Moskowitz.
Around 2000, Ateret Cohanim and another organization, the Ir David Foundation, began to acquire land in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem outside the Old City. They operate mainly in the village of Silwan and at the Beit Orot Yeshiva on the Mount of Olives.
In the Old City, the yeshiva was involved in buying property from Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians. Ateret Cohanim reportedly owns more than 70 buildings in the Muslim Quarter. The property includes their yeshiva, the building that houses Yeshiva Shuvu Banim, several dormitories, a museum, and about 50 apartment units. Some of the property belonged to Jews who lived in the Muslim Quarter before they were driven out by pogroms in 1929 and 1936. Other properties belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church, in the Christian Quarter, prior to a disputed deal which involved the Patriarch Irineos, resulting in properties tenants in the Christian Quarter being driven out.
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Wikipedia