REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JERUSALEM - Ateret Cohanim, the private organization behind the seminary project, has been moving hundreds of Jewish families into predominantly Palestinian-inhabited East Jerusalem for years, either by acquiring property or laying claim to land Jews bought before Israel's founding in 1948. It expects a formal opening ceremony to take place at the seminary later this month as part of Israeli celebrations of the 47th anniversary of its capture of East Jerusalem. 

A teacher at the school, where a rabbi's portrait hung on freshly-painted walls amid benches and bunk beds, said it quietly opened its door a few weeks ago. The seminary's windows are painted white, shielding those inside from view from the street.

Daniel Luria, a spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, declined to comment on the seminary while accompanying Reuters on a tour of a half-dozen settlement projects the group has spearheaded in Palestinian residential neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Luria said Ateret Cohanim, whose website suggests it raises more than half of its funds from donors in the United States, wanted Jews to live alongside Palestinians, not supplant them. Some 200,000 Israelis have settled in East Jerusalem, which is home to about 280,000 Palestinians. Most live in largely separate areas.

"We're really just doing what Zionism has always been defined as, the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. But we're doing that in an area in the heart of Jerusalem," Luria said.

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