The old city of Jerusalem revitalization

BIB00106

Note

The old city of Jerusalem revitalization

Collection title

Collection Bibliotheca Alexandrina

BIB00106

Source

Bibliotheca Alexandrina (EG)

First broadcast date

11/23/2004

Production year

2004

Abstract

Jerusalem has an extraordinarily long and varied history, but the urban fabric of the Old City is threatened by overcrowding, lack of maintenance and poor services. The Old City of Jerusalem revitalization program aims to rehabilitate the city, to preserve its heritage and to create a better quality of life for its inhabitants. It is a comprehensive project aimed at every aspect of human life, with several components, including restoration, training, education and raising public awareness. The sponsors are : Welfare Association, Switzerland Conservation : OCJRP Technical Office, Jerusalem Completion: Ongoing since 1996 Completed in 1991.

Type

video

Production companies

Final cut production - Own production

Broadcaster

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Audiovisual form

Documentary

Primary theme

Architecture

Secondary themes

Tourism and cultural sites / Tourist sites

Period of events

2004

Map locations

Palestine - West bank - East Jerusalem

Original language

English

Media running time

0m51

Context

The old city of Jerusalem revitalization

Cyril Isnart

Jerusalem, the holy city shared by several denominations and several political entities, is one of the significant places combining exacerbated religious values, particular conditions of preservation of the historical heritage and an intense use of dozens of sites that tourists, pilgrims and residents visit constantly. The restoration plan developed by a Palestinian non-governmental organization for the Palestinian people in Gaza and Lebanon, Welfare Association, tackles both collective infrastructures of the everyday life of people and the restoration of monuments or public facilities such as libraries and museums. Traditional local methods are used in the worksites and constitute real places of training for workers who can directly experience their new knowledge and get a better job. In addition, the program focuses on restoring houses to resolve the housing problem of which suffers the Palestinians living in Jerusalem.

The restoration program has been initiated in 2000, by establishing an architectural database covering more than 3,500 buildings. In addition, the Architectural Heritage Preservation Institute is a structure that allows the dissemination of information of the database and organizes practical projects for training in restoration techniques, such as theoretical workshops involving international experts. The activities of the Welfare Association also reached Nablus, where the experience of Jerusalem was transplanted in order to revitalize the historical city center to the public in a sustainable manner.

The historical heritage of Jerusalem is one of the efficient ways of action toward the recognition of the Palestinian political power. Hence, the Welfare Association in the cultural field, has certainly paved the way for the integration of the Nativity Church in the list of the endangered World Heritage sites of the Unesco in 2012 and therefore reveals the political and diplomatic aspects of the heritage at the beginning of the twenty-first century, beyond its historical value and its role as a catalyst of the economic dynamics.

Website of Welfare Association project of Jerusalem : http://ocjrp.welfare-association.org/en

List of the Unesco World Heritage: Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem : http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1433

Andezian, S. 2011. Christmas in Bethlehem. The Sacred tested by politics, Paris, Riveneuve Edition.

Wasserstein B. 2002, Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City, Yale University Press, (2nd ed.).