Mordechai Weingarten

Who is Mordechai Weingarten?

Mordechai Weingarten was a Jewish community leader in Jerusalem during the British Mandate.

Mordechai Weingarten, a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem, was the mukhtar of the Jewish Quarter from 1935 to 1948. His family had lived in the courtyard of the Or HaChaim synagogue, on the way to the Armenian Quarter, for five generations. His wife's family arrived in the city from Lithuania in 1740, they were the first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in the Jewish Quarter. Weingarten's own family moved to the Old City in 1813.

As mukhtar of the Jewish Quarter he was responsible for the distribution of funding from the Jewish Agency, which by 1948 amounted to £5,000 per month. He maintained an office in the New City and worked closely with the Agency and the Haganah. He provided written assurances to the British Authorites that the Haganah commander in the Old City, Abraham Halperin, was a male nurse thus allowing him to take up his post in the Jewish Quarter. On several occasions the eldest of Weingarten's five daughters, Yehudit, was used to smuggle weapons into the Quarter some of which were stored in the family home.

As the situation deteriorated at the end of 1947 Weingarten advocated co-operation with the British authorities and opposed the Haganah's presence in the Old City. His relationship with the Jewish Agency broke down in February 1948 when the Haganah took charge of food distribution in the Jewish Quarter. Some weeks later Weingarten was apparently involved in the arrest by the British of Abraham Halperin who was returned to the New City.