JERUSALEM — As the war in Gaza rages, Syria's government transforms and the Israeli-occupied West Bank seethes, Armenian residents of the Old City of Jerusalem fight a different battle — one that is quieter, they say, but no less existential. One of the oldest communities in Jerusalem, the Armenians lived in the Old City for decades without significant friction with their neighbors, centered around a convent that acts as a welfare state. Now, the small Christian community started to fracture under pressure from forces they say threaten them and the multifaith character of the Old City.
From radical Jewish settlers who jeer at clergymen on the way to prayer, to a land deal threatening to turn a quarter of their land into a luxury hotel, residents and the church say the future of the community is in flux. Their struggle reflects the difficulty of maintaining a non-Jewish presence in a Jerusalem where life hardened for religious minorities in the Old City. Chasms emerged between the Armenian Patriarchate, the traditional steward of community affairs, and the mainly secular community itself.
Its members worry that the church is not equipped to protect their dwindling population and embattled convent. Walk through the narrow passageways of the Armenian Quarter, past a perpetually manned guard post and into an open lot with a towering pile of shrapnel crested with the Armenian flag. You've arrived at the headquarters of the "Save the Arq" movement.
It's where some residents of .
