Political Sovereignty and Cultural Property: The Mount Scopus Enclave in Jerusalem

Prof Yfaat Weiss
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

German Historical Institute

6.30pm, 11th February 2016

The UN Partition Plan for Palestine known as UN Resolution 181 envisioned Jerusalem as a Corpus Separatum, an international city open and accessible to believers of the three monotheistic religions. This did not materialize. While the city was divided as a result of the 1948 War, Mount Scopus in its northern part acquired an exceptional status. Until 1967 it existed as an enclave amid Jordanian territory, divided into a Jordanian and an Israeli part under UN control. This lecture will shed light on the fate of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a contested space encapsulated and frozen in the midst of national conflict and armed struggle.

Yfaat Weiss is Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of  Jerusalem. She is the Head of the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History. Her latest monograph in the field of spatial history is A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa’s Lost Heritage (2011)