Jerusalem - The British Era Walking Tour

Licensed Israeli tour guide Yoni Lemel will lead the tour in English. We start near Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, reenacting General Allanby's declaration of martial law, as he took the surrender of Jerusalem in 1917 from the Turkish garrison, thus ending 400 years of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem. 

We will talk about the relatively positive years of the subsequent British Mandate of Palestine up until 1936, signified by architectural styles on some of the buildings we will see; then we will discover how these very same buildings, hotels, community centres and banks bore witness to the decent into the Arab revolt in 1936, and the subsequent Jewish resistance to British rule, in the mid-1940s, personified by the Irgun and Lechi underground fighters.

We visit the British prison where the heroic Jewish underground prisoners Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein committed suicide, hours before their scheduled execution. We hear their story, see the cell they took their lives, and the adjacent gallows room, still seemingly left it was in 1947 can be viewed.

We end overlooking the site where the War of Independence literally started, overlooking Mamila, where the Arabs effectively started the civil war by rioting in December 1947, just after the United Nations voted in favour of partition, heralding the end of British rule and the establishment of the State of Israel.

This walking tour, covering 30 years of history, should take approximately 3 hours, probably more, depending on the group.  There is considerable walking, some of it uphill. The tour isn't suitable for wheel chairs, or children under 10.

We meet in the Old City of Jerusalem near Jaffa Gate.  Please bring closed walking shoes, sun screen, a hat and bottled water.

Included: licenced tour guide, entrance to Underground Museum

Looking forward to seeing you!