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The Jerusalem corridor (Hebrew: פרוזדור ירושלים, Prozdor Yerushalayim) is an area between Jerusalem and the Shephelah in Israel. Its northern border is the old road to Jerusalem; its southern border, the Elah Valley; and its western border, Sha'ar HaGai/Bab el-Wad and the road to Beit Shemesh. The largest towns in the Jerusalem corridor are Beit Shemesh, Mevasseret Zion, Abu Ghosh, Tzur Hadassah and Kiryat Ye'arim [1]
History
edit
Historically, terrace farming had been practiced on the hills and in the narrow valleys and wadis of the area through the laborious process of moving stones to construct retaining walls and then filling them in with arable soil watered only by the rain.[2]
During the 1947-48 war, the Jerusalem corridor was the only route for bringing supplies to besieged Jerusalem.[3] In the Battles of Latrun from May to July 1948, Jewish forces repeatedly attempted to capture the heavily fortified former British police Tegart fort at Latrun, where forces of the Jordanian Arab Legion were stationed following the facility's evacuation by the British in mid-May.[4] Led by Mickey Marcus, the so-called Burma Road was constructed as a way to bypass Latrun, operating from late May until December 1948 as an alternative means of safely sending convoys providing vitally needed supplies on a rugged mountainous route that allowed Israeli troops to bypass the bottlenecks and ambushes that made the main road unpassable.[5][6] In October 1948, Israeli troops brought the area under their control during Operation HaHar. The Arab inhabitants fled their villages during the war.[citation needed]
By 1949, the mountainous, rocky region of the corridor was bare of trees.[citation needed] In the first decade of the State of Israel, a total of 35 agricultural settlements were established in the Jerusalem corridor by new immigrants from Iraq, Yemen and Yugoslavia.[7] The JNF employed many of the newcomers in afforestation and land reclamation at such projects as the Forest of the Martyrs.[8] Since then it has become one of the largest afforested regions in the country.[citation needed]
Burma Road convoy
Arab ambush on a Jewish convoy truck
Arab ambush on a Jewish convoy truck
Aftermath of Arab ambush on a Jewish convoy truck
1947–1949 Palestine war truck wreck. June 7, 1950, Jerusalem Corridor
Modern roads and railway in the area
editToday, in addition to the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv highway (Highway 1), a number of additional routes lead to Jerusalem; route 443 covers the northern part of the corridor. Route 395 leads from Ein Kerem to the coast, via Ramat Raziel and Beit Shemesh, and continues south. Route 386 leads to the Elah Valley, via Bar Giora and Tzur Hadassah. A railway line is active in the corridor, next to the Sorek Stream, which is part of the historic Jaffa–Jerusalem railway.
References
edit- ↑ Steinmeyer, Nathan (2026-01-28). "What Is the Shephelah?". Biblical Archaeology Society. Retrieved 2026-05-12.
- ↑ Fields, Deborah Rubin. "Terraces in Ancient Jerusalem", Main Organic Farmers and Gardeners, Summer 2019. Accessed May 18, 2026. "Setting up and maintaining terraces, however, was easier said than done. After farmers manually cleared the rocks, they hauled over a layer of fertile soil and then lugged back the cleared rocks to create retaining walls, which kept the terraces from collapsing during the rainy season. Only then would they get to planting. Most farming on the terraced areas of the Judean Mountains was done without artificial irrigation."
- ↑ Fields, Deborah Rubin. "The road of reckoning", JewishIndependent.ca, May 7, 2021. Accessed May 18, 2026. "Seventy-four years ago, the road to Jerusalem was a site of easy ambush. Probably no part of the road was more treacherous than the area around Shaar Hagai. This spot, called Bab el Wad in Arabic, translates into English as the Gate of the Valley.... Jerusalem was under siege. Essential supplies could not reach the civilian and military population of the city. Jerusalem was dependent on supplies from the rest of the country, and was threatened with being totally cut off from the rest of the country."
- ↑ Hecht, Aaron. "Latrun - The Battle for Latrun", The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2009. Accessed May 18, 2026. "One of the fiercest and most important battles of the War of Independence was the fight for the fortress of Latrun, which commanded the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This series of engagements is important in its own right, and also because some who fought there went on to become monumental figures. Two would even rise to the office of prime minister - Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon.... But as the British garrison left Latrun on May 14, 1948, the Arab Legion of Transjordan moved in, initiating one of the darkest hours for the new Jewish state. The Arab Legion used this location to deny Jewish access to Jerusalem, so its 100,000 Jewish residents began to starve."
- ↑ Zemach, Ofer. "The path to heroism; In 1948, the Burma Road became Jerusalem's lifeline.", The Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2007. Accessed May 18, 2026. "In 1947, David Ben-Gurion asked American Colonel Mickey Marcus to find an American officer who would serve as a key strategic military adviser to the burgeoning Jewish army. Marcus volunteered himself and the US Army granted him leave.... They followed old goat paths that went through the hills and managed to reach Kibbutz Hulda. With a group of 150 soldiers they came back to the route they had discovered, trying to clear the path and make it passable for jeeps. On the night of May 29, 1948, soldiers of the Har-El Brigade followed the route with a jeep, and after three hours of maneuvering through the steep Judean Hills, they met at Beit Susin with another jeep coming on the east road from Jerusalem.... The Burma Road provided relief for Jerusalemites for nearly five months until December 1948, when the road connecting the Nahshon and Shimshon junctions was completed. Had the convoys not gotten through, the Jews remaining in Jerusalem would have most likely starved or been forced to surrender."
- ↑ “Jerusalem Under Siege, 1948”, MartinGilbert.com. Accessed May 18, 2026. "To by-pass the Latrun stranglehold on the road to Jerusalem, another road was built through the hills and forests. Known at the Burma Road, after the Second World War highway driven through the mountains from Burma to China, it eventually brought arms, troops and vital food and water to Jerusalem, ending the siege."
- ↑ King, Seth S. "Israeli Corridor Becomes An Asset; Link to Jerusalem Sector Is Being Built Up With Farming Communities", The New York Times, September 15, 1957. Accessed May 18, 2026. "For nearly two months, from April until June, 1948, Israeli Jerusalem was isolated, the water supply was shut off and the food sources blocked. In those days there were only three substantial Jewish settlements in the area west of Jerusalem. There was only one usable road and one rail line and both of these ran for miles in full view of the Arabs. Today there are fifty-eight settlements in the Corridor, including two Arab and two Christian communities.... Today the Corridor is providing homes and a strenuous living for modern Israelites from Iraq, the Yemen, North Africa, Yugoslavia, and even from the Cochin area of India."
- ↑ The Sixth Decade: 1951-1960, Jewish National Fund. Accessed May 18, 2026. "Afterwards, the immigrants came into view and, soon, they could be seen as Fund employees on salary. More than 10,000 immigrants worked in afforestation during this period, planting a mass of forests in the Judean Hills and Galilee. Another 5000 immigrants were hired for development work. The Fund's mighty afforestation endeavor, its most extensive till then, greened Jerusalem Corridor and the slopes of central and northern Israel."