Abstract
Given the sophistication of contemporary Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel, it is difficult to imagine that a little more than a century ago, the holy city to which Jews face three times a day in their prayers was in truth a city of squalor. Beggars and disease were rampant. Food was unhygienic and in short supply. As historian Laura Schor explains, the city suffered from social problems as much as from physical ones. Jerusalemites were divided sharply between Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities; girls in both ethnicities married at twelve or thirteen with almost none of them having