Ben Yehuda Street joins with Jaffa Road and King George Street in the heart of downtown Jerusalem to form the main Downtown Triangle central business district.
Closed to vehicular traffic, the street is now Jerusalem's most popular pedestrian mall.
Ben Yehuda was already one of Jerusalem's main streets long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
As a busy thoroughfare, it has been a prime target for terrorist bombings between 1948, when the worst atrocity happened, and 2001, during the Second Intifada.
[4] It was long considered the "secular heart of Jerusalem", but since the 2000s, disaffected Orthodox Jewish youth have joined the mix of tourists and locals.