In the Zionist view of Israeli history, the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem - the Jewish community of the 19th and early 20th centuries - was "a lifeless body ruled by hypocrites, cheats and unschooled rabbis", and its importance was downplayed and ignored in this study of the Old Yishuv, Dr Halper uncovers the personalities, issues, and events that formed

Jeff Halper

Introduction: Why the Old Yishuv? -- Relic: Jerusalem at the Start of the Nineteenth Century -- The Sephardis -- Ashkenazi Days of Trial -- 1840: Disappointments, Disarray, and a New Start -- The Europeanization of Jerusalem -- The Ashkenazis Break Away -- "Schools! Schools!" -- The Nahalat Shiva Generation -- Frumkin and the Rise of the Havatzelet Camp -- Meah she'arim -- Toward the "New" Yishuv -- Ben-Yehuda: Beyond the Haskala to Political Zionism -- The Other Side of the Yishuv: Sephardis and Middle Eastern Jews -- The End of an Era -- Epilogue