Ask your average Jerusalemite what he or she knows about the history of the capital's architecture and the most likely response will be something along the lines of: "There's ancient stuff and there's new stuff."

The truth is that Jerusalem is jam-packed with architectural delights dating from various junctures of the last 100 or so years, which any local or tourist can enjoy at their leisure - at least for now.

Sadly, if you haven't already gotten an eyeful of some of these gems, many of which date back to the time when the Turks ruled the roost here, you'd better get a move on. They are gradually disappearing, either through demolition or by being modified out of all recognition.

Still others are meeting different fates. On Sunday, the cabinet voted to transfer ownership of one of Jerusalem's most beloved historical sites, Sergei's Courtyard, to Moscow. The downtown complex, built in 1890 to house Russian pilgrims, presently houses offices of the Agriculture Ministry and the Jerusalem branch of the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel.

The areas that are suffering the most include Baka and the German Colony, not to mention the historic and richly appointed Palace Hotel on Rehov Agron, which has been reduced to a symbolic façade. Rehov Hanevi'im, which is chock-full of historic edifices, is also slated for destruction or reconstruction, as the municipality seeks to divert traffic from Jaffa Road in preparation for the light rail route.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem Municipality spokesman Gidi Schmerling rigorously rejects the claim that the municipality is obliterating the city's history. He says that Jerusalem was at the forefront of urban preservation following unification in 1967 and, after a furlough in the Eighties and Nineties, the municipality's planning administration "has worked to advance heritage work across the city."

With regard to the gutting of the Palace Hotel, Schmerling says the first version of the demolition plan was passed in 1982, and that such a plan "would probably not be sanctioned today."

Anyone taking part in last month's two-day Houses From Within event, which offered the public a glimpse of around 100 of the city's more spectacular - and normally less accessible - buildings might also have noticed Dr. Itay Fischhendler and a number of his colleagues from the environmental group Batim Nikhadim (Extinct Houses) handing out leaflets bemoaning the loss, and impending loss, of a long list of local heritage buildings.

According to Fischhendler, who is head of the Environmental Policy, Planning and Management Program of the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the municipality is systematically destroying the city's architectural gems for quick gain.

"It's all about real estate and money," he declares. "You have all these politicians there, and all they are interested in is allowing people to enlarge buildings so that the municipality can charge increased property tax. It is a travesty."

Fischhendler, who lives in Baka - one of the worst hit areas of the city - says he first decided to act when taking part in last year's Houses From Within event. "There were around 80,000 people at the event sponsored by the municipality. I saw how impressed the public was with the buildings, and with the municipality's efforts to preserve them. But the public had no idea that the very same municipality also had plans to destroy many of those buildings.

"The Houses From Within event was a fig leaf. The municipality is obliterating all the beautiful houses from the late 19th and early 20th century for the benefit of real estate developers. I realized that Houses From Within was a farce."

Fischhendler and his wife Leron quickly got together with other Jerusalemites, including fellow Baka residents, and established Batim Nikhadim (http://shimur.blogspot.com).

The group, which now numbers around 60, began gathering information on heritage buildings in Jerusalem that had been destroyed, were being demolished or radically modified, or were slated for demolition.

"We decided to distribute the leaflet with information about the endangered heritage buildings and some of those that had already been destroyed in Baka, the German Colony and Rehov Hanevi'im," says Fischhendler. "We gave out 6,000 leaflets over the two days."

The cost of designing and printing the leaflets was borne by private residents and by the SHELI Fund.

In addition to the leaflets, Batim Nikhadim also offers seven different tours of areas with heritage houses that are slated for demolition.

According to Fischhendler, the move elicited a swift and angry response from the powers that be. "We didn't hide the tours or the leaflets from the municipality. They said we were 'ruining the festivities.' We are not willing to let the municipality get away with pulling the wool over people's eyes," he says.

ONE OF the major obstacles to enforcing preservation orders on old buildings is the absence of an official Preservation Index (cartesset shimur). "The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies on Rehov Radak prepared the list of preservation sites for the municipality 15 years ago. The list includes about 4,000 houses, actually 1,500 structures which contain 4,000 houses," says Fischhendler. "The problem is that the index has yet to be published, and that means it has no statutory power and cannot be enforced. Three hundred structures have already been destroyed. That's 20 percent gone forever."

Schmerling notes that "the existing index is old and out of date. Although parts of it have been approved, published and even expanded in recent years, it is still incomplete, and one of the municipality's objectives is to complete it as soon as possible."

Schmerling adds that, when the preservation list is eventually completed, "we will publish the data [on how many heritage buildings there are in Jerusalem, how many have been demolished and how many are slated for demolition]. It should be noted that reports of the destruction of hundreds of old buildings in recent years are completely inaccurate."