Alrov Mamilla Avenue

This guide to Mamilla Avenue in Jerusalem opens on the night of December 2, 1947, when a mob set fire to the street's shops and a shopkeeper named Yitzhak Penso died trying to save his goods. It follows the strip through nearly twenty years as a sniper-raked no man's land after the 1948 war, when homeless immigrant families moved into the shelled-out buildings anyway. Look for the Clark House along the way, an 1898 building with striped stonework and marble balconies that somehow survived the crossfire.